abstract
| - These pages are part of a series of open-text journals in the overall field of Latin American Studies. These open-text journals have been proposed as a parallel platform to those fulfilling the role of "traditional academic or scholarly" journals. For a list of journals in similar fields to those of, for example, the Bulletin of Latin American Research (BLAR) see List of Latin American Studies journals. It will be approximately thirty years since we began work on proposals for what became BLAR and it would seem appropriate if the anniversary was marked with the launch of a new "knowledge-sharing platform", given the advances in what has become known as 'Web2.0 technology'. These pages could be seen as a pilot run. Using some of the same software as Wikipedia, this academic publishing wiki-domain encourages open collaborative editing for the writing of academic (hypothesis-testing) articles, exploring ideas, and developing new methdologies and critical analyses. (These journals do not aim to be encyclopedias nor dictionaries. For an online encylopaedic approach to knowledge-sharing see Wikipedia which does have the intent to be encyclopaedic.) Read about the following by clicking on the link / word: Opentext Journal of Peruvian Studies, Correspoding discussion page for Journal, Minkapedia collaborative education, Journal of Latin American Studies. The pages so far have been developed on the wikia.com platform. The same software could be installed on our (the network or community of scholars and specialists) own site and used without advertising and with greater protection from 'vandals'. Alternatively other collaboratively edited sites could be trialled, for example <> or the new google site <> Following the opening description of the exhibition, please add to or expand upon the themes, ideas, concepts, threads, leitmotivs or hypotheses which could be explored.
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