‘This is not a Favela’: Rio de Janeiro's Urban Quilombo Sacopã and the Limits of Multiculturalism

Under Brazil's 1988 Constitution, quilombo communities have the right to the titles of the lands they occupy. This paper assesses quilombo titles' transformative potential through the experiences of Rio de Janeiro's urban quilombo Sacopã, an ethnic Afro‐descendant community once perceived as a favela. Unlike its neighbours, the community managed to resist the widespread favela removals of the 1970s. Based on an ethnographic approach during fieldwork conducted between December 2013 and January 2014, the article asks: how did Sacopã manage to remain, whilst its surrounding favelas were forcefully removed? Who counts as ethnic? What does this imply for Brazil's afro‐descendant majority?     

Parroting the past: historical continuity and change through cultures of cruelty in Brazil

ABSTRACT

In the recent Brazilian Netflix series 3% (Aguilera 2016), international audiences were presented with an array of visual reminders about the legacy of historic human rights abuses in Brazil. With the image of the pau de arara as a point of historic and semiotic reference, this paper adopts evidence and ideas from New Capitalist History to extend the interrogation of the historical memory of torture in Brazil in particular, to the rise and predominance of coercive practices in workplace cultures in free societies in general. This interrogation demonstrates the need for paradigm shifts within Western academic disciplines. First, to re-locate historically modern slavery in political philosophy as central to conceptions of “evil,” and second to overturn the notion of discontinuity and incompatibility between slavery and capitalism. Throughout this interrogation, a short story by Machado de Assis and Lissovsky’s critique of processes of memorialisation of human rights abuses open up the possibility of revisionist thinking about technologies of power, under slavery, military rule, and democratic regimes in Brazil; an approach which suggests systematic and sustained “cultures of cruelty” past and present (Giroux).     

Institutional Design, Military Rule, and Regime Transition in Argentina (1976–1983): an Extension of the Remmer Thesis1

Abstract— In this essay, I argue that institutions in military regimes have a significant impact not only on regime durability, but also on the level of control the military is likely to exert when it withdraws from rule. Borrowing from a typology of military regimes developed by Karen Remmer, I note how the feudal regime engenders a level of investment that drives it to remain in office despite the inability of this institutional arrangement to contain politicisation in the armed forces. The obstinacy of the feudal regime thus inevitably leads it toward collapse. The argument is tested with a detailed case study of the Proceso regime in Argentina.     

‘A Natural and Voluntary Dependence’: The Royal Academy of San Carlos and the Cultural Politics of Art Education in Mexico City, 1786–1797

In this article, I explore the controversies that characterised the foundational years of the Royal Academy of San Carlos of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in Mexico City (1786–1797). They provide provocative insights into questions of competing agendas and ambitions among the artists and bureaucrats of the royal academy. They also illuminate contemporary understandings about the hierarchical relationships between a metropolitan power, Spain, and its American colonies and their visual culture and artistic production, which mirror broader political hierarchies and relationships of power and subordination.     

The Gender Ethics and Politics of Affection: The ‘Feminine’Melodramatic Mode in Walter Salles' Central do Brasil (1998)

This article reads Walter Salles's Central do Brasil (1998) through a reappraisal of the film's relationship to melodrama in order to emphasise the significance of the association of affect with ethical judgment in thinking about the complex and contradictory gender politics of the film, thereby challenging the conventional tension between pathos and logos. Using a number of filmic and psychoanalytic theories, this article argues that Central do Brasil's melodramatic search for a ‘space of innocence’ in the Sertão could offer less a nostalgic return to anachronistic forms of living than a survival strategy for living in late modernity. Finally, this article argues that Central do Brasil, while lamenting the state's withdrawal from the public sphere, calls for an ethical imperative that is associated with a ‘feminine’ responsible and generous capacity to embrace the other as a necessary form of social and political action for the redefining of citizenship in Brazilian neoliberal society.     

E‐Informality in Venezuela: The ‘Other Path’ of Technology

The study explores arguments concerning the concept of the informal economy and makes the case that new media technologies, or more broadly, information and communication technologies (ICTs), as a socio‐economic phenomenon, tend to be exploited in the same way as other economic activities by those actors that operate in the informal economy. Moreover, this exploitation tends to show similar patterns in terms of growth and ownership concentration. In this context, the study analyses the patterns and tendencies that transpire when informal actors exploit ICTs. It aims to question the validity of the neoliberal paradigm that portrays informality and new media technology as a creative process that requires deregulation. The article is based on a field study carried out in Venezuela between 2003 and 2004.     

Indigenous Peasant ‘Otherness’: Rural Identities and Political Processes in Bolivia

Since Morales's election, rural movements have become the new protagonists of Bolivian politics. Previous analyses have emphasised their active role in shaping national politics, often focusing on those organisations as a compact block. However, their relationship is marked by both cooperation and fragmentation. This article provides a narrative of Bolivian socio‐political history over the last 60 years, establishing four main phases of identitarian articulations/disarticulations. It demonstrates the high degree of interdependence and fluidity of ethnic and class identities, as well as their interconnections with the broader socio‐political context and the national legal and institutional changes.     

‘Let's Win this Game Together’: Children's Rights Violations,Macro‐Securitisation and the Transformative Potential of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

Sport's transformative potential is known to support marginalised children, to deal with traumatic experiences and instil positive values; yet hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) can have negative impacts. Drawing on participatory research with favela‐based children during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this article argues that MSEs bring a macro‐securitisation of urban life, which causes considerable harm. This paper also suggests that the inclusion of children's voices in advocacy debates can challenge top‐down securitisation and might allow MSEs to foster further positive social transformation. Therefore, juxtaposed with causing harm, macro‐securitisations can open opportunities for children to take action and have their voices heard.     

