1. Introduction: Why Australia and Latin America? On Mapping Connections and Its Implications for Knowledge Production

Note from Fernanda Peñaloza: When Australian colleagues and friends interested in my research (nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourses on indigenous peoples in Argentina, Chile and Australia) ask me, “what are the historical links between Australia and Latin America?” I show them the note, and their facial expressions are of utter surprise. Not only do very few Australians know who Mary Gilmore is, but more useful to my point is: Those who do know who she was still have no idea why I use the note to explain my decade-long scholarly obsession.

As far as we know data on this matter is inconsistent, however, after doing a search on the websites of the 40 Universities that exist in the country, we have established that at least 13 institutions across the country offer BAs in Spanish language which include Spanish and Latin American Studies; ANU (the Australian National University) is the only institution that offers a BA in Latin American Studies, and one of the few which offers Portuguese Language. Brazilian Portuguese is also offered at the University of Sydney but only as a course in the Continuing Education program. It is also worth noting that, whereas the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne both have Departments of Spanish and Latin American Studies, the majority of the universities where Spanish is taught, run their courses as programmes that are usually connected to international/global studies, which is the case, for example, of the University Technology Sydney.