The original story is available on the Jackman Humanities Institute website. You can read the original here
Luis van Isschot has conducted research, published, and taught on social movements, human rights, extractivism, and political violence in Latin America for more than two decades. In addition to his academic work, he has written legal opinions on human rights cases and worked for the Colombian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His fellowship research project is titled Corporate Lives and Landscapes: The Construction, Development, and Representation of Foreign-Owned Enclaves on South America’s Oil Frontier. Luis is one of our 2025-26 JHI Faculty Research Fellows.
What are your main research interests and what excites you most about them?
I have always been drawn to history because of the storytelling. I am a historian of Latin America, focused on traditions of popular protest. For many years I have worked with human rights and community organizations, which I think is a relatable experience amongst Latin American and Latin Americanist scholars. I am fascinated by the ways in which people narrate the past in the service of social change. My new work looks at capitalism and corporate world-making. I find myself analyzing oil company records, and thinking about storytelling in a different way, which is challenging and exciting.
What project are you working on at the JHI and why did you choose it?
My main project is on the history of oil in Latin America. My focus is on the construction and development of industrial enclaves by Standard Oil in the early twentieth century. I am thinking a lot about corporate photography. There are some incredible visual records available to us that provide insight into the lives lived in and around foreign-run industrial enclaves. I have been looking at images depicting workers’ baseball and soccer teams, as well as theatres, schools, homes, and maternity hospitals, amongst many others. This project comes out of my previous work on oil and political violence in Colombia during the Cold War. I am also completing a project on the emergence of human rights movements in Latin America, and how this pertains to earlier processes of transformation. Last week I visited the Art Gallery of Ontario to look at their collection of Latin American photos from the 1960s and 1970s. The JHI facilitated my contact with AGO curator Marina Dumont-Gauthier. It was a great experience. Incidentally, work by Toronto-based Mexican photographer Ernesto Cabral de Luna is being shown this year at the JHI as part of a group exhibit.
How has your JHI Fellowship experience been so far?
Every week has brought wonderful experiences. There is a large and supportive group of creative people at the JHI, including faculty, staff, and students. What could be better than to find community? The range of work being done at the JHI is one of the things I appreciate most. It is so enjoyable to come to the office and to attend events. The JHI is also very supportive of public-facing work, which means so much in these times. The University of Toronto is a public institution, and it belongs to everyone.
Why do you believe the humanities are important?
Many of the scholars I admire encourage critical attunement. In other words, the humanities can equip us to listen. Stories teach us about the meanings that people ascribe to their actions, about their intentions, and hopes for the future.
Can you share something you read/watched/listened to recently that you enjoyed/were inspired by?
I am reading Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America, by historian Tanya Harmer, which is a political biography of the Chilean physician and activist. It is both intimate and sweeping, and takes us on a journey from Santiago to Havana. I recently read Trust, by novelist Hernán Díaz, which is about a financial tycoon in the United States in the 1920s. This book is helping me imagine the world of the Rockefellers, who owned Standard Oil.
What's a fun fact about you?
I love live music. Toronto has a great music scene, and many touring artists come through the city. I listen to rock, indie pop, salsa, classical, you name it. I love dancing too. I went to the opera for the first time, which was very exciting! Both of my kids are in bands, and they play around town.