Many Australian universities including RMIT and La Trobe, are strengthening their efforts in increasing student mobility from and to Latin America, by signing agreements for academic exchanges and promoting research collaborations.
The Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR) has commissioned a study on Australian strategic relations with Latin America which is expected to be published by December.
Increasingly more Australian universities are offering Latin American studies and educating postgraduate students with a focus on the region.
In addition, more Australian companies are engaging in the region, particularly our mining companies. In return, firms such as Brazil’s meat production giant JBS and Mexico’s Mission Foods have entered our market.
A recent expansion of diplomatic ties has included the creation of an Australian Trade Commission office in Bogota, Colombia. Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited Brazil this year – the first visit to the country by an Australian Prime Minister – resulting in an agreement to strengthen relations between the two nations via strategic partnership.
Latin American governments have also demonstrated keen interest in Australia, with Chile’s president Sebastian Pinera’s recent visit.
However, much remains to be done. Within academia, we need more collaborative research between Australian and Latin American universities in all relevant disciplines, involving faculty and students alike.
Moreover, teaching Spanish and Portuguese at school and university levels should be seen as a priority. It is expected the already sizable community of Latin American origin will continue growing in the coming decades, with an evident strategic need for a well-educated cadre of Australian citizens speaking these languages.
On the other hand, as mentioned here, Australia needs to explore creative ways of bringing more Latin American students to our shores.
Providing special opportunities to enable Indigenous and disadvantaged Latin American students to access to study opportunities in Australia, undertaking joint research projects in national priority areas in partnership with industry, and supporting growth of higher education and VET in marginalised and less developed regions, are just some measures needed.
Institutions wanting to engage with Latin America can benefit from staff with Spanish/Portuguese language skills and familiarity with the region’s social, cultural, political context; staff training in these areas would strengthen possibilities for engagement.
The efforts mentioned above suggest that we are on the doorstep of a new era in relations with Latin America.
Over time, these efforts will result in more movement and interaction between people of our regions and this, in turn, will bring about a cultural shift:
In the years to come, Australians will leave behind the outdated conceptions of Latin America as a distant outpost, an exotic faraway place, a land of soccer, carnival, siestas and fiestas, or even as a single coherent region (we still have to fill outdated immigration cards that include in the category of “South America” all countries from Mexico to Argentina).
Instead, we will come to have more grounded and nuanced understandings of the social, political, linguistic and cultural diversity of the region, from Rio Grande to Patagonia. A thriving Australian community with strong interests in the region is already cooperating and working hard with this goal in mind.
Elizabeth Kath is a research fellow at RMIT University. Raul Sanchez Urribarri is a lecturer in Legal Studies at La Trobe University.
This article first appeared at The Conversation.
