A Regional Student Movement in Latin and South America: The Organización Continental Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Estudiantes—OCLAE (Latin American and Caribbean Continental Student Organization)

This chapter draws on the literature on the history of the Latin-American student movement. However, no scholarly publication exists on the OCLAE. Analytical studies on the structure of OCLAE and the systems of student representations In Latin America more generally are lacking. Therefore, this chapter relies on the primary sources, especially the publications by the OCLAE such the most recent policy papers, internal reports and press releases, as well as the official statutes of the OCLAE. Content analysis of these primary sources allowed us to understand the formal rules and outcomes of the internal decision-making processes and also the political standing of the organization. We triangulate data from documentary sources with the semi-structured interviews with the student leaders: the current President of OCLAE Leonel Friman (from Cuba), the former representative of Brazil in the Secretariat, Bia Lopes and Dave Oliveros, President of the Venezuelan Federation of University Students, and current member of the General Secretariat. The interviews have been conducted through voice messages, so not simultaneously. This qualitative study of the OCLAE presented in this chapter takes inspiration from the previous academic literature on student representation (Klemenčič, 2012, 2014), particularly Klemenčič’s work on global comparison of student representation and transnational representative student associations (Klemenčič and Palomares, 2018). This chapter brings the Latin American student movement under a new lens of analysis that has proven to be fruitful investigating student unions in general and in particular the regional representative student associations. The chapter first presents the history of the OCLAE. Next section discusses the particularities of the organizational characteristics of the OCLAE. The following question is guided by the question: how does OCLAE’s legitimacy survive going beyond sectorial claims? The conclusion presents the contributions of OCLAE for the Latin American student’s movement and the development of its integration through the fifty-five years of existence of the organization.