Johnson wins the Delpar Award
Dr. Matthew Johnson of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology has won the 2023 Helen Delpar Award with his article “A City of Feriantes, or Puesteros and Administradores? La Salada in Recent Argentine Film and Literature.”
The committee notes “Dr. Johnson’s article examines a huge informal market complex just outside of Buenos Aires known as La Salada, which emerged in the early 1990s when Bolivian immigrants to Argentina began to sell food and other products in the area. More specifically, Dr. Johnson analyzes the representation of the massive market and its internal sociopolitical structure in the 2010 documentary film Hacerme feriante and a 2011 journalist work called Sangre salada.
“Dr. Johnson’s article brings La Salada market to life through an analysis that masterfully combines literary and film studies, politics, economic theory, and Andean sociology. From my perspective, it exemplifies the best of Latin American Studies: a multidisciplinary approach that enables us to ask new questions and search for more complex answers. At the crux of his argument is this: ‘At La Salada, neoliberalism does not simply mix with the communitarian traditions that feriantes draw on as they construct new systems of self-governance in the shadows of the Argentine state. They intertwine with each other, but they also remain separate in perpetual conflict.’”
The Helen Delpar Award for Best Article in The Latin Americanist is given annually to the best article published in SECOLAS’ journal The Latin Americanist in the year preceding the annual meeting.
Dr. Andrea Smith of Shenandoah University chaired the award committee. Dr. Jackie Sumner of Presbyterian College and Dr. Carlos Dimas of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, also served on the committee.
