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by Christian Paulo Matus Madrid, Rodrigo Ganter, Juan Antonio Carrasco, and Camila Barraza Huaiquimilla | July 3, 2020 The Chilean neoliberal state’s institutional strategy for displacing a historical population from Aurora de Chile, a centrally located area with real estate value in the city of Concepción, combined three types of violence: shock urbanization, which used the 2010 earthquake as an opportunity to impose the construction of major infrastructure, the construction of public opinion aimed at naturalizing displacement, and the strategic use of participation as a disciplinary socio-technical device to legitimize a solution to the conflict that guaranteed the building of the Bicentennial Bridge. The deployment of this synergistic, multifaceted violence was a sophisticated management technique associated with a neoliberal urban rationality that contributed to the process of urban renewal. CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE CONTINUE READING HERE > > > Posted by Latin American Perspectives at 1:27 PM No comments:   Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Labels: Chile, May 2020 issue, Neoliberalism, Urbanization, Violence

The Uses of Culture in the Last Argentine Dictatorship (1976–1983): From Studies of Repression to Analyses of the Construction of Consensus  | JUne 29, 2020 by Laura Schenquer Democratic governments are not the only ones that formulate political strategies to generate consensus. The last Argentine dictatorship (1976–1983) also developed cultural, educational, and communication policies to maintain and increase its support and to curb the opposition. However, these policies have not been studied in the postdictatorship, largely because of the prevalence of the image of the apagón cultural (cultural blackout)—the notion that the dictatorship’s project was simply repression and censorship. Examination of recently discovered official documents reveals the productive and creative character of the dictatorship’s cultural projects, which were used to increase social control and impose a certain “order.” CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE Los gobiernos democráticos no son los únicos que formulan estrategias políticas para generar consenso. La última dictadura argentina (1976–1983) también desarrolló políticas culturales, educativas y de comunicación para mantener e incrementar su apoyo y frenar a la oposición. Sin embargo, estas políticas no se han estudiado en la postdictadura, en gran parte debido a la prevalencia de la imagen del apagón cultural—la noción de que el [...]

by Jack Durrell | June 26, 2020 Involvement in transnational organizations is an understudied aspect of next-generation transnationalism, the cross-border connections maintained by individuals born and/or raised in countries of settlement. Exploration of institutional accessibility—the existence or nonexistence of barriers to next-generation inclusion—across a nonrepresentative sample of Mexican and Salvadoran transnational political and philanthropic groups operating in California and Washington, DC, shows how it can facilitate next-generation involvement in cross-border organizations. Accessibility is judged in terms of four main indicators: resource constraints, outreach strategies, involvement in U.S. political arenas, and pervasive institutional cultures. CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE La participación en organizaciones transnacionales es un aspecto poco estudiado del transnacionalismo de la próxima generación, las conexiones transfronterizas mantenidas por individuos nacidos y / o criados en países de asentamiento. La exploración de la accesibilidad institucional—la existencia o inexistencia de barreras para la inclusión de la próxima generación—a través de una muestra no representativa de grupos políticos y filantrópicos transnacionales mexicanos y salvadoreños que operan en California y Washington, DC, muestra cómo puede facilitar la participación de la próxima generación en organizaciones transfronterizas. La accesibilidad se juzga en términos de cuatro indicadores principales: limitaciones de recursos, estrategias de publicidad y [...]

by Liliana Cotto Morales Beginning in the 1990s and in the first five years of the twenty-first century, we saw a strengthening of social movements that had achieved political space for combating U.S. neoliberal strategies and halting the dangerous influence of big business and capitalist governments. These movements became the protagonists influencing state policies in several Latin American countries and other regions. A systematic study of the knowledge produced by this resistance and insurgency may suggest alternatives that could be transformed into solutions. CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE

by José Javier Colón Morera The Boricua summer1 of 2019 (as the series of popular demonstrations against the administration of the then-governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, has been termed) was a complex social event with significant potential. Some of its features are specific to the social context of one of the world’s last colonies, a body politic that is still fighting for full decolonization and the expansion of its democracy in the face of an austerity agenda that has intensely affected the vulnerable sectors of the population (Colón Morera, 2016; Negrón-Muntaner, 2019; Rivera Ramos, 2019). In another sense, however, reflect a new anti-neoliberal activism that is common to very diverse contexts and significantly transnational (Bandy and Smith, 2004; Cotto Morales, in this issue; Díaz Lotero, 2019). The Boricua summer became part of an extensive process of citizen empowerment linked to the country’s struggle to escape the colonial entrapment of its current territorial Commonwealth’ arrangement (Colón Ríos, 2016; Fonseca, 2019; Negrón-Muntaner, 2019).2 For this reason, it demands further analysis and presents the enormous challenges of capturing a process in full motion.3 CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE Posted by Latin American Perspectives at 12:40 PM No comments:   Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest [...]

:::::: Abstract :::::: by Pedro Cabán July 22, 2019, was a watershed moment in Puerto Rico’s history. On that day Puerto Ricans by the hundreds of thousands marched and demanded the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, the colony’s inept and ethically bankrupt governor. On August 2 the pro-statehood governor became the first elected governor of Puerto Rico to resign his office. CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE CONTINUE READING HERE > > > Posted by Latin American Perspectives at 2:19 PM No comments:   Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Labels: Colonialism, May 2020 issue, Puerto Rico, Social Movements, Verano Boricua

by Argeo T. Quiñones-Pérez and Ian J. Seda-Irizarry The fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico, which constrains the ways in which the government can try to tackle the economic depression, is in important ways self-inflicted—the product of economic policies undertaken at the local level. When the crisis is approached in this way, the resolution of the island’s colonial situation can be seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for solving the problems of the depression’s victims. CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE HERE CONTINUE READING HERE > > > Posted by Latin American Perspectives at 2:00 PM No comments:   Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Labels: Economic Crisis, May 2020 issue, Puerto Rico

Cuaderno de Coyuntura Cuadernos de Trabajo, CLACSO, RMALC, INAH La crisis de sanidad por la Pandemia del COVID-19 ha venido a profundizar la crisis económica global y la legitimidad de los Estados que se generó en 2008, lo que nos lleva a redoblar esfuerzos para analizar la realidad producida por el capitalismo global y su crisis actual y a crear y recrear estrategias para avanzar en la transformación de esta realidad. Es por ello, que los miembros del Seminario Permanente de Estudios Chicanos y de Fronteras (DEAS-INAH), del Grupo de Trabajo “Fronteras, regionalización y globalización” del Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) y de la Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), unimos esfuerzos para esta tarea. Consideramos que la propuesta de producir Cuadernos de Trabajo donde se plasmen ideas, análisis, reflexiones colectivas, planes de trabajo y de acción, es parte de nuestra contribución a continuar una tarea en la que hemos estado inmersos por mucho tiempo. El primer número de estos Cuadernos de Trabajo contiene una notas para un análisis de coyuntura sobre la crisis económica y las medidas gubernamentales de contingencia frente al COVID-19 en México, las cuales esperamos que puedan ser enriquecidas con [...]

May 20, 2020 | By Alejandro Osorio Rauld and José Reig Cuañes The Covid-19 pandemic has tested the strength, logistics, and leadership of states around the world. In order to face the health emergency, the governments have had to implement several degrees of confinement and “social distancing” that, lately, have saved millions of lives, albeit at a very high cost in terms of economic activity The debate on the appropriate harmony between health protection and economic safeguard allows us to analyze an interesting aspect of political systems: the relationship between business elites and State power. Most of the policies that the pandemic has faced have been legitimized by the intervention of validated actors such as experts, technicians, advisers and also politicians of different persuasions. Their advice has contributed to protect citizens from what in biopolitical terms we could call a “letting die”, which was the dominant choice at first in several of the countries with leaders fit in with the commonly named “conservative populism” (USA, Brazil, UK). However, other social groups attempt to influence State decisions: this is the case of business elites and their organizations, acting as “pressure groups” that mobilize powerful resources in favor of their interests. Indeed, although the [...]

May 19, 2020 | by Steve Ellner Originally published in Latin America Advisor of the Inter-American Dialogue Every aspect of the recent attempt to topple the Maduro government points to Juan Guaidó's lack of leadership capacity. The incident cuts into his support among both the radical opposition that supports the use of force and the majority of Venezuelans, who, according to polls, favor concrete proposals to solve pressing immediate problems over regime-change strategies. In the first place, Guaidó's signature on the contract with the Florida-based Silvercorp USA disregards the history of operations of this sort in which planners go to length to ensure the credibility of a Plan B consisting of denial of involvement in case of failure. In the second place, Guaidó s commitment of 213 million dollars to Silvercorp raises questions about the origins of such a large sum of money. In the third place, even those favoring a military solution are criticizing the use of foreign mercenaries. In the fourth place, the plan envisioned one of two scenarios, one naive and the other questionable on ethical grounds. The choice of Macuto, with a strong navy presence nearby, for landing implied that the Venezuelan armed forces would spontaneously [...]