Argentina: From the breadbasket of the world to a digital paradise
As part of EAST2046 Festival 2026, we want to discuss an emerging AI hub: Argentina. The country has recently declared that it will make AI unregulated and allow non-humans to start companies.
This panel talk explores how emotions, power, and economic systems are shaping a new kind of colonialism in a dependent Argentina.
It sets out to map the real, material conditions of people's lives, tracing a path from the exploitation of land and agriculture to today's world of digital platforms and data extraction. Along the way, we'll look at how collective action has changed: from organised community movements to the age of influencers and new, digital forms of melancholy.
The goal is to arrive at a bigger picture of our world, one that puts hopeful, practical alternatives at its centre and challenges the sense that nothing can change. We'll close with a question that runs through it all: in the age of AI, is hope still possible?
Time: 13th July, 8-9:30pm
Location: Zoom (link will be sent closer to the event)
Dr. Lois Liao (Moderator)
Dr. Lois Liao is a writer and sociologist who explores how individuals maintain agency and connection within complex economic, technological, and political systems. Drawing on her background in mathematics (BA, Cambridge), housing studies (PhD, UCL; Postdoc, LSE), and psychoanalysis (MA, Birkbeck), she investigates how technology, markets, and ideology reshape care and selfhood. The same thread runs through EAST2046 CIC, which she co-founded to connect creatives, academics, and technologists in shaping an inclusive, humanist future amid current technological change. She previously conducted visiting research in psychosocial studies at the University of São Paulo.
Prof. Adrián Scribano (Panellist)
Prof. Adrián Scribano holds an Honoris Causa Doctorate from the National University of the Altiplano, Puno, Peru (2020) and a PhD from the University of Buenos Aires (2003). He is a Principal Investigator at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET). He directs the Latin American Journal of Studies on Bodies, Emotions and Society and the Study Group on the Sociology of Emotions and Bodies at the Gino Germani Research Institute, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires. He is an Associate Researcher at LEIRIS (Laboratoire d'études interdisciplinaires sur le Réel et les imaginaires sociaux), Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, in the Department of Sociology (Faculté des Sciences du Sujet et de la Société), and Director of the Center for Research and Sociological Studies (CIES, estudiosociologicos.org). He is also President of the International Network of Sociology of Sensibilities and of RC58 Society and Emotions at the International Sociological Association (ISA).
Dr. Pedro Lisdero (Panellist)
Dr. Pedro Lisdero is an Adjunct Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and an Adjunct Professor at the National University of Villa María (UNVM), Argentina. He is also a Researcher at the Center for Sociological Research and Studies (CIES), where he serves as Director of Sociological Studies Editora. He holds a degree in Sociology from the Universidad Siglo 21 and a PhD in Social Studies of Latin America from the Center for Advanced Studies, National University of Córdoba. He co-directs the Program of Studies on Collective Action and Social Conflict at the Center for Research and Studies on Cultures and Societies (CIECS, CONICET and UNC). He coordinates Working Group 25 (GT25), Sociology of the Body and Emotions, at the Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS), and is a Board Member of Research Committee 58 (RC58), Society and Emotions, at the International Sociological Association (ISA).
Dr. Victoria Mairano (Panellist)
Dr. Victoria Mairano is a CONICET Doctoral Fellow and Research Professor at the National University of La Matanza and the University of Buenos Aires. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Alicante, Spain. She is a member of the Program of Studies on Bodies, Emotions and Society at the Gino Germani Research Institute (University of Buenos Aires) and of the Centre for Social Research at the National University of La Matanza. She serves as Editor and General Coordinator of the Latin American Journal of Social Studies on Bodies, Emotions and Society (RELACES), and as Editorial Assistant for the book series Emerald Studies in Global Emotions, Bodies and Sensing (Emerald Publishing).