Podcasts

June 2020 Issue Editor: Roberta Villalón In this episode of the Latin American Perspectives podcast, Alexander Scott, Outreach Coordinator for Latin American Perspectives, Inc., discusses the May 2015, September 2016, and November 2016 issues, "The Resurgence of Collective Memory, Truth, and Justice Mobilizations" Part I, Part II: Artistic and Cultural Resistance, and Part III: Culture, Politics, and Social Mobilizations with Guest Editor Roberta Villalón. The book Memory, Truth and Justice in Contemporary Latin America in the LAP in the Classroom series draws on articles from these issues.    

Title: Environmental Violence in Mexico Issue #: 204  | Volume #: 42 | Number #: 5 Date: September 2015 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Nemer E. Narchi Short Description: This issue analyzes the outcomes of the neoliberal restructuring of Mexico in socio-environmental terms. In doing so, the featured articles rely on the critical lenses of political ecology and political economy to show how individual capitals and policy makers use the political, economic and constabulary forces to create asymmetries that will allow for capital accumulation while creating social injustice and environmental degradation. The issue also features the application of natural selection to the issue of sustainability; highlights the consequences of transforming nature into property; criticizes the legitimacy of human rights policies; questions the violence of representing nature; and deals with environmental violence not only as structural but as a direct and brutal kind of violence used for legitimizing neoliberal restructuring while imposing one particular definition of nature and natural resources. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has published timely, progressive analyses of the social forces shaping contemporary [...]

Title: China and Latin America: Processes and Paradoxes Issue #: 205  | Volume #: 42  | Number #: 6 Date: November 2015 Interviewer: Tamar Diana Wilson Interviewees: Tomas Ocampo Short Description: How has the increasing economic influence of China, especially since 2000, affected Latin American countries? Has China’s recent impact led to a structural shift in the underlying political economy of the region? Has this effect been, on balance, positive, negative, or too complex to be reducible to a normative analysis? Is it the case that, because of ongoing dynamics and the generation of ever newer accords, reached annually if not biannually between China and various Latin American countries, such an assessment lies only in the future? LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has published timely, progressive analyses of the social forces shaping contemporary Latin America. http://latinamericanperspectives.com

Title: The Return of the State, New Social Actors, and Post-Neoliberalism in Ecuador Issue #: 206  | Volume #: 43 | Number #: 1 Date: January 2016 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Veronica Silva Short Description: This issue brings together critical contributions to help appreciate some dimensions of the profound impact of the deep socio-economic and political transformations that the Citizen Revolution led by Rafael Correa has been pushing for since its inception in 2007. The main purpose of the issue is to arrive at a global picture of the evolution and the vicissitudes of the processes of political change in contemporary Ecuador, assess its limits and contradictions from the standpoint of various analytical approaches. It covers such diverse topics as the struggle for power, the reform of state institutions towards a more centralized model, economic and trade policy, change in Ecuador’s approach to international relations, the question of constitutional change, tensions between the government and social movements, socio-environmental conflicts, the new migration agenda, and the question of the post-neoliberalism. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has published [...]

Deconstructing the Post-Neoliberal State: Intimate Perspectives on Contemporary Brazil Issue #: 207 | Volume #: 43 | Number #: 2 Date: March 2016 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Wendy Wolford and John French Short Description: This issue brings together critical contributions to help appreciate some dimensions of the profound impact of the deep socio-economic and political transformations that the Citizen Revolution led by Rafael Correa has been pushing for since its inception in 2007. The main purpose of the issue is to arrive at a global picture of the evolution and the vicissitudes of the processes of political change in contemporary Ecuador, assess its limits and contradictions from the standpoint of various analytical approaches. It covers such diverse topics as the struggle for power, the reform of state institutions towards a more centralized model, economic and trade policy, change in Ecuador’s approach to international relations, the question of constitutional change, tensions between the government and social movements, socio-environmental conflicts, the new migration agenda, and the question of the post-neoliberalism. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has [...]

Spirits, Bodies, and Structures: Religion, Politics, and Social Inequality in Latin America Issue #: 208  | Volume #: 43  | Number #: 3 Date: May 2016 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Jennifer Scheper Hughes Short Description: This special issue of Latin American Perspectives returns to consider the theme of religion and social inequality and the social movements that seek to address religions’ ambivalent legacy across the continent. The articles take up a materialist approach to the subject of religion—they are concerned with the poor and disenfranchised, and not just with their beliefs and religious practices but also with their bodies and earthly fates. Liberation theology continues to shape the political landscape of Latin America, and numerous religious transformations are taking place which may be understood as the afterlives of liberation theology. Evangelical Christian movements, now no longer identified with particular ideologies, insert themselves into the public sphere. The state is now compelled to account for religions other than Christianity and to respond to the rapid pluralization of religious identities and constituencies across the continent. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than [...]

Climate Change in Latin America Issue #: 209  | Volume #: 43  | Number #: 4 Date: July 2016 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Jorge Rojas Hernandez Short Description: This issue provides a counterpoint to the global and diplomatic drama of the Paris climate negotiations by offering a territorialized, bottom-up approach that breaks with the asymmetrical “North-South” logic of (developed) winners and (less developed) losers. The articles describe local governance strategies, based on effective responses rather than victimhood, that suggest a paradigm shift in how to conceptualize citizen particiation, especially in relation to water use and rights. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has published timely, progressive analyses of the social forces shaping contemporary Latin America. http://latinamericanperspectives.com

The Resurgence Of Collective Memory, Truth, And Justice Mobilizations Part 2: Art, Culture, And Violence Issue #: 210 | Volume #: 43 | Number #: 5 Date: September 2016 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Roberta Villalon Short Description: Since the turn of the century, various Latin American countries have witnessed a second wave of memory, truth, and justice mobilizations to address unresolved human rights abuses of past military regimes and civil conflicts. This issue—the second of a three-part series on the politics of collective memory—illustrate how artistic and cultural expressions have been created and used to tackle these dilemmas and informed memorialization, justice seeking, and reconciliation in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay. These studies point to how the limitations of democratization, peace, and reconciliation processes have shaken communities into collective mobilization including the use of artistic and cultural means to keep memory alive and push for justice. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has published timely, progressive analyses of the social forces shaping contemporary Latin America. http://latinamericanperspectives.com  

The Legacy of Hugo Chávez Issue #: 212  |  Volume #: 44  |  Number #: 1 Date: January 2017 Interviewer: Tomas Ocampo Interviewees: Daniel Hellinger and Anthony Petros Spanakos Short Description: The purpose of this special issue is contribute to a better understanding of the possibilities and limits of the Bolivarian project, ranging from democratic innovations to economic experimentation, from alternative economic integration to the role of charisma in revolutionary politics. Contributions include analysis of what it means to be a citizen in a post-neoliberal democracy in Venezuela; the extent to which Chavismo achieved a real redistribution of socio-economic and political power in Venezuela; lessons for other countries dependent upon extraction; what sort of domestic political and economic institutional structures have been developed under Chávez’s government, and how these affect the question of succession and future governability; the sustainability of the Bolivarian project since the decline in oil prices; and the relationship of Venezuela with the United States and other Latin American countries. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. For more than forty years, it has published timely, progressive analyses of [...]