From la guerra sucia to ‘A Gentleman’s Fight’: War,Disappearance and Nation in the 1976–1983 Argentine Dictatorship

Analysing the last Argentine dictatorship in the light of contemporary re‐examinations of war, this article argues that the 1976–1983 dictatorship can be understood as a shift in war(s), from la guerra sucia to the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, from a limitless and unsustainable internal war to a bracketed external war. That external war is shown to be an attempt to re‐found a nation imploding through disappearance. Drawing on the history of disappearance in Argentina reveals that, despite obvious differences, there are many continuities between the dictatorship and other regimes, emphasising the dangers of a politics that encourages a nation ‘re‐malvinizada’.     

Using ‘Participatory’ Methods with Young People in Contexts of Violence: Reflections from Guatemala

This article is based on research carried out with young people in Guatemala City, in communities with a high incidence of youth gang violence. The demands of working with a traditionally ‘disempowered’ social group, youth, and in situations of violence, provide a timely opportunity for methodological reflection. The central objective is to discuss the means through which perceptions and experiences of gang violence were reported during the research. It deals in particular with the relative benefits of Participatory Appraisal methods in research with young people in situations of violence. Empirical material from Guatemala is used to reflect on the particular ways in which violence is variously revealed and explained. It also comments on the ways in which violence, in turn, impacted upon the conduct of the research itself.     

‘There Can Be No Revolution without Culture’: Reading and Writing in the Bolivarian Revolution

Under Hugo Chávez's ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, the government made itself present in all stages of literary production, applying the official idea of reading and writing as ‘socialist practices’. The Bolivarian government envisaged a popular counter‐hegemony, courting popular support while delegitimising cultural elites and reinforcing class tensions. Bolivarian cultural policy is anachronistic in an age of global literary markets, while the emphasis on a national collective of writers over internationally promoted representative writers of the revolution is particularly radical.     

From ‘Green Laggard’ to Regional Leader: Explaining the Recent Development of Environmental Policy in Chile

Environmental policy in Chile has developed rapidly in recent years, and the country has become a regional leader in renewable energy, climate change policy, recycling, and nature conservation. This contrasts with the previous neglect of environmental issues in the country and its depiction as a ‘green laggard’ (Orihuela, 2014: 251) within Latin America. In this article the recent development of environmental policy in Chile is reviewed and five factors affecting this development are analysed: international influences, institutional legacies, a window of opportunity opened by environmental movements, policy entrepreneurship, and business power.     

Ignorance and ‘Habitus’: Blinkered and Enlightened Approaches Towards the History of Science in Latin America

In broad terms, European students of the history of Latin America have concentrated their researches upon colonial policies, interactions between Europeans (and their American‐born descendants) and indigenous peoples, economic and commercial structures, and political life (whether of elites or, more recently, of subaltern groups). The last two decades have witnessed a significant expansion in Britain and elsewhere of research into gender studies and cultural studies. Although the latter discipline embraces an awareness of the importance of the history of science, this has tended to be rather narrowly focussed upon travel writing, and the extent to which there were links between the promotion of scientific travel and both imperial and national projects, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, like the great British scientific travellers of the nineteenth century in Latin America, the works of cultural studies specialists tend to reveal more about European attitudes and misconceptions than Latin American reality.     

On Tourism and the Constructions of ‘Paradise Islands’ in Central America and the Caribbean

A comparative perspective of the tourism industry in the islands of Colón, Panama and Carriacou, Grenada is presented in this article. The islands have long histories of association with colonial powers, coupled with more recent histories of ‘discovery’ as tourist destinations. The historical constructions of ‘paradise islands' and the appropriation of tourism for nation‐building purposes in these territories are analysed. The discussion assesses the underlying reasons for the differing responses by African Caribbean populations toward tourism development, in spite of similar colonial and postcolonial histories.     

Asserting State Authority through Environmental Monitoring: Venezuela in the Post‐Gómez Era, 1935–1945

In Venezuela, the task of consolidating the central state fell to Presidents Eleazar López Contreras (1936–1941) and Isaías Medina Angarita (1941–1945). This meant asserting fiscal control over the oil companies operating in the state of Zulia as well as appeasing restive working and middle classes. The government sought to exert power over both by moving towards a system of environmental monitoring of the petroleum industry. López Contreras was reluctant to apply real political pressure to the companies and accordingly environmental monitoring tended to be lax. Medina Angarita personally visited zulianos and made fiery speeches designed to assuage Venezuelan pride. What is more, he allowed the press to denounce the companies for their environmental abuse. Through his environmental monitoring efforts, Medina demonstrated to the companies that the state was a force to be reckoned with.     

The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?

This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.     

Intergovernmental Politics of Fiscal Balance in a Federal Democracy: The Experience of Brazil, 1996–2005

Irresponsible fiscal behavior by subnational units is a concern for federal or decentralized systems, especially in the developing world. States' expenditures in Brazil have been no different. Still, spending varies considerably among the Brazilian states, even after controlling for their financial resources. This article provides a political explanation for the variation in current spending, focusing on intergovernmental political relationships. It argues that credit claiming for pork distributed in a state plays a crucial role and that governors elevate state spending in order to make up for their loss in political credit from the pork distributed by the president. Analyzing data from the period 1996–2005, it finds that expenditures decrease as the relative number of federal deputies from the state governor's party increases compared to the number of deputies from the president's governing coalition when the national agenda encourages federal pork distribution in the states.