September 4, 2025 
Zoom

The Ethnography Studio hosted a virtual launch of the publications generated through the “Future of Facts in Latin America” project. One publication was a thematic cluster in the journal Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, and the other a blog series on Cultural Anthropology’s Theorizing the Contemporary. 

During the launch, Eden Medina (MIT), Katie Ulrich (Harvard University/USC), Andrea Ballestero (USC), Vivette García Deister (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), and Fernando Domínguez Rubio (University of California San Diego) discussed the evolving role of facts in politics, highlighting their renewed usage no longer as tools that mobilize people or shape collective engagement on the basis of some claim to intrinsic value, but as instruments tactically invoked in terms of their political effects. Participants reflected on the distinction between truth and fact, emphasizing how facts in contemporary public discourse—especially in Latin America—both unite and divide and thus call for a more nuanced appreciation for their tactical and ethical significance as people try to build shared political horizons.

The Future of Facts in Latin America project was led by Andrea Ballestero (USC), Eden Medina (MIT), and Kregg Hetherington (Concordia University). Read more about the project and its publications here. In addition to SSRC funding, the project was supported by the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life, the Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies, the office of the Divisional Dean for Social Sciences at USC Dornsife, and the Ethnography Studio.