‘(Young) Men With Big Guns’: Reflexive Encounters with Violence and Youth in El Salvador

The phenomenon of youth gangs has emerged as one of the most visible and feared expressions of violence in El Salvador in recent years. This article explores the process of researching violence associated with gangs from a feminist perspective, focusing on the challenges presented by conducting research in a context where popular perceptions of violence often reflect wider hegemonic social discourses concerning gender and youth, and where there exists a gap between actual violence and its representation. The article addresses the tensions that can emerge between the research process and popular conceptualisations of violence through an exploration of issues of researcher identity, subjectivity and constructions of ‘other’. It documents a research process that came to be shaped – theoretically and practically – by both individual and collective representations of violence, and shows how youth violence and youth gangs, in particular, concretely come to provide a central epistemological axis for societal fears and insecurities.     

Sustainability as a Measure of Success: Externally Promoted Participatory Budgeting in El Salvador 10 Years Later

This article examines the sustainability of externally promoted participatory budgeting (PB) over more than a decade and, given the results, considers the implications for participatory practice in international development. In 2009, I investigated the continued utilization of PB as introduced through a US‐financed local government development project in post‐war El Salvador. I examined all 28 project municipalities 5 years after the project ended and found limited but important PB sustainability. In 2015, I replicated the study, using the same parameters in the same 28 municipalities, more than 10 years after completion of the project. This article presents the findings of the latter study and compares them with 2009 results. PB continues to be utilized in more than half of the 28 municipalities examined—a striking example of long‐term sustainability—although there is also little continuity of use among individual municipal governments. I conclude that PB is becoming institutionalized, in part because of the initial project. This case of sustainability and institutionalization of PB may allow us to be more optimistic about the potential effects of participation in international development. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cataluña and Castilla,Noucentisme and avant-garde: towards a reading of Salvador Dalí’s Autorretrato cubista (1923)

Salvador Dalí’s Autorretrato cubista is his only major painting done predominantly in the style of Analytic Cubism, although it also incorporates various examples of collage, typically associated with Synthetic Cubism. Close analysis of the compositional structure of the self-portrait, together with the identification and interpretation of the various objects and newspaper fragments glued to its surface, suggest the representation of a self divided and pulled simultaneously in different directions. The major lines of tension involve two oppositions: one between Cataluña and Castilla, that is to say, between a sympathetic stance towards Catalan nationalism versus Castilian centralism (tempered by the positive and horizon-expanding experience of student life in Madrid), and the other between the avant-garde and other artistic styles. This second tension manifests itself in the espousal of Analytic Cubism (with some features of Synthetic Cubism) and, at the same time, the inclusion of certain elements deriving from earlier tendencies, notably Noucentisme, a movement that in turn had very close links with Catalanism. In Autorretrato cubista, painted at the very end of 1923, it therefore seems possible to discern a complex and unresolved psychomachia of diverse and sometimes contradictory allegiances and influences played out on the canvas.     

Protecting Human Rights: The Legitimacy of Judicial System Reforms in EL Salvador

Abstract — Research on democratic transitions in Latin America often ignore the importance of judicial systems — and related institutions — in achieving 'liberal democracy' and effectively safeguarding human rights, as contrasted with the restoration of 'electoral democracy.' This proves especially problematic in the instances of the former military-dominated authoritarian regimes of Central America. This article examines the efforts at judicial system and related reforms in EL Salvador since the 1992 Peace Accords, and relates those reforms to popular perceptions, both of previous institutions and of the institutional reforms and new institutions that have been created as part of the peace-making process. The reported survey research results suggest that the reforms on which liberal democracy in El Salvador depends, while generally viewed positively in the abstract, still rest on shaky foundations.     

Risky Business: What Happens to Gender Equality and Women's Rights in Post-Conflict Societies? Insights from NGO's in El Salvador

Using the case of El Salvador, this paper explores how women's organizational skills developed in civil war translate into work in NGOs in the post-conflict struggle for rights. The paper briefly describes the gender stratification methodology used in the analysis and then presents the situation in El Salvador before, during, and after the war. After discussing how Salvadoran women, despite quite limited economic power, became a well-organized force that was strategically indispensable to the rebels during the war, the paper examines factors that contributed to the success of Las Madres Demandantes (LMD), an NGO focused on the single issue of getting child support payments to women. The experience of other NGOs in El Salvador is reviewed with respect to the factors that contributed to the success of LMD. In conclusion, a few lessons from the issues faced by the post-conflict women's NGOs in El Salvador are presented.     

The Unidad Popular Process as Represented through Siglo XXI Publishers: Between Local Reception and the Construction of a Global Event

This article deals with the role played by books and publishing houses in the representations and circulation of ideas relating to the Chilean Unidad Popular process (1970–1973). Due to its transnational nature, Siglo XXI stands out as a privileged object of analysis. This publishing house was founded by Orfila Reynal in Mexico in 1965, and opened a branch in Buenos Aires in 1971. Amidst political and cultural radicalisation, Siglo XXI Argentina factored in the local reception of ideas about the Chilean road to socialism, and its shaping into a global event.