scholarly journals “¡Se Va a Caer, Se Va a Caer!” (It´s Going to Fall, It´s Going to Fall!): The Power of Marxist Feminism for a Political Critique of Patriarchal Capitalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Fidel Azarian
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Political Critique

In this paper, we are interested in recovering some current reflections on the possible articulations between marxism and feminism: on one hand, from the theoretical concern for the particular forms of exploitation of women and the LGTBQ comunity within the frame of a neoliberal global hegemony that acquires a new intensity in Latin America, on the other, from the political commitment to the feminisms and activisms of sex-gender dissidence, social movements that in recent times have achieved a surprising political and social mobilization, articulating diverse demands and heterogeneous resistance practices, constituting a powerful laboratory of political experimentation. While these political and intellectual strategies could be read as particular, scattered, fragmentary or discontinuous criticisms, their power lies in their ability to update and articulate historical content and marginalized political languages, disqualified, discarded by the neoliberal-neoconservative hegemony. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and put into discussion these practices of resistance -its legacies and challenges-, not only from the political creativity that they bring to the scene, but also from their constitutive heterogeneity. Our proposal seeks to recover the diversity and complexity of political languages, politicizing ways of subjectivation, emancipatory imaginaries and resistance practices of feminist activism and sex-gender dissidence that have multiplied in Argentina in recent times.

Social Movements and Territorial Dynamics in Argentina and Latin America (1980-2018)

2020 ◽  
pp. 129-160
Author(s):  
Pablo Vommaro
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relevant Element

Over the last few decades, Argentina and Latin America have undergone significant processes of social unrest and mobilization. Within the larger context of the various movements and dimensions where social mobilization unfolds, the territory has emerged as an increasingly relevant element for the interpretation of its dynamics, continuities, and transformations. Indeed, the spatialization of political production, which accompanied the processes of spatialization of production and the social life, caused a politicization of space that shaped the territory. Thus, processes developed whereby space becomes politicized and politics becomes territorialized. These features have shaped organizations and demonstrations often led by young people, which has given rise to territorially situated, generational political forms.

Latin America, a Continent in Movement but Where To? A Review of Social Movements' Studies in the Region

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 535-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Inclán
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
The Future ◽  
Empirical Implications

This article offers a review of the most salient studies on Latin American social movements published in the last 25 years. It not only assesses the questions and empirical implications that these studies have uncovered, but it also points out theoretical and empirical puzzles that are currently investigated or are yet to be examined. In doing so, this article reviews two type of studies: those that in the author's opinion cover the most salient movements in the region and those that offer us most promising propositions for the development of the subfield in the future. With this review, the author hopes to open the debate and help include Latin American social movements within the systematic study of comparative social mobilization in sociology and comparative politics.

scholarly journals When the Body Speaks (to) the Political: Feminist Activism in Latin America and the Quest for Alternative Democratic Futures

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natália Maria Félix de Souza
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Political Function ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Feminist Movements

Abstract The article claims that the feminist movements emerging in the context of contemporary Latin American political struggles – such as Ni Una Menos – allow for a re-conceptualisation of the political, along with its subjects and objects. The uniqueness of these movements is predicated on the way they managed to link the ordinary killings of women’s bodies to the extraordinary alliances between different social movements. A closer inspection into these ongoing experiences that mobilise different, rhizomatic arenas of political entanglements – such as the internet and the streets – allows us to see how Latin American feminist attachments and movements can redefine democratic practices and build different forms of community. By resisting what is perceived as ‘a war against women in Latin America,’ these movements allow for understanding the operation of a gendered necropolitics, which ties women’s death with the ultimate functioning of modern politics and modern subjectivities. In doing so, they politicise not only the lives (and therefore voices) of women who are struggling in/for the political, but also the deaths (and therefore silences) on which the political has been built. Furthermore, by politicising the role of the body in the political and ethical arena, these movements open our political imaginaries to the possibilities of new attachments, filiations and articulations that are not subsumed under abstract universal categories and values, nor limited to identitarian and thus legalistic affirmations of the political. Following these arguments, I argue that contemporary feminist articulations in Latin America productively dispute the validity of the abstract, universal, modern ‘human’ to think alternative political futures. By politicising materiality and embodiment alongside language and discourse as productive of political ontologies, feminists open the space for reclaiming the political function of the female body.

scholarly journals Life stories and formation of subordinate subjectivity. Note on social research in Italy by Danilo Montaldi

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Silvano Calvetto
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pedagogical Aspect ◽  
The One

The social research performed by Danilo Montaldi (1929-1975) represented an interpretation of great interest in understanding the transformations of neo-capitalism between the 1950’s and 1960’s. In the ambit of a very critical militancy towards the traditional forms of political participation, his attention to subordinates is marked, in our view, by a significant pedagogical aspect. On the one hand, in fact, he focuses on the political and social processes through which subordinate subjectivity is formed, with particular regard to the role played by the institutions, while on the other hand, he examines strategies with regard to his own emancipation from that condition of oppression, based on the idea of education intended as liberation. Where the educational commitment and political commitment merge in the same project of reconstruction of society, looking beyond the drifts of neocapitalism in view of a world capable of recognizing the rights of all respecting each other’s differences. This, as has been observed by several commentators, seems to be the most significant legacy of Danilo Montaldi’s intellectual commitment.

Indigenous Political Representation in Latin America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Rice
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Indigenous Movements

Indigenous peoples have become important social and political actors in contemporary Latin America. The politicization of ethnic identities in the region has divided analysts into those who view it as a threat to democratic stability versus those who welcome it as an opportunity to improve the quality of democracy. Throughout much of Latin America’s history, Indigenous peoples’ demands have been oppressed, ignored, and silenced. Latin American states did not just exclude Indigenous peoples’ interests; they were built in opposition to or even against them. The shift to democracy in the 1980s presented Indigenous groups with a dilemma: to participate in elections and submit themselves to the rules of a largely alien political system that had long served as an instrument of their domination or seek a measure of representation through social movements while putting pressure on the political system from the outside. In a handful of countries, most notably Bolivia and Ecuador, Indigenous movements have successfully overcome this tension by forming their own political parties and contesting elections on their own terms. The emergence of Indigenous peoples’ movements and parties has opened up new spaces for collective action and transformed the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state. Indigenous movements have reinvigorated Latin America’s democracies. The political exclusion of Indigenous peoples, especially in countries with substantial Indigenous populations, has undoubtedly contributed to the weakness of party systems and the lack of accountability, representation, and responsiveness of democracies in the region. In Bolivia, the election of the country’s first Indigenous president, Evo Morales (2006–present) of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS) party, has resulted in new forms of political participation that are, at least in part, inspired by Indigenous traditions. A principal consequence of the broadening of the democratic process is that Indigenous activists are no longer forced to choose between party politics and social movements. Instead, participatory mechanisms allow civil society actors and their organizations to increasingly become a part of the state. New forms of civil society participation such as Indigenous self-rule broaden and deepen democracy by making it more inclusive and government more responsive and representative. Indigenous political representation is democratizing democracy in the region by pushing the limits of representative democracy in some of the most challenging socio-economic and institutional environments.

scholarly journals The Incorporation of Social Organizations under the MAS in Bolivia

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
Angus McNelly
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
Social Bases ◽  
The Government ◽  
America Latina ◽  
Movimientos Sociales

By drawing on the theoretical framework of the second incorporation of heterogeneous social organizations by progressive governments through informal contestation and/or technocratic implementation of their demands in Latin America, this article argues that the first presidential term of Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006–2009) was marked by the incorporation of combative social movements through both a multidimensional co-optation of movements and the technocratic competition of the central movement demands for the nationalization of gas and the rewriting of the constitution through a constituent assembly. However, by 2010, this incorporation had stripped social movements of their ability to mobilize for change and the political conjuncture had shifted, making the government less dependent on its social bases to maintain political stability. This simultaneously transformed movements into defensive movements protecting the gains from the previous period and state–social-movement relations into informal contestatory regimes in which movements could only struggle against proposed political agendas. En base a un marco teórico que abarca la segunda incorporación de organizaciones sociales heterogéneas por parte de gobiernos progresistas a través de la contestación informal y/o la implementación tecnocrática de sus demandas en América Latina, un análisis del proyecto político de Evo Morales en Bolivia sostiene que su primer mandato presidencