On-Line Community?

“A flourish of trumpets before I post my first message to this list: Well, actually, I just wanted to say how delighted I am that this list exists, it looks promising indeed & I look forward to taking part. I am for anything that makes us feel less like little islands in a vast sea…” So writes a contributor to the H-LATAM list serve hosted by Michigan State University. H-LATAM’s founding in 1993 marks it a leading initiator in the world of electronic connections. As an on-line community, it exists for sharing ideas related to teaching resources and methods, discussing interpretation and trends in modern scholarship, arguing over the past's relationship to present issues, announcing upcoming seminars and calls for papers, and even helping scholars from across the globe find others working in Latin American studies.

Reading through their discussion logs since 1993 it becomes clear that the forum has remained centered on scholarly issues and engage Latin American topics on diverse levels. This focus can be credited to the original designers and editors of the online community. It was begun by two energetic Latin Americanists who saw a future in an electronic community before the internet was even a household word. While Jackie Kent and Phil Mueller directed discussions about Latin America, they also actively recruited thoughts and agendas from participants regarding the best ways to utilize this new media. While the membership--composed of historians, museum curators, educators, etc.--has greatly expanded over the years, changing in its makeup, it also has managed to hold the interest of participants such as Bob Levine for a number of years. Many participants seem to utilize the community as a means to debate their interpretations and expand their scholarship. Participation varies according to interest. So, when discussing prostitution in Latin America, there may be much activity by certain individuals who then do not reappear in the discussion list for months. Others engage in one or two discussions and then disappear totally from the list.

As the above writer seemed to indicate, especially in the early nineties, Latin American studies was a lonely field. Few scholars existed and those who did were usually separated by many miles. H-LATAM continues to meet this need uniquely by allowing global interaction. Scholars from Australia, Guatemala, Spain, and the United States interact daily. Some have even utilized the list in order to ask for the whereabouts of other scholars whom they had previously known but lost contact with or whose works they had read and wanted to interact on a more personal level. Whatever the motivation, H-LATAM connects those in a field particularly vulnerable to isolation.

While meeting a need for scholarly discourse, it does not appear that H-LATAM members see themselves as a "community" on personal terms. Involvement is directed by each individual’s interests. The postings remain on the impersonal scholarly level. Significantly, when originator Phil Mueller died suddenly of pneumonia in 2001, only two people responded to the announcement of his death. Then, when Jackie Kent, the other originator and long term editor of the site took a one year leave, only three postings were submitted responding to the announcement. On the forum itself there seems to be little connection as a coherent community. In the end, whether "real" community exits or not, the scholarly ideas and research shared meets a unique need among Latin Americanists.