Malcolm Deas Fund

St Antony’s College and the Latin American Centre (LAC) have launched the Malcolm Deas Fund in honour of the Centre’s 50th Anniversary to ensure excellence in Latin American and Colombian research, teaching and policy impact. The Fund is named in honour of Malcolm Deas who was the first Fellow of the Centre in St Antony’s College.

The Malcolm Deas Fund allows the LAC and St Antony’s College to further strengthen and build on the work of Malcolm Deas by promoting research and scholarship on Latin America with travel and research grants for students and lectures, conferences and workshops. A list of projects so far supported by the fund can be found at the bottom of the page. 

Academic initiatives

With the Malcolm Deas Fund, the LAC hopes to acquire the necessary support to maintain high-quality lectures, workshops, travels and research grants and conferences to sustain the intellectual dynamism of the Centre.

Scholarships

External funding for graduate studies is difficult to find, especially for the social sciences and humanities. The LAC and College are committed to offering scholarships to the brightest and most capable students irrespective of their means.

Colombia specific projects

The Centre and College wishes to further strengthen and build on the work of Malcolm Deas and ensure that it can continue to support the study and research on Colombia by being able to award travel grants, organize lectures and workshops, and support post-doctoral fellows focusing on the country.

Allocation of funding

Donors may wish to donate ‘wherever the need is greatest’ or can express a preference for how their gift is spent. Funding will be allocated according to these designations and in response to requests from students and academics at the Centre.

Through the Malcolm Deas Fund, the Centre will be able to support a range of activities that have a direct impact on the Centre’s research and teaching activities and students’ achievements that otherwise would not be possible. Donations of all sizes make a real and significant difference and the success of the fund depends entirely on the generosity of the former students and friends of the LAC.

Donate

You can make a gift through the website of the University of Oxford or by using one of the donation forms below.

Donors from the UK, United States, Canada, Germany and Hong Kong can give in a tax efficient way. Taxpayers in the United States can make a gift through Americans for Oxford, inc. (AfO): a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization which seeks gifts to benefit the University of Oxford and its colleges.

Thank you for your generosity.

Find out more about the projects supported by the Malcolm Deas fund.

Lecture: “The Maritime Demand before the International Court of Justice: The Bolivian Argument” by Mr Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze, former President of Bolivia and current representative of the Bolivian delegation at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Conference “Colombia after the Peace Accords: New Challenges, New Paths Forward from a Multidisciplinary Perspective” and it is really innovative because it combines: (a) interventions by two well-known Colombians, a policymaker (Mariana Escobar) and an academic and civil society leader (Jorge Restrepo); and (b) research presentations from our doctoral students and other doctoral students in the UK.

For over half a century, Colombia has been entangled in a bitter civil war between the Colombian government and the FARC. This project seeks to understand why, when, and how armed revolutionary leftists (in this case the FARC) speak out about their engagement in past violence? What impact do these confessions have on Colombia’s society emerging from atrocity and attempting to build strong human rights cultures?

There are three key impacts: 1) training a Colombian MPhil student in research methods and co-authoring a publication; 2) allowing the LAC to participate in the important peace process underway in the country; and 3) creating a neutral space for Colombian academics to discuss the role of the left in the establishment of peace in the country.

19th Century war between Bolivia, Chile and Peru

The 19th century war between Bolivia, Chile and Peru still has its repercussions nowadays. The War of the Pacific (1879-1883) in which Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia has been revised and promoted accusations in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from both defeated parties. In 2008, Peru brought the case to court claiming 38,000 sq km of the Pacific Ocean from Chile. In 2014, the ICJ accepted both Chile’s and Peru’s arguments and the latter won about 21,000sq km. Following the decision of the ICJ, Bolivia went to the international organization and claimed in 2013 its sovereign access to the sea. In 2015, the ICJ declared itself judge on the case and the countries are now waiting for the final verdict of the Court.

The grant will be used to organise a series of talks that address the topic “The War of the Pacific: legacy and repercussions” and to invite both the ambassadors of Peru and Chile to the UK, and the former President of Bolivia, and current international spokesman of the Bolivian maritime cause in The Hague.

This will fund a seminar on the History of Colombia for two years, and will be an integral part of the successful and well attended ‘History of Latin America’ seminar series that Eduardo Posada-Carbó has been overseeing. The first seminar was delivered by James Robinson (Professor of Public Policy at University of Chicago) and was a great success.

In May 2016 the Andean Conference met to compare recent economic and political trajectories and future challenges in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. The plenary session’s talk was delivered by Martin Tanaka (Senior Fellow at Institute of Peruvian Studies and Professor of Social Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru).

The LAC has a working paper series devoted to Political Economy, but desired greatly to create a series devoted to History to be produced by the CAF Bank Fellows, visiting scholars and guest- speakers to the History Seminar. The funding would support the first year’s publications, whilst subsequent work would be supported by more sustainable income.

The LAC’s DPhil seminar is a proud staple of the research output of the centre and allows doctoral students working on Latin America to present their work and receive feedback from LAC Fellows as well as visiting academics. Funding will be used to support refreshments and dinner for speakers for the next two years.

Dr Marcela Rios is the current director of the Governability Programme at the UNDP in Santiago, Chile. She has served on the Presidential Commission for President Bachelet on Women in recognition of her doctoral and post-doctoral research on quota laws and feminism in Latin America. She is currently serving on a corruption investigation commission. She is on the board of a number of top Chilean think tanks and foundations. The Malcolm Deas Fund will be proudly used to support a week long series of events on Gender in Latin America in Trinity Term.

Activities included:

  • Book presentation on her manuscript on women in Latin America. This project fits the teaching on Sociology and Gender as well as other classes and thus fits with the revision sessions being run in Trinity Term
  • Workshop on women in Latin America: presentation by students of their thesis or other projects with feedback from Dr Rios
  • Lecture at the Latin American Centre seminar series on contemporary issues in Chilean politics