Research areas

• Secret services in Latin America
• German-Latin American relations
• Migration history
• State and nation building
• Cono Sur/ Panama

Holger M. Meding's academic work focuses geographically on the southern states of South America (Cono Sur), the isthmian region and the former Spanish territories of what is now the USA. The preconditions of transatlantic migration movements and internal migrations as well as the changes in societies through migrations form a central object of investigation, whereby the changes within the respective migration groups under the specific conditions of the host country - in linguistic, social and political terms - are analyzed in parallel. The emergence of states and nations after independence is another thematic focus, which deals with integration and disintegration processes, which are particularly striking in their respective crisis-like culminations. In particular, the development of foreign policy relationships proves to be a critical aspect of the state and nation-building process. The international relations of Latin America are primarily considered from the point of view of the asymmetry of power relations, as manifested in the hegemonic position of the USA in the Western hemisphere, but also occasionally in the role of Germany vis-à-vis the states of Latin America.