Images from the archive

Every few months an image for the IUSSI archive will be presented here, with a descriptive caption provided by the archivist.

Group photograph from the Bolivarian Section (now Andean-Caribbean Section) General Meeting, September 2015

The Bolivarian Section of the IUSSI held its 10th biennial general meeting on 9-11 September in Bogota, at the Xavierian Pontifical University (Pontificana Universidad Javeriana). The programme comprised 58 oral presentations and posters treating all four major groups of social insects, as well as deliberative sessions. The languages of the Bolivarian IUSSI are English, Portuguese and Spanish, even as the latter predominates and is our working language for all internal business. At this year's BGM, as usual, there were research reports in all three languages. Members of other sections are cordially invited to participate in our meetings on the same basis as our own members.Two of this year's invited speakers were from Germany and two from Brazil. We try always to have at least a couple of participants from the Southern Cone of South America.

Although IUSSI sections have no formal spheres of influence - and anyone is free to join any of them - sections have implied geographic mandages. Ours is the neotropics north of the Southern Cone (including all of Brazil). The Bolivarian IUSSI was founded in 1994 at a time when its membership was drawn solely from Venezuela and Colombia, the main part of the continent liberated by the forces under Simon Bolivar, hence the name. At this year's meeting there was a motion to reconsider the name. The main arguments in favour of changing it were that a) its significance is obscure to many outside the region, and b) the Venezuela's prominent self-characterization as a bolivarian republic renders the name ambivalent. The main arguments for retaining the name were that a) it is distinctive and euphonious, and b) even as the section's geographic reach expands, Venezuela and Colombia continue to form its core. With several options proposed, after two rounds of voting a majority settled on a new name: Seccion Andina y del Caribe. The English name is: Andean-Caribbean Section. This new name has the virtue of being reasonably close to diagnostic, while not overly long.

Chairpeople of the organizing committee were Carlos E. Sarmiento (front left in orange sweater) and Angela Amarillo (front second from right in white shirt, holding striped jacket).

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