Popular Feminism: Considering a Concept in Feminist Politics and Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2110130
Author(s):  
Janet M. Conway
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Popular Feminism ◽  
Mixed Gender

An analysis of popular feminism as a category in Latin American feminist studies from its origins in the 1980s and its disappearance in the 1990s to its resurgence in the present through the protagonism of the World March of Women, asks what is at stake in this contemporary claim to popular feminism in relation to the multiplication of feminisms. The contemporary use of the concept specifies a feminist praxis that is contentious, materialist, and counterhegemonic in permanently unsettled relations both with other feminisms and mixed-gender movements on the left. Despite converging agendas for redistribution, it also remains in considerable tension with black and indigenous feminisms. As a racially unmarked category, contemporary popular feminism continues to reproduce an elision of race and colonialism common to mestiza feminism and the political left. Un análisis del feminismo popular como categoría en los estudios feministas latinoamericanos, desde sus orígenes en la década de 1980 y su desaparición en la década de 1990 hasta su actual resurgimiento a través del protagonismo de la Marcha Mundial de la Mujer nos lleva a preguntarnos qué está en juego en esta reivindicación contemporánea del feminismo popular cuando lo consideramos en relación a la actual multiplicación de feminismos. El uso contemporáneo del concepto especifica una praxis feminista que es polémica, materialista y contrahegemónica dentro del marco de relaciones permanentemente inestables, tanto con otros feminismos como con movimientos izquierdistas de género mixto. A pesar de las agendas convergentes de redistribución, también mantiene una tensión considerable con los feminismos negros e indígenas. Como categoría racialmente inespecífica, el feminismo popular contemporáneo mantiene sus elisiones de raza y colonialismo, asunto característico del feminismo mestizo, así como de la izquierda política.

scholarly journals Fuel for Conspiracy: Suspected Imperialist Plots and the Chaco War

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Luis Roniger ◽  
Leonardo Senkman
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The Political ◽  
South American ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
National Pride ◽  
The World ◽  
Chaco Region ◽  
Political Decision Making

Conspiracy discourse interprets the world as the object of sinister machinations, rife with opaque plots and covert actors. With this frame, the war between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Northern Chaco region (1932–1935) emerges as a paradigmatic conflict that many in the Americas interpreted as resulting from the conspiracy manoeuvres of foreign oil interests to grab land supposedly rich in oil. At the heart of such interpretation, projected by those critical of the fratricidal war, were partial and extrapolated facts, which sidelined the weight of long-term disputes between these South American countries traumatised by previous international wars resulting in humiliating defeats and territorial losses, and thus prone to welcome warfare to bolster national pride and overcome the memory of past debacles. The article reconstructs the transnational diffusion of the conspiracy narrative that tilted political and intellectual imagination towards attributing the war to imperialist economic interests, downplaying the political agency of those involved. Analysis suggests that such transnational reception highlights a broader trend in the twentieth-century Latin American conspiracy discourse, stemming from the theorization of geopolitical marginality and the belief that political decision-making was shaped by the plots of hegemonic powers.

On the notion of the political in feminist theory

Human Affairs ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ľubica Kobová
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Challenging Issue ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Women's Emancipation ◽  
Number Of Publications

AbstractThe turn of the 1990s saw the emergence of “the political” in feminist theory. Despite there being a number of publications devoted to the theme, the concept itself has remained rather undertheorized. Instead of producing a thoroughly developed concept, it served to create an epistemic community devoted to the (supposedly dead, modernist) political aim of women’s emancipation. In the article, I argue that it would be beneficent for feminist theory to adopt an affirmative stance towards the contingency of politics. This of course poses a challenge to feminist politics, which still operates mainly within the framework of the politics of representation. Nevertheless, Linda Zerilli’s approach, which interprets contingency in an Arendtian vein as the condition of the world-creating and world-building power of feminism as a practice of freedom may prove to be a productive way of approaching the challenging issue of contingency in feminist theory

In Search of a Post-Neoliberal Paradigm: The Brazilian Left and Lula's Government

2009 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Fortes
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Northeastern Brazil ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Hugo Chavez ◽  
Latin American Left ◽  
American Left

AbstractThe first decade of the twenty-first century has seen extraordinary political developments in the Latin American left. Indeed, there is no historical precedent for the simultaneous election across the region of governments that can be identified with the political left. From Tabaré Vasquez in Uruguay to Martín Torrijos in Panama; from Néstor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina to Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; from Michelle Bachelet in Chile to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela; from Evo Morales in Bolivia to Rafael Correa no Ecuador—as well as Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and, more recently, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay—representatives of practically all of the region's formative leftist currents have taken over the governments of large, medium, and small countries.This article takes Brazil under Lula's government as a case study in order to explore the relationship between the various dimensions of the region's lefts: the social and the institutional, civil society and the state, the national and the international, and stability and transformation. Indeed, the election to the presidency of a survivor of the extreme poverty and harsh droughts of northeastern Brazil, a one-time metalworker with little access to formal education, had a profound impact on both the country's social movements and the political party that he founded and led. By examining the hopes and frustrations, dilemmas, and accomplishments of Lula's government, we can better achieve a more dense and nuanced understanding of the larger historical process through which the Latin American Left has reached power.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and its effects in Latin America: social crisis, forced migration and hazy perspectives

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Erica Sarmiento ◽  
Rafael Araujo
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
American Government ◽  
The Press ◽  
The World

Latin America became one of the epicenters of the pandemic due to the Sars-Cov-2 virus. One of the serious problems faced by Latin American populations is forced migration, which, like everything that concerns vulnerable populations, has increased in the pandemic. The cases of Central America and Mexico, a country considered one of the largest human corridors in the world, reached unthinkable levels of human rights violations, demonstrate this. This article addresses, we will discuss the political and socioeconomic effects of the pandemic resulting from the Sars-Cov-2 virus (COVID-19) in Latin America. Likewise, we will present, through the press and the reports of civil society organizations, how, in the middle of the pandemic, the criminalization and blaming of migrants in the speeches of the American government agencies was accentuated.

Party Systems and Redistribution in Democratic Latin America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Mauro
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Over Time

A redistributive wave across Latin America provided credence to existing explanations that emphasize the importance of democracy and the political left for democratic redistribution. Yet, neither of these theories tells the entire story behind the contemporary politics of inequality in Latin America. This article stresses the importance of party systems for democratic redistribution, especially their role in increasing the scope of social policy as well as igniting competitive electoral environments that incentivize political elites to redistribute, leading to the amelioration of inequality over time. Utilizing a time-series cross-sectional dataset on fifteen Latin American countries covering the period of 1990–2015, and extending the analysis to sixty-five global democracies, this article finds that countries with institutionalized party systems exhibit greater income redistribution and lower levels of inequality than those with inchoate counterparts.

scholarly journals Wczesna poezja Wata i Miłosza – w kręgu myśli i symboliki gnostyckiej

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Barbara Sienkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Political ◽  
Czeslaw Milosz ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Political Left ◽  
European Civilization

Summary The interwar verse of Aleksander Wat and Czesław Miłosz provides us with ample proof that both poets came to share a pessimism about the future course of European civilization. That belief led them both to develop a sympathy with the political left and, at the same time, an interest in religion. The shift to the left, however, was arrested as soon it became clear to them that this worldview offered no solution to the problem of evil in the world. Nor were they satisfied with the traditional answer to the question unde malum? that could be found in European culture rooted in its Catholic heritage. Having reached that point both poets turned to Gnosticism, a system of thought to which the problem of metaphysical evil is absolutely central. It is that philosophy and its rich symbolism that supplied them with a number of motifs to express their vision of the decline and fall of civilization. The article traces and analyzes the Gnostic ideas, motifs, images and symbols that express and give shape to the pessimistic vision of both Wat and Miłosz. It also argues that their ‘iconoclastic’ attitude which manifests itself among others in polemical reinterpretations of Old Testament texts is a consequence of their fascination with the Gnostic worldview.

Environmental Education in Brazil and the Influence of Paulo Freire

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Reigota
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Freirean Pedagogy

In Brazil and around the world, the ideas of Paulo Freire have impacted the field of environmental education, at least since the 1970s. It is possible to observe and associate the influence of Paulo Freire, when environmental education emphasizes the political dimension of any and all pedagogic activity, as he so emphatically stated. Another central aspect of Freirean influence relates in particular to the objective that environmental education should make “participation” possible, as advocated by the first documents produced and disseminated by UNESCO. Although the topic of environmentalism, in its best-known sense and definition of the protection of nature and natural resources, was not initially at the core of his pedagogical thinking, a strong concern with the theme can be seen traversing his work in the 1990s. In this sense, the international academic institutionalization of environmental education and the support that this pedagogic and political movement received after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, was crucial for consolidation by means of public policies and projects elaborated by NGOs as well as by the theoretical production and curricular changes that took place in universities around the world, with different thematic priorities, theoretical and methodological focuses, and impact on the population and on the natural and social environment. Since 2009, especially in Brazil and other Latin American countries, dissertations and theses have leaned toward this production, identifying and analyzing the increase of Freirean pedagogy in connection with environmental education, defined as “the political education of citizens.” Political actions in everyday pedagogical practices for social and environmental justice, alongside various other rights (e.g., cultural), are urgent issues to address. The connections between environmental education and Freirean pedagogy have contemporized both, as they clarify the central arguments of Paulo Freire’s political and pedagogic thought, which reaffirmed throughout his extensive production that access to education is a universal right, and that it is by means of education (including the environmental dimension) that political processes for the construction of just, democratic, and sustainable societies are solidified.

Understanding the patterns of PPP renegotiations for infrastructure projects in Latin America

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 271-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimas de Castro e Silva Neto ◽  
Carlos Oliveira Cruz ◽  
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The World ◽  
State Region ◽  
Planning Concept

The increased use of public–private partnerships (PPPs) around the world to build infrastructures and provide public services has led to several concerns. One of the main pitfalls of PPPs is an abnormal frequency of renegotiations, especially renegotiations occurring during the first years of contract. The Latin American experience has been the most relevant in terms of research on PPP renegotiations. Using the literature on PPP renegotiations in the Latin American context, this article focuses on the analysis and discussion of renegotiations. We use the experience from Brazil, at the State (region) level, of PPPs and renegotiations. From 2006 to 2016, Brazil developed 42 PPP projects in several sectors. From these, 27 were renegotiated at least once. We found a high number of renegotiations within a short period since the start of the contract for the first renegotiation to occur. The motives for renegotiations are mainly perceived from the public sector, particularly failure in planning, concept, and bidding. Electoral periods and the political connections of shareholders also have an impact on renegotiations. Based on the Brazilian experience, we drawn some policy implications.

Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Contemporary State ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Background Material ◽  
General Guide

Are constitutional democracies around the world really experiencing a global crisis? Constitutional Democracies in Crisis? asks whether the apparent weakening of many constitutional democracies around the world is simply part of the normal ebb and flow of constitutional democracy, or whether complaints about the present state of constitutional democracy are largely from people on the political left upset to learn that many of their compatriots do not share their values on such matters as immigration, globalization, and the environment. The contributions include background material on the nature of constitutional crises, essays on the state of constitutional democracy in specific regimes or regions, essays on the influence of such global forces as climate change, religious fundamentalism, terrorism, economic inequality, globalization, immigration, populism, and racism/ethnocentrism, and observations about the contemporary state of constitutional democracy. The book provides a general guide to the state of constitutional democracy during the second decade of the twentieth century that should be useful for scholars, students, and general readers, providing frameworks and information for assessing the contemporary state of constitutional democracy. Finally, the essays diagnose the causes of the present afflictions of constitutional democracies in particular regimes, regions, and across the globe.

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