Simon Granovsky-Larsen

Contact Info

Research Interests

• Social movements
• Political violence
• Environmental conflict
• Central America; Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama
• Extractive industries
• Green extractivism
• Coporate counter-insurgency
• Critical development studies
• Canadian foreign policy and development assistance

Dr. Simon Granovsky-Larsen is Department Head and Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina. His interdisciplinary research is situated within critical development studies, and explores environmental conflict, social movements, and political violence in Central America. Simon is an Associate Fellow of York University’s Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, and he collaborates frequently with universities and social movements in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Panama.

Simon’s current research explores the roles played by Canadians within environmental conflict in Central America. This research is grouped into three main projects. First, Simon conducted fieldwork in Costa Rica and Panama during 2022-2023, to explore conflicts sparked by the green energy transition, and the influence on these by public and private Canadian actors. Second, Simon’s work in Guatemala analyzes the use of corporate counter-insurgent strategy by Canadian mining companies in their efforts to control territory. The third project touches on the receiving end of Central American migration by exploring the perils of irregular border crossings at the Canada-US border.

Other recent research projects focused primarily on Guatemala, exploring the campesino-Indigenous social movement, agrarian change, the Guatemalan peace process, and the evolution of post-war paramilitarism.

Simon teaches courses in the International Studies program, with an emphasis on the Development Studies stream. He supervises honours theses and graduate work on a range of topics, including social movements, extractive industries, renewable energy, Latin American politics, rural development, migration, and more.

 

Recent Publications

Books

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2019). Dealing with peace: The Guatemalan campesino movement and the post-conflict neoliberal state. University of Toronto Press.

Paley, D., & Granovsky-Larsen, S. (Eds.). (2019). Organized violence: Capitalist warfare in Latin America. University of Regina Press.

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2007). La CICIACS: Defensores de derechos humanos y el estado de derecho en la posguerra (The CICIACS: Human rights defenders and the post-war rule of law). Guatemala: Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo and Oxfam-Novib.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Granovsky-Larsen, S., & Larreátegui Benavides, P. (2023). Environmental conflict and the expansion of renewable energy in Central America: Exploring Canadian participation. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 47(2), 192-214.

           

Granovsky-Larsen, S., & Larreátegui Benavides, P. (2023). Dataset of extractive projects and community conflicts in Central America [Supplementary material]. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 47(2).

 

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2022). Institutionalized terror: Paramilitaries and the Guatemalan state. In J. Hristov, J. Sprague, & A. Tauss (Eds), The political violence of capital: Paramilitary formations in global perspective (pp. 71-87). Routledge.

Granovsky-Larsen, S., & Santos, L. (2021). From the war on terror to a war on territory: Corporate counterinsurgency at the Escobal mine and the Dakota Access Pipeline. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 46(1), 121-145.

Granovsky-Larsen, S., & Weisbart, C. (2021). Tahoe Resources' violent mining operation. In C. Nolin & G. Russell (Eds), Testimonio: Canadian mining in the aftermath of genocides in Guatemala (pp. 126-139).

Granovsky-Larsen, S., & Paley, D. (2019). Organized violence and the expansion of capital. In Organized violence: Capitalist warfare in Latin America (pp. 1-20). University of Regina Press.

Granovsky-Larsen, S., & Paley, D. (2019). Violence, expansion, resistance. In Organized violence: Capitalist warfare in Latin America (pp. 261-270). University of Regina Press.

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2019). Tierra y la reconfiguración del poder en la Guatemala posconflicto. In C. Pastor (Ed.), Concentración económica y poder político en América Latina (pp. 249-276). CLACSO.

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2018). In Guatemala, security forces square off against social movements. NACLA Report on the Americas, 50(1), 15-18.

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2017). The Guatemalan campesino movement and the post-conflict neoliberal state. Latin American Perspectives, 44(5): 53-73.

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2017). Land reform and the reconfiguration of power in post-conflict Guatemala. In L. North & T. Clark (Eds.), Dominant elites in Latin America, from neo-liberalism to the ‘pink tide’ (pp. 181-204). Palgrave Macmillan.

Granovsky-Larsen, S. (2013). Between the bullet and the bank: Agrarian conflict and access to land in neoliberal Guatemala. Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(2), 325-350.