Dr Anna Cant

Dr Anna Cant

Assistant Professor

Department of International History

Room No
SAR.3.12
Languages
English, Spanish
Key Expertise
Mass Communication, Modern Latin American History, Rural Development

About me

*Sabbatical Leave 2024-25*

Dr Anna Cant is a Latin American historian with expertise in twentieth-century politics, cultural history and rural development. She gained her PhD in History at the University of Cambridge (2015) with a thesis on land reform in Peru. Her first manuscript Land Without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change Under Peru’s Military Government was published by University of Texas Press in 2021. Comparing three different regions of Peru, the book examines the cultural and political impact of the radical agrarian reform introduced by Juan Velasco Alvarado’s military government in 1969.

Before joining the LSE in September 2018, Dr Cant spent two years as a visiting researcher at Los Andes University, Bogota (Colombia), where her postdoctoral research focused on radio education in rural Colombia during the 1960s and 70s. The project examined in particular the ideas of rural modernity that were disseminated via the radio, and how these were received and contested in the countryside. Dr Cant is currently developing a new research project on the history of Catholic radio in the Andean region.

Dr Cant has taught in the UK and Colombia, and received scholarships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust. She is one of the editors of Historia Agraria de América Latina and an associate member of the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos) at Cambridge University. 

 

Expertise Details

Mass Communication; Modern Latin American History; Rural Development

Teaching and supervision

Books

Publications

  • Land without Masters Agrarian Reform and Political Change under Peru's Military Government. University of Texas Press, USA, 2021.
  • Radio Education in the Andes during the Second Half of the Twentieth Century’, Beezley, William H., (ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Oxford University Press, USA, 2021.
  • “Vivir Mejor”: Radio Education in Rural Colombia (1960–80)’, The Americas 44: 4, 573-600, 2020.
  • ‘Agrarian Reform and “Development”’ in The Andean World. Eds. Kathleen Fine and Linda Seligmann. London: Routledge, October 2018.
  • ‘Promoting the Revolution: SINAMOS in Three Different Regions of Peru’ in The Peculiar Revolution: Rethinking the Peruvian Experiment, 1968-1975. Eds. Carlos Aguirre and Paulo Drinot. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2017 / ‘Impulsando la revolución: Sinamos en tres regiones del Perú’ en La revolución peculiar: Repensando el gobierno militar de Velasco. Eds. Carlos Aguirre y Paulo Drinot. Lima, Peru: IEP, 2018.
  • ‘Representando la Revolución: la propaganda política del gobierno de Juan Velasco Alvarado en el Perú, 1968-1975’ [Representing the Revolution: the political propaganda of the Juan Velasco Alvarado government in Peru, 1968-1975] in Imaginando América Latina. Ensayos de historia y cultura visual, siglos XIX y XX. Eds. Sven Schuster and Daniel Hernandez. Bogota: Universidad del Rosario, 2017.
  • ‘“La singularidad de nuestro proceso”: Los significados políticos de la reforma agraria peruana’ [‘The singularity of our process’: the political meanings of the Peruvian agrarian reform] in Las luchas sociales por la tierra en América Latina: Un análisis histórico, comparativo y global. Eds. Hanne Cottyn et al. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos Fondo Editorial, 2016.
  • “Land for Those Who Work It”: A Visual Analysis of Agrarian Reform Posters in Velasco’s Peru’, Journal of Latin American Studies 44, 1-37, 2012.
  •  Work in progress: Land Without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change in Peru, 1968-75.

News and media

2021


New Books Network podcast

Dr Cant was interviewed for the New Books Network podcast about her new book Land Without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change Under Peru's Military Government (University of Texas Press, 2021). The book is a fresh perspective on the way the Peruvian government's major 1969 agrarian reform transformed the social, cultural, and political landscape of the country.  Listen here

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La Voz del Campesino

Dr Cant gave a talk on politics and communication in the Peruvian agrarian reform at the Centre of Latin American Studies (Cambridge) on 15 November. The talk provided an introduction to La Voz del Campesino, a weekly bulletin produced by members of the rural community of Huaura in the department of Lima, Peru in the 1970s. A complete collection of the bulletin is now available online through Cambridge Digital Library. Read more

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Historias podcast

Dr Cant was featured on the Historias podcast to discuss her new book Land Without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change under Peru's Military Government in conversation with Carmen Soliz. Both have published books this year on land reform, bringing together conversations about the subject from the perspectives of Peru and Bolivia. Listen here (in Spanish).

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Communication technologies in Latin American societies

Dr Cant and PhD Student Charlotte Eaton have produced a new podcast series. Featuring contributions from recognised experts in the field,  Dr Cant provides an introduction to major themes in the emergence of new communication technologies and their impact on Latin American societies. Listen on SoundCloud.

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New book

Land without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change under Peru’s Military Government was released by University of Texas Press in April. Dr Cant's first manuscript offers a fresh perspective on the way the Peruvian government’s major 1969 agrarian reforms transformed the social, cultural, and political landscape of the country. Read more

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New article

Dr Cant discusses radio education in the Andes during the second half of the 20th Century in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. The article analyses the hundreds of small radio initiatives that emerged over the course of the 1960s and 1970s across the Andes. Amid widespread illiteracy, entrenched poverty, and a mountainous terrain that limited access to state institutions and the mainstream media, radio was seen as a technology of immense promise that could increase education levels and stimulate development, leading to primarily Catholic-led radio schools. Read more

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LAC History Seminar Series

Dr Anna Cant spoke at Oxford’s Latin American Centre History Seminar Series on 4 February. She discussed “Agrarian Reform and Political Change under Peru’s Military Government”. Find out more.


2020


New article

“’Vivir Mejor’: Radio Education in Rural Colombia (1960-80)”, published in The Americas journal, discusses how the Acción Cultural Popular’s articulation of what it meant to “live better” changed over time, reflecting the struggles of a religious organization to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. While ACPO saw itself as the bearer of modernity, it was often confronted by independent processes of change already occurring in rural communities. Read more


2019


Conference in Paris

Dr Anna Cant recently attended the European Rural History Organisation Conference in Paris. Her paper was part of a panel on negotiating land reform programmes from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, which included cases as diverse as the Algarve in the eighteenth century and Chile under Allende’s Popular Unity government. Her paper, “Competing Visions of Peasant Mobilisation in Peru’s Agrarian Reform", discussed the ways in which local actors, including peasant communities and left-wing political parties, responded to the 1969 agrarian reform introduced by the military government of Juan Velasco Alvarado. Read more about the conference.

CantParisConference2019

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Staff news

Dr Anna Cant, LSE Fellow in the department 2018-19, was appointed Assistant Professor in April 2019 and will be taking up her new post from 1 September 2019. Dr Cant is a historian of Latin America with expertise in twentieth-century politics, cultural history and rural development. She gained her PhD in History at the University of Cambridge (2015) and is currently revising the thesis as a book titled Land Without Masters: Agrarian Reform and Political Change in Peru, 1968-75.