Finding sources for your paper
Things to consider when searching for Latin American Studies topics:
Because Latin American Studies is a multidisciplinary field that focus in a particular region, the Americas (comprised of part of North America, Mexico, South America, Central America and the Caribbean, searching for articles require that you plan in advance your search strategy.
- Determine which region or country you want to focus your research: It is not the same to search for Latin America as a region than to search for an specific country like Argentina.
- Focus on regions (Latin America/South America/Central America/Caribbean) to study phenomena that affect the region, e.g. globalization; corruption, neoliberal policies, human rights
- Focus on one country or two countries when you want to understand how a phenomena affect that country or if you want to compare how the phenomena compare between countries
- Develop a research question from the subject area that you want to use to understand the region or country you selected, e.g. Political Sciences; Human Rights; Women's Studies, History
- Create a list of synonyms on your topic: You can use your syllabus or textbook to find some preliminaries keywords. Pay attention what phrases scholars used to describe the topic you are interested in. Research terminology change through time. Use those terms when searching any of our multidisciplinary or subject-specific databases; or you can search directly into journals that specialize in Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Be aware that current topics (less than two years old) will have less academic, scholarly articles than older topics. If you want to find the most recent information about your topic (especially if it is connected with a real event such as social protests, natural and man-made disasters, human rights violations, etc. check any of our newspapers' databases.
Recommended Books, Databases and Journals
if you are new to Latin American and Caribbean Studies, we recommend to check encyclopedias and other reference sources to acquire some background information that will help you develop your research question. Use the keywords "encyclopedia" or "companion" AND "Latin America" or "Caribbean" to find these types of books.
Here are some recommended titles:
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The Cambridge History of Latin AmericaThe Cambridge History of Latin America is the first authoritative large-scale history of the whole of Latin America - Mexico and Central America, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean (and Haiti), Spanish South America and Brazil, from the first contacts between the native peoples of the Americas and Europeans in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries to the present day. An important feature of The Cambridge History of Latin America is the bibliographical essays which accompany each chapter. The essays from Volumes I–IX, revised and updated, are brought together in Volume X: Bibliography. The list of books is not organized by volume number so scan the list to find the topic that best fits your research topic.
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The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture byISBN: 0521631513Publication Date: 2004-03-29
You can search individual journals that focus in Latin America and the Caribbean. The UConn Library has access to many journals that focus on Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Sometimes they even have special issues that focus in a particular topic, e.g. migration, politics, economics, etc. To find which Latin American Studies journals are available online visit the eJournal Locator (see link below). You can use keywords or if you have a citation with the journal title, use that to find out if we have access to it.
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eJournal LocatorA searchable index of all our online journals. Type the journal title in the search box or browse by alphabetic order.
Please login with your UConn Net ID and password to access licensed resources
Tip: Latin American and Caribbean Studies is an interdisplinary discipline, therefore you can search for Latin American Studies topics in other subject databases. Visit our Databases page and look for databases in your subject area. For example use a Political Sciences database to search for articles about political issues in Latin America.
A sample search could be:
- Elections AND Brazil
- Corruption AND PRI AND Mexico
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Academic Search PremierScholarly journal articles and popular magazines covering all topics. A great database for beginning searches. 1980s-present (dates may vary).
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Project MUSEFull-text of over 200 journals in classics, education, history, literature, math, philosophy, politics, religion, and visual and performing arts. 1829 ebooks in the social sciences and humanities.
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Political Science CompleteIndexes of more than 1700 journals in political science and its complementary fields, including comparative politics, international relations, public policy and law. Two-thirds of the serials indexed are published outside the United States. 1975-current.
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JSTOREssential scholarly journals in many academic fields, especially arts, literature, humanities, and biology. Some back to early 1900s; most recent 2-5 years not available.
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HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index)Summarizes articles about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. International scope. Content mainly in Spanish with some English. 1970-current.
You can search for print and ebooks on Latin American and the Caribbean using the Library's General Search box. You can search for books that talk about the region or about an specific country, e.g. "equal rights" AND "Latin America" or "human rights" AND Mexico. Books and eBooks are available in English and Spanish.
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Library General SearchFind a book in the UConn Library. Searches print and ebooks, as well as media, journals, and digital collections.
In addition, there are several collections of eBooks that you can search directly for studies that focus only in Latin American, Caribbean Studies, both subscription based and also Open Access Spanish language eBooks portals that may be useful for your research.
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DigitaliaDigitalia is a collections of Spanish language e-books and journals. The content in this product covers both Spain and Latin America.
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CLACSO-Argentina (Open Access ebooks)The Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO in Spanish), is a very reputable academic organization famous for their Spanish language academic books in social sciences. Now, they are offering their content free online.
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General SearchYour one stop shop to find books, articles and films.
Tip to find films: use the keyword "videorecording" to narrow your search only to DVDs. Otherwise you will get results for CDs and VHS (Not what you want!). Also, use the name of the country that want to research on as a keyword to see only films from/about that country, e.g. Mexico AND videorecording
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Ethnographic Video OnlineThis video database may include films about many indigenous groups from Latin American.
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Latin American and Spanish Videos Freely Available on the Internet: A Guide to Web ResourcesThis is an excellent resources created by Jesús Alonso-Regalado, librarian at SUNY Albany to help you find freely available films and videos from/about Latin America and the Caribbean on the Web
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Retina Latina"The platform, created by six national cinematographic institutions [...], pools together high quality Latin American cinema that might not have made it to movie theatres. Sign up and watching the movies is free, and you can access them in the partner countries of Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay and Colombia". To learn more go to teleSUR
There is a plethora of free online resources from reputable sources online that deal with Latin American and the Caribbean. Feel free to check the sites below to find resources for your research.
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Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of CongressThe Hispanic Reading Room, serves as the primary access point for research relating to those parts of the world encompassing the geographical areas of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Iberia, including the Indigenous cultures of those area.
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Resources by New England Council of Latin American Studies (NECLAS)List of resources compiled by the NECLAS. Include links to US embassies in Latin America, universities in Latin America and much more.
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Council on Hemispheric AffairsThe Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), was established (1975) among other things to "encourage the formulation of rational and constructive U.S. policies towards Latin America." You can subscribe to receive update reports on Latin Am. policy
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Political Database of the Americas (PDBA)Through its website, the PDBA offers centralized and systematized information about institutions and political processes, national constitutions, branches of government, elections, political constitutional studies and other subjects related to the strengthening of democracy in the region.
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A Continent Divided: The US-Mexico WarA Continent Divided seeks to promote awareness of and scholarly activity in the U.S. - Mexico War. A joint project of the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies and the Library at the University of Texas at Arlington, the website was initiated in 2011 .
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Requests for purchase are reviewed by subject specialists using the Library's Collection Development Policy. Please note that items may take up to 8 weeks to arrive, with certain requests taking longer.
