Women know stuff too - Central America edition

The Monkey Cage published a post on Thursday entitled Here’s a list of smart women political scientists. They know stuff, too. The post was in response to a recent Vox article that lacked diversity in terms of who the author chose to interview for the article. He spoke to six white male political scientists about Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Several political scientists used the opportunity to introduce readers to Women Also Know Stuff.

So often while planning a conference, brainstorming a list of speakers, or searching for experts to cite or interview, it can be difficult to think of any scholars who aren’t male. We’ve all been there… you just know that a woman has got to be studying that topic… but who?

This site is intended to provide an easily accessible database of female experts in a variety of areas.

This site was created and is maintained by political scientists and, as such, focuses on politics, policy, and government, but also on methods in the social sciences. (We’re certain that women know stuff in other fields too, though!)

Here's the link to those women who study Latin American Politics. Erin Beck made the list. Erin had a guest post on Countering Convergence: Agency and Diversity Among Guatemalan NGOs on this blog in June 2014.

Not on the list but with regards to Central America, Christine Wade (Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador), Anita Isaacs (Guatemala), and Jo-Marie Burt (Guatemala) are probably the three female political scientists that get cited most frequently. Sonja Wolf is terrific with regards to security and migration but I think that she is cited more frequently in Mexico. Dinorah Azpuru is probably cited more frequently in Guatemalan outlets than US outlets.

With regards to Honduras, there's also Rosemary Joyce and Adrienne Pine. Lauren Carasik is called upon for legal issues and human rights, especially with regards to Honduras and sometimes Guatemala. Elizabeth Kennedy is pursuing her doctorate in geography. However, they are not political scientists. That certainly doesn't mean that they can't lend their expertise to Central American politics. My apologies if I've forgotten someone obvious.

For me, an equally important challenge is the lack of Central American academic voices in US publications. I think that has gotten better since I've been blogging but I'm not sure.

The only reason why I get interviewed and invited to do interesting things on Central America is because of this blog. I didn't know who would read the blog when I first started. Central America is a pretty small region and tends not to get too much US attention compared to let's say Mexico and Brazil.

However, my blog got picked up by the Christian Science Monitor as they tried to build out their Latin America Monitor section. That led to some writing opportunities for Al Jazeera, the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor, the World Politics Review, and Warscapes. Blogging has also led to some consulting work with Freedom House on Central America, a Fulbright to Guatemala, and expert witness opportunities.

I've put this call out before with little success but if you are an academic writing on Central America and would like to submit a post commenting on current events or plugging your scholarship, I'd be happy to entertain submissions.