Episode 1 - Who Killed Berta Cáceres? A Conversation with Nina Lakhani.

Gema Kloppe-Santamaría is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at Loyola University, Chicago. Her research deals with questions of violence, security, religion, and gender in Latin America, with a particular focus on Mexico and Central America. 

Before joining Loyola, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame University (2017–18) and Assistant Professor of International Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (2015–17). 

She holds a PhD in Sociology and Historical Studies from the New School for Social Research and a Master in Gender and Social Policy from the London School of Economics. She is the author of In the Vortex of Violence: Lynching, Extralegal Justice and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (University of California Press, 2020). 

Her work has been featured in the Latin American Research Review, The Americas, and The Journal of Latin American Studies. She has also authored reports for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Wilson Center for International Scholars, and the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center (NOREF). 

In addition to her work on vigilante justice and state formation, Kloppe-Santamaría is currently working on a new project that deals with the contentious relationship between religion and violence in Mexico.

Lina Britto is a Colombian historian, journalist, and an Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. In this episode, we talk about her book, Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise, which came out in Spring 2020 with University of California Press.

Lina Britto received her PhD from New York University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Harvard University. She has published her academic and journalistic work in the Hispanic American Historical Review, the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, NACLA: Report of the Americas (NYC), El Espectador (Bogotá), Universo Centro (Medellín), among others.

In this 4th Episode of the Series, we talk about Deborah Bonello's investigations on organized crime and illegal logging in Mexico, and then jump into a discussion about her current book project on Women in the Sinaloa Cartel.

Deborah Bonello is a journalist, editor and investigator and has been based in Latin America since 2005. She is a former employee of The Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times and InSight Crime, and has reported for many international media outlets.

In recent years, much of Deborah's coverage has focused on organized crime and drug trafficking across Latin America, from investigating the Central American street gangs MS-13 and Barrio 18, to the role of Mexico's cartels in the illicit production and trafficking of fentanyl.

Before starting her current role as Senior Editor for Latin America at VICE World News, Deborah was a regular contributor to Vice, Ozy.com and the Telegraph. She lives in Mexico City. She is also an award-winning producer and videographer.

"The Troop. Why do soldiers kill?". In this episode recorded in Spanish, we speak with Daniela Rea, a Mexican journalist and writer. Daniela is Editor at "Pie de Pagina", an independent media.

With Daniela, we talk about her book "La Tropa, ¿por qué mata un soldado?", written with Pablo Ferri, analyzing issues of militarization and gender violence in Mexico.

Daniela is also the author of "Nadie les pidió perdón", and the co-editor of investigative books ""Entre las cenizas, historias de vida en tiempos de muerte"; " Romper el silencio, 22 voces contra la censura" y "Ya no somos las mismas y aquí sigue la guerra".

Andalusia K. Soloff is a multimedia journalist based in Mexico City. She specializes in state violence, migration, indigenous land struggles and gender based murders in Latin America. In her reporting, Andalusia seeks to center on the voices of those most affected by these crises and violence.

We discuss her new graphic novel on forced disappearances in Mexico, the impact of Ayotzinapa’s missing 43 on the students’ parents and communities, cases of forced marriages in Guerrero, and much more.

Andalusia is the co-founder of the journalist organization Frontline Freelance México which advocates for freelancers rights and press freedom. Andalusia has been awarded The Intercept/ScreeningRoom/Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival short film grant, The Fundacion Gabo New Drug Narratives Scholarship, The IWMF Adelante Fellowship and the PRENDE Ibero Scholarship.

Nina Lakhani is the first Environmental Justice Reporter for the Guardian US, based in New York. In this conversation, she discusses her new book Who Killed Berta Cáceres? (2020).

Nina Lakhani's book focuses on environmental violence and women in Honduras, but due to her experience in Mexico City, she will also talk about obstretic violence in the state of Guerrero. 

Nina Lakhani has reported from over a dozen countries, including six and a half years freelancing in Central America and Mexico. She focused on forced migration, the consequences of the war on drugs, state sponsored violence, corruption, impunity, gender violence, environmental defenders and the battle for natural resources.