Center for InterAmerican Studies

We are cordially inviting you to our next IAS colloquium on Tuesday, 3rd of June 2025 from 18 to 20hs (CET) at Bielefeld University, Main Building, Room V2-213. This year's CALAS Guest Professor Dr. Martina Lasalle (Universidad de Buenos Aires) will present her work "The drug problem as a penal problem: examining the role of criminal justice systems".

Martina Lassalle is a sociologist specializing in sociology of violence, crime and punishment. She is currently conducting postdoctoral research at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) and also teaches sociological theory at the Sociology department of the University of Buenos Aires. Martina obtained a PhD in social sciences from the University of Buenos Aires in 2022. For the past years, she has participated in several funded research projects on crime and punishment in Latin America in the Gino Germani Research Institute at the University of Buenos Aires. Additionally, she has held research fellowships at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (Scholarship Programme for Young Professors and Researchers From Coimbra Group of Universities), at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico and at the Berlin School of Economics and Law in Germany (DAAD: German Academic Exchange Service). She was also a visiting fellow at the University of Granada in 2023 and an adjunct associate research scholar at Columbia University in 2024. Martina’s research has focused on developing theoretical and empirical analyses of the selective functioning of criminal courts and their role in (re)producing hegemonic values and social meanings.

She is the author of the book “Killing is not always the same crime. A study on the differential punishment of murder in Argentina”, recently published by Fondo de Cultura Económica. This sociological study provides insights into the logics of criminalization of murder in Argentina, offering a comprehensive overview of penal sanctions and the social meanings and values that orient judicial decisions. More broadly, the book offers a critical reflection on the prohibition of murder in contemporary societies and explores the relationship between the pivotal ideological values of individual life and private property.

Currently, she is conducting sociological research on judicial responses to drug-related offenses in Argentina, focusing on criminalization processes affecting women. Her project aims to understand how the criminal justice system contributes to framing the drug problem as a penal issue, while examining the effects of the prohibitionist paradigm on exacerbating gender and class inequalities, increasing territorial violence and promoting social exclusion. Additionally, her research will explore and discuss alternative approaches to this problem.