Earlier this month, LACIS undergraduate student Rebecca Sweeney presented at the Undergraduate Symposium 2010, a daylong event featuring 530 students who presented and displayed their research.
Sweeney presented her research with LACIS Director and mentor Ksenija Bilbija, a comparative study of Bolivia's Cartoneras.
Cartonera publishers have worked to revitalize and reinvent literature throughout Latin America.
Sweeney, who was supported by a Hilldale Undergraduate Fellowship, studied the Yerba Mala Cartonera and its partner projects: the mARTadero Cultural Center in Cochabamba, the Nicotina Cartonera in Santa Cruz, and the Canita Cartonera in Iquique.
The cartonera publishing phenomenon began in Buenos Aires in 2003 and was spearheaded by writers and artists who were interested in reconfiguring the conditions in which literary art is produced and consumed.
Very little is written on the subject and the majority of Sweeney's research was conducted through interviews with Cartonera members, writers, and other book publishers; through observations mainly at the Feria del Libro where their books were sold; and through participation in Cartonera book-making.