¡Hola Kassel!

However, few people think of Kassel in connection with Latin America. Yet here in northern Hesse there is one of Germany's largest university centers for research and teaching on Latin America, the "Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos", or CELA for short. Founded in 2017, the CELA bundles Kassel's Latin America research. The researchers working there have since been working to make Kassel more visible on the map of Latin America research. The CELA is headed by a board of directors currently consisting of linguist Prof. Dr. Angela Schrott and political scientist Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Burchardt. The two are convinced that Kassel has a lot to offer students and researchers interested in Latin America. "First and foremost, of course, is the BMBF-funded research network CALAS (Maria Sibylla Merian International Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences), in which the University of Kassel plays a leading role," says Burchardt. Within CALAS, scholars study crises and responses to crises in a transdisciplinary perspective. "Our results show that Latin American countries are characterized by a particularly creative search for cultural and political strategies for coping with crises," says Burchardt. Burchardt himself conducts research on Latin America from a political science perspective. One of his focuses is on so-called commodity extractivism, an economic form that relates primarily to the export of raw materials. "In Latin America, we often find social as well as political structures that enable the economic elites there to maintain their economic privileges and social supremacy, largely independent of political developments."

Talking about crises

Crises are exceptional situations that challenge people to interpret. "This is where linguistics comes in; it examines how crises are written and spoken about and what concepts lie behind these discourses," explains Angela Schrott. Very often, crises are described as natural disasters: "The financial crisis as an earthquake that shakes the financial world: This of course expresses the severity of the crisis, but at the same time suggests that everyone is a victim of a catastrophe that could not be prevented. The question of responsibility can thus be hidden." The look to Latin America is particularly revealing, because it shows that crises can also call up completely different patterns of interpretation. In her dissertation, for example, Dr. Simone Mwangi was able to show that in the Argentine media, the crisis situation of 2014 - Argentina was classified as insolvent - was very predominantly portrayed as an attack on Argentina by foreign hedge funds, against which the country had to defend itself. "Based on the terms and metaphors used, we were able to analyze that there was a common feeling of being attacked by foreign powers and therefore having to stand together as a nation," describes Dr. Simone Mwangi, who also conducted on-site research at the Universidad de Buenos Aires as part of the dissertation.

On the trail of biochar

Prof. Alexander Gómez, a mechanical engineer, is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. One of our goals is to produce biochar from sewage sludge, green waste and other agricultural waste," explains Gómez. "One of the challenges is to remove potentially harmful substances from the resulting biochar so that it can be used, for example, to produce terra preta or to recover nutrients such as phosphorus," Gómez explains. In Germany, terra preta (Portuguese for "black earth") is also a familiar term to many gardening enthusiasts - it was originally used to describe a fertile soil in the Amazon basin that has a black color due to the slash-and-burn cultivation that is often practiced there. In the meantime, however, there are many hobby gardeners around the world who swear by Terra Preta they produce themselves. The other major goal is the production of bioenergy and its integration into urban or rural energy systems. Solid, liquid or gaseous fuels are produced for use in the electricity, heat and transport sectors. The collaboration began since he earned his doctorate at the Institute for Thermal Energy Technology. "Our supervisor at the time, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Klose, had established close ties with our university, the National University of Colombia (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)." Those ties continue, even though Klose has now been retired for several years. In the meantime, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Kroll has taken over the coordination of the cooperation. "We have a lively exchange of students and guest lecturers," describes Kroll, who heads the Department of Measurement and Control Engineering. "We notice in many places how much both sides benefit from this exchange - we often have very motivated young people coming to us who want to tackle very specific problems, for example in the field of mechatronics," he continues. "At the same time, we have already been able to give German students the opportunity to spend a guest semester in Colombia and to get to know the country and the culture, as well as to expand their technical and linguistic knowledge," he says happily. Kroll himself learned to appreciate the country and its people through a guest lecture in Bogotá, and so took on the role of coordinator.

Three weeks, four countries

Just how great the interest in Germany is as a place to study has also been experienced by three members of staff from Faculty 10 themselves: Prof. Dr. Andreas Meister, Prof. Dr. Rita Borromeo Ferri and Prof. Dr. David Di Fuccia were initially in South America independently for research purposes. "While there, we learned that there is a university fair in the northern part of the continent, sponsored by various German schools in the region and held in several countries," Meister explains. The department then decided to give it a try and sent team Meister and Borromeo Ferri on their way. "In 2018, we visited a total of seven German schools in four countries within a few weeks and took part in the regional offshoots of the university fair there," Borromeo Ferri describes. In doing so, they were in good company, as her colleague Meister adds: "There were quite a number of German universities represented, some of which have been regularly participating in the university fairs in Latin America for several years. "The conditions for the graduates of the German schools are very good: "The Abitur at the German schools corresponds to the Thuringian standard, which means that the students come to Germany excellently prepared and can start their studies directly," describes Meister. The reason for Meister's trip to South America, however, was originally different: He was invited there to give a doctoral and postdoctoral course in Chile. His colleague Borromeo Ferri had originally traveled to South America as part of a teacher training course, invited by the Ministry of Education in Chile. At Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile, Borromeo Ferri and Meister were on a six-month research semester. "The level of students there is really excellent," Meister says. His colleague Di Fuccia therefore warns against taking a one-sided view of knowledge transfer. "These are discussions at eye level with colleagues who are experts in their field, and in the end both sides benefit," he says. "Together with his colleagues, Meister hopes that the University of Kassel as a whole can also benefit from the department's activities: "After our first tour, we passed on more than 250 addresses of interested students to the International Office - if only a fraction of them come to Kassel once to study, that would be great!"

There are many ways for students to spend part of their studies abroad. The simplest option is through partner universities with which there are agreements on the exchange of students. Depending on the course of study, there are cooperations with Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti or Argentina. But a stay in other South American countries is also possible.
The International Office of the University is happy to offer advice on this: www.uni-kassel.de/uni/international
Study opportunities on Latin America - from Romance Studies to Political Science - at www.uni-kassel.de/uni/studium.

Text Markus Zens