Emancipatory societal projects for Latin America: a critical commitment for the reconceptualisation of Social Work at Universidad Católica de Valparaíso School of Social Work

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leticia Arancibia Martínez ◽  
Gloria Cáceres Julio
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Third World ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Catholic University ◽  
School Of Social Work ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Developmental Policies ◽  
Popular Unity

This article analyses the reconceptualisation movement of social work in Chile from mid-1960 to 1973 that impacted on universities, which, in turn, participated in theoretical and political discussions through Latin America during that time. The article has been prepared from the perspective of the project of the School of Social Work at the Catholic University of Valparaíso as an experience that merged the theoretical discussions around radical questioning and professional change. It covers the period from the ‘developmental policies’ in the geopolitical context of the Cold War, when occidental powers competed to extend their influence over Third World countries, to the transition process to socialism during the Popular Unity Government in Chile.

Surveying the Revolutionary Arc

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-325
Author(s):  
Guy Laron
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Third World ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Population ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War

In the last decade, influenced by current economic trends, Cold War historians have made an effort to de-center the story of the Cold War. They have shifted their gaze from the center of the conflict—the face-offs in Europe between the Soviet Union and the United States—and cast an observing eye on the Third World. Unlike many Middle East historians who seek to understand the Middle East in terms of its unique cultures, languages, and religions, Cold War historians treat that area as part of a revolutionary arc that stretched from the jungles of Latin America to the jungles of Vietnam. Rather than emphasizing the region's singularity, they focus on the themes that united guerilla fighters in the West Bank and the Makong Delta as well as leaders from Havana to Damascus: anticolonial and anti-imperial struggles, the yearning for self-definition, and the fight against what Third World revolutionaries perceived as economic exploitation. The sudden interest in what was considered, until recently, the periphery of the Cold War has undoubtedly been fueled by the zeitgeist of a new century in which the so-called peripheral regions are set to become more dominant economically. Southeast and Southwest Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East have a surplus of young skilled workers who are increasingly in demand by the global economy as the growth of world population slows and more prosperous countries in West Europe and North America are graying fast. The Third World consists today of the very regions where most of the economic growth in coming decades will take place. Dependency theory has gone topsy-turvy: leading economists now look with hope at countries such as China, India, Turkey, and Egypt and expect them to become the new engines of global growth. It is not surprising, then, that historians are now taking a stronger interest in the tangled history of the Cold War in the Third World and discovering the agency that these countries always had.

From global to local and back: the ‘Third World’ concept and the new radical left in France

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kalter
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Third World ◽  
Global Dynamics ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
World Concept ◽  
Radical Left

AbstractIn the second half of the twentieth century, the transnational ‘Third World’ concept defined how people all over the globe perceived the world. This article explains the concept’s extraordinary traction by looking at the interplay of local uses and global contexts through which it emerged. Focusing on the particularly relevant setting of France, it examines the term’s invention in the context of the Cold War, development thinking, and decolonization. It then analyses the reviewPartisans(founded in 1961), which galvanized a new radical left in France and provided a platform for a communication about, but also with, the Third World. Finally, it shows how the association Cedetim (founded in 1967) addressed migrant workers in France as ‘the Third World at home’. In tracing the Third World’s local–global dynamics, this article suggests a praxis-oriented approach that goes beyond famous thinkers and texts and incorporates ‘lesser’ intellectuals and non-textual aspects into a global conceptual history in action.

Costa Rica in 1948: Cold War or Local War?

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Olander
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Costa Rica ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Costa Rican ◽  
Panama Canal Zone ◽  
First Case ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The years following World War Two produced a strong resurgence of U.S. intervention in Central America and the Caribbean couched in Cold War terms. Although the U.S. intervention in Guatemala to overthrow the government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 has generally been seen as the first case of Cold War covert anti-Communist intervention in Latin America, several scholars have raised questions about U.S. involvement in a 1948 Costa Rican civil war in which Communism played a critical role. In a 1993 article in The Americas, Kyle Longley argued that “the U.S. response to the Costa Rican Revolution of 1948, not the Guatemalan affair, marked the origins of the Cold War in Latin America.” The U.S. “actively interfered,” and achieved “comparable results in Costa Rica as in Guatemala: the removal of a perceived Communist threat.” Other authors have argued, even, that the U.S. had prepared an invasion force in the Panama Canal Zone to pacify the country. The fifty years of Cold War anti-Communism entitles one to be skeptical of U.S. non-intervention in a Central American conflict involving Communism. Costa Ricans, aware of a long tradition of U.S. intervention in the region, also assumed that the U.S. would intervene. Most, if not all, were expecting intervention and one key government figure described U.S. pressure as like “the air, which is felt, even if it cannot be seen.” Yet, historians must do more than just “feel” intervention. Subsequent Cold War intervention may make it difficult to appraise the 1948 events in Costa Rica objectively. Statements like Longley's that “it is hard to believe that in early 1948 … Washington would not favor policies that ensured the removal of the [Communist Party] Vanguard,” although logical, do not coincide with the facts of the U.S. role in the conflict.

Sweden, Europe, and the Cold War: A Reappraisal

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryo Makko
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Traditionally, Sweden has been portrayed as an active bridge-builder in international politics in the 1960s and 1970s. The country advocated a “third way” toward democratic socialism and greater “justice” in international affairs, but these foreign policy prescriptions were never applied to European affairs. This article examines Sweden's relations with Europe by contrasting European integration with the Cold War. Negotiations on Swedish membership in the European Communities and Swedish policy at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe were influenced by a general Berührungsangst toward Europe, which persisted during the years of détente. Because Swedish decision-makers believed that heavy involvement in European affairs would constrict Sweden's freedom of action, Swedish leaders' moral proclamations were applied exclusively to distant Third World countries rather than the egregious abuses of human rights in the Soviet bloc.

Rethinking the Middle East and North Africa in the Cold War

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-319
Author(s):  
Paul Thomas Chamberlin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Third World ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Transnational Connections ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold War History

The new Cold War history has begun to reshape the ways that international historians approach the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) during the post-1945 era. Rather than treating the region as exceptional, a number of scholars have sought to focus on the historical continuities and transnational connections between the Middle East and other areas of the Third World. This approach is based on the notion that the MENA region was enmeshed in the transnational webs of communication and exchange that characterized the post-1945 global system. Indeed, the region sat not only at the crossroads between Africa and the Eurasian landmass but also at the convergence of key global historical movements of the second half of the 20th century. Without denying cultural, social, and political elements that are indeed unique to the region, this scholarship has drawn attention to the continuities, connections, and parallels between the Middle Eastern experience and the wider world.

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