Meeting: Ecuadorian Studies Session, LASA 2012 - San Francisco.
Start: 6h45pm
Attendance: 19 people

Structure of the meeting: President Carmen Martinez Novo led the meeting following the agenda below.

1) Summary of activities since last LASA meeting (notably the Quito Encuentro)
2) Financial summary
3) Elections: the entire team stepped down to be renewed through elections.

Questions and concerns raised:

a) Quito meeting- should the section meeting stay in FLACSO or move to another space/university (Salesiana, USFQ)? should it be decentralized outside of Quito (Riobamba, Cuenca)? Should we keep charging people to attend the Quito meeting? Could we lower costs or differentiate costs more among students and professors, for instance? These questions echo concerns brought to the session regarding the costly price of the Quito event (especially for students) as well as claims that the event is becoming associated with FLACSO and should regain institutional independence. An option raised was to frame the costs of the conference (administrative costs, grantees). It was also pointed that it may be necessary to get a RUC for giving receipts for inscriptions at the 2013 meeting (Carmen had to do it with her own available resources at the last meeting).

b) Grants- how to better advertise session grants?

c) Website- how to update the session website? We paid a technician assigned by LASA to figure out/fix the website. The session has paid for this service but we need to figure out how to go about renewing the website now, when this technician will help, and how. It would be good to renew the website. Also, a Facebook account will be created for the session in order to enable communication among its members.

d) Book prize- it was decided to move forward with a book prize to increase the visibility and strengthen the academic credentials of the session. a couple of ideas were brought to the table, but it was decided that a special committee would design a specific proposal to be shared and discussed collectively.

d) Veronica Silva came to the session meeting to announce a Special Issues of the Latin American Perspectives Journal on Ecuador, especially topics relating tot he Revolucion Ciudadana. Papers can be submitted until August.

Elections results

President: Rut Roman (University of Virginia College/Wise)
Vice-President: Julie Williams (USFQ)
Vocals: Nicholas Rattray; Norman Gonzalez; Jennifer Collins (Jennifer.Collins@uwsp.edu); Kathleen Fine (fine_k@fortlewis.edu).
Book prize committee: Carmen Martinez, Marc Becker, Manuela Picq, Esteban Ponce Ortiz.