jared pozzobon – Page 2

September 11, 2017October 9, 2017

The Meeting of 2 Worlds

The first thing to know about Christopher Columbus, is that that is not his real name. His real name is Cristoforo Colombo, an Italian man. I find it interesting because even with the name of this course and the socially constructed term of “Latin America,” we can see that ideas and life courses get translated into English, and maybe even ‘Americanized.’ Even how Columbus thought he found India, and presently some of these area’s are called the ‘Indies’ or Land of the Day, in the Caribbean, as well as indigenous of peoples of Canada are often referred to as ‘Indians.’ Guaman Poma de Ayala touches on the topic of ‘Indians’ but only to the point that it was derived from Indies, and they are still known to Spaniards as such. Much like Week 1 where are goal was trying to define Latin America as to ‘where?,’ there is a strong Spanish influence relating to the Columbus and to the Guaman Poma de Ayala entries that we are reading. This has me thinking about what is Latin America and if we are just speaking about Spanish conquered territories in the “American” continents.

I found the Guaman Poma de Ayala article difficult to focus on because of the multiple religious and monarchal figures mentioned. Because it was focussed on Peru and referring it to the “Indies of the Peru,” it can help us tackle the issue of Latin America slowly. We are able to cross ‘HISTORY OF PERU’ off a long checklist to understand this issue. The history referred to in this article is intense and rich full of a lot of it, but for just a beginner learning this topic and having to digest all of it, is not an easy task. There are cities but where are the maps? travel routes? other visuals?

As someone who is not well versed in history, this week proves to be a challenge as we uncover the roots of Latin America- since it’s beginnings. But because this term of Latin America seems to be uncertain in its landscape, where empirical history begin? Where should it end? Even in the 1400’s and 1500’s why must this history be the foundation for Latin America? Leads me to believe that maybe it isn’t as uncertain as we think, and this socially constructed concept or term has some clarity, that hopefully we learn as a class in the coming weeks.

September 10, 2017

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September 10, 2017September 13, 2017

Week 1 Intro and Video Review

Hi everyone my name is Jared and I am a 3rd year Sociology transfer student from Vancouver. In the college I transferred from, most of credits were Criminology credits, but because UBC was the dream, I became an accidental Sociology major with all my Crim classes transferring as Sociology credits. With a little bit of background in Criminology and an interested in Sociological studies, I felt like this course would be a fun interdisciplinary elective for me to take.

Video1- Independence in Latin America

I decided to watch the video on Independence because I know very little about the history of Latin America, and also not very much world history. I knew at one point these lands would have only been populated by indigenous peoples and animals. What I didn’t know is who would come to these lands, and take them over. The first step of Independence is figuring out which empires or colonies ruled these areas of land and what made them different. I found the independence of Mexico to be particularly interesting because of having the United States above them would have made country lines more difficult to deal with, as the Americans were difficult to deal with. In our week one class we talked about “Where (and what) is Latin America?” and in this video they only focused on Spanish speaking and Spanish conquered countries of North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. It gives me more of a heads up coming into week 2 class.

Video2- The War on Drugs

Because of my Criminology/Socio background, I found myself having to watch this video as ideas talked about in this video interest me and are what I’m going to school to learn more about. There were obvious suitors for this video such as Mexico and Columbia as pop culture has informed us already through shows like Narcos, and through modern day news of El Chapo. Going into this video I already had a Socio mindset, rater than an economic or historical context when watching the video which helped me understand the deep rationale behind these gangsters and criminals. But also helped me understand the video in a way that many other people might not think. I want to know how an economist, historian, or philosopher would understand this video and how they would react when watching it. Thoughts?