Labor and the Environment in Latin America

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aviva Chomsky
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human History ◽  
Environmental Histories ◽  
And Control ◽  
American Labor

Latin American labor has a well-established historiography, in dialogue with trends outside of the region. Environmental history is a newer and more exploratory field. In basic terms, environmental history explores the relationships of humans with the natural world, sometimes referred to as “nonhuman nature.” This can include how humans have affected the natural world, how the natural world has affected human history, and histories of human ideas and belief systems about nature. Labor and environmental history grows from explorations of the connections between these two spheres. Humans interact with the natural world through their labor and from their class perspective. The natural world shapes the work that people do and the institutions and structures humans create to organize and control labor. Changing labor regimes change the ways that humans interact with, and think about, the natural world. Both labor and environmental histories are in some senses investigations of how humans relate to nature. This essay sets Latin American labor and environmental history in global historical context. After offering a chronological summary, it briefly examines connections between U.S. Latino and Latin American labor and environmental histories, and ends with a discussion of contemporary Latin American critical environmentalisms.

Epidemiology of Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio Lopez-Jaramillo ◽  
Jose Lopez-Lopez ◽  
Daniel Cohen ◽  
Natalia Alarcon-Ariza ◽  
Margarita Mogollon-Zehr
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Type 2 Diabetes ◽  
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Cardiovascular Diseases ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
And Control

: Hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus are two important risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular diseases worldwide. In Latin America hypertension prevalence varies from 30 to 50%. Moreover, the proportion of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension is very low. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus varies from 8 to 13% and near to 40% are unaware of their condition. In addition, the prevalence of prediabetes varies from 6 to 14% and this condition has been also associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. The principal factors linked to a higher risk of hypertension in Latin America are increased adiposity, low muscle strength, unhealthy diet, low physical activity and low education. Besides being chronic conditions, leading causes of cardiovascular mortality, both hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus represent a substantial cost for the weak health systems of Latin American countries. Therefore, is necessary to implement and reinforce public health programs to improve awareness, treatment and control of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus, in order to reach the mandate of the Unit Nations of decrease the premature mortality for CVD.

Labor Movements in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico M. Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Labor

The history of Latin America cannot be understood without analyzing the role played by labor movements in organizing formal and informal workers across urban and rural contexts.This chapter analyzes the history of labor movements in Latin America from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. After debating the distinction between “working class” and “popular sectors,” the chapter proposes that labor movements encompass more than trade unions. The history of labor movements is analyzed through the dynamics of globalization, incorporation waves, revolutions, authoritarian breakdowns, and democratization. Taking a relational approach, these macro-dynamics are studied in connection with the main revolutionary and reformist strategic disputes of the Latin American labor movements.

scholarly journals Surveillance Aesthetics in Latin America: Work in progress

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda Bruno ◽  
Paola Barreto ◽  
Milena Szafir
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
Surveillance Culture ◽  
The Usa ◽  
On Line ◽  
And Control ◽  
Selection Of

This on line curatorship presents a selection of 11 works by Latin American artists who incorporate in their creations technologies traditionally linked to surveillance and control processes. By Surveillance Aesthetics we understand a compound of artistic practices, which include the appropriation of dispositifs such as closed circuit video, webcams, satellite images, algorithms and computer vision among others, placing them within new visibility, attention and experience regimes. The term referred to in the title of this exhibition is intended more as a vector of research rather than the determination of a field, as pointed by Arlindo Machado under the term “surveillance culture”. (Machado 1991) In this sense, a Latin America Surveillance Aesthetics exhibition is a way to propose, starting from the works presented here, a myriad of questions. How and to what extent do the destinies of surveillance devices reverberate or are subverted by market, security and media logics in our societies? If, in Europe and in the USA, surveillance is a subject related to the war against terror and border control, what can be said about Latin America? What forces and conflicts are involved? How have artistic practices been creating and acting in relation to these forces and conflicts? Successful panoramas of so called Surveillance Art already take place in Europe and North America for at least three decades, the exhibition “Surveillance”, at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions being one of the first initiatives in this domain. In Latin America however, art produced in the context of surveillance devices and processes is still seen as an isolated event. Our intention is to assemble a selection of works indicating the existence of a wider base of production, which cannot be considered eventual.The online exhibition can be accessed here.http://www.pec.ufrj.br/surveillanceaestheticslatina/

Digital Resources: The Handbook of Latin American Studies

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine D. McCann ◽  
Tracy North
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Latin American Studies ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Latin American History ◽  
Atlantic Studies ◽  
History Of

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Please check back later for the full article. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is a selective annotated bibliography of works about Latin America. Continuously published since 1936, the Handbook has been compiled and edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress for seventy-five years. Published works in multiple languages are selected for inclusion in the Handbook by a cadre of contributing editors, actively working scholars who provide a service to the field by annotating works of lasting scholarly value and writing bibliographical essays noting major trends, changes, and gaps in existing research. In 1995, the Hispanic Division launched the website HLAS Online, providing access to a database of more than 340,000 annotated citations. The ability to search across more than 50 volumes of the Handbook with a single query gave researchers unprecedented access to years of scholarship on Latin America. In 2000, HLAS Web, a new search interface with more robust functionality, was launched. The two sites link researchers worldwide to a vast body of selected resources on Latin America. The Handbook itself has become a record of the history of the field of Latin American studies and an indicator of changing trends in the field. With digital access to Handbook citations of books, articles, and more, scholars are able not only to identify specific works of interest, but also to follow the rise of new areas of study, such as women’s studies, cultural history, environmental history, and Atlantic studies, among others.

Régis Debray and the Latin American revolution of the XX century

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihail Kolesov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Young People ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Wide Audience ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
French Writer

The main task of the author is to give a broad picture of the main processes of the revolutionary movement in several countries of Latin America of the XX century continental historical context. The author used primarily the original (Spanish) sources, among which a special place belongs to works by the famous French writer Régis Debray (Regis Debray). The book is intended for a wide audience, mainly for young people, for which the dramatic twentieth century already belongs to the annals of history.

scholarly journals Bringing Policymakers to Science Through Communication: A Perspective From Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Pulido-Salgado ◽  
Fátima Antonethe Castaneda Mena
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Science Museums ◽  
Latin American Region ◽  
Science Stories

Scientific knowledge should be shared beyond academic circles in order to promote science in policymaking. Science communication increases the understanding of how the natural world works and the capacity to make informed decisions. However, not every researcher has the ability to master the art of communicating, and even less in a clear, concise, and easy to understand language that society representatives appreciate. Within the huge and extraordinarily diverse Latin American region, science communication has been going on for at least 200 years, when the first science stories appeared in the newspapers, as well as the first science museums and botanical gardens were founded. Nevertheless, resources are limited, and notably time, which researchers spend mostly in mentoring, ensuring funding, publication of their results and laboratory work, while science journalists are an endangered species. This perspective article aims at providing some recommendations to build bridges between science and decision-making parties through communication, by exploring how Latin American diplomats and policymakers engage with scientific knowledge.

Animals in Latin American History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Germán Vergara
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Latin American History ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans ◽  
History Of ◽  
Industrialization Process ◽  
Agrarian Societies

The evolutionary history of vertebrate nonhuman animals such as mammals in what is now Latin America extends back tens of millions of years. Given that anatomically modern humans first appeared in Africa a mere 200,000 years ago and would not reach Latin America until some 12,000 years ago, nonhuman animals in the region evolved for most of their history without interference from human activities. Once they appeared, humans began to shape the history of the region’s animals in profound ways. In fact, one could argue that animal history in Latin America has been a story of increasing human impact; from the Paleo-Indians, who may have driven countless species of megafauna to extinction; to the agrarian societies that domesticated species such as dogs, turkeys, and llamas (or tolerated the animals’ self-domestication); to the radical transformations brought about by the Columbian Exchange; to the industrialization process of the last two centuries. But animal history in the region is also marked by adaptation and agency on the part of animals, who have influenced the course of human history. This dynamic and adaptive human–animal relationship has been pushed to the limit during extinction pulses, manifest in the currently accelerating biodiversity crisis. Environmental history makes the convincing case that any historical account that neglects the environment offers an inaccurate depiction of the past. By the same token, animal historians suggest that a more complete understanding of history requires redefining its boundaries to include the often underappreciated story of nonhuman species and their interrelationships with human societies.

‘Giving Plants a Civil Status’: Scientific Representations of Nature and Nation in Costa Rica and Venezuela, 1885-1935

2002 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart McCook
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Costa Rica ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Scientific Representations ◽  
Civil Status ◽  
Representations Of Nature ◽  
Botanical Research

In a 1924 essay, the botanist Henri Pittier worried that many of Latin America's tropical products—particularly its plants—lacked a ‘civil status.’ By this, Pittier meant that they had not yet been identified and named scientifically. He likened the plants’ lack of a botanical ‘civil status’ to a person's lacking a passport or credentials that proved their citizenship. This was more than a casual analogy. Over the previous half-century, many states in Latin America had begun to take inventories of their plants, just as they had begun taking censuses of their citizens, and surveying and mapping their national territories. These botanical inventories helped states establish control over the natural world, just as censuses helped the state establish control over civil society. Between 1885 and 1935, governments throughout Latin America began to fund botanical research institutions and to finance the publication of national floras. Pittier had been actively involved in this process: he had helped establish national natural history museums in Costa Rica and Venezuela, and wrote or edited three national flora: thePrimitiae Florae Costaricensis(1891-1901), theEnsayo sobre las plantas usuales de Costa Rica(1908), and theManual de las plantas usuales de Venezuela(1926). National floras such as these were not simply ‘entertainment for intellectuals’ but also part of broader programs by Latin American governments to incorporate the natural world into the national political and economic order.

scholarly journals Participative and Decolonial Approaches in Environmental History

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Sofía De la Rosa Solano ◽  
Alex Franklin ◽  
Luke Owen
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Participative Methods ◽  
Environmental Histories ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Participative Approaches

AbstractThis chapter explores the relationship and use of decolonial participative approaches in environmental history. The main argument is that decolonial and participative methods are useful tools to build environmental histories that are more inclusive and communicate better with today’s society. Furthermore, it is argued that using participative and decolonial approaches contribute to environmental awareness and political action, making environmental history a powerful discipline in contributing to a decolonial environmental justice. To explore this argument, we first review how the discipline of history has understood participative methods. We then trace the development of participative approaches to research, and finally, give an overview of how environmental history in Latin America has been enriched from these discussions. The chapter finishes by discussing the usefulness of the concept of “memory” to facilitate this approach in research. We conclude that decoloniality and participation can be powerful allies of environmental history research. Specifically, the decolonial approach helps to read the past through a critical lens that connects specific cases with larger phenomena, such as imperialism and capitalism, highlighting the spaces for change within them. Similarly, participation challenges historical research to go beyond inclusion and place people’s knowledge at the centre of scientific work.

scholarly journals African Diaspora and its Religious Heritage: A view from Triple-Border (Brazil/Paraguay/Argentina)

2020 ◽  
pp. 347-376
Author(s):  
Anaxsuell Fernando Silva
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
American Continent ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Border Towns

The religious diversity of Latin America is a phenomenon that has gathered the attention of researchers from different fields. Along with the expressions of belief and feeling related to Catholics and Protestants, who are still the majority, there are diverse religious practices, in this article we will focus on the analysis of practices and beliefs arising from the Afro-descendant presence in the continent in general as well as in the region known as the Triple Frontier, in a particular way. The strong socio-cultural interrelationships feedback on the intense flow of people and material/symbolic goods, complexing religious matrices, reframing beliefs and resisting colonial violence. Our reflection is based on long fieldwork at the border towns Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), Puerto Iguaçu (Argentina) and Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), with an ethnographic approach, documents, and bibliographic review. In this direction, this article seeks to discuss the way in which Afro-descendants have been organized and maintained in this dynamic and multiform religious scenario. Throughout this path, our intention is to characterize the specificities of the different manifestations of belief/devotion/practices of/in the region originating or re-signified by the African diaspora on the continent, at the same time that we will seek to configure the socio-historical context of the emergence of the referred religious groups. And we expect to have, in the end, an ethnographic and analytical picture of the religious effects of the African presence on the south of the Latin American continent.

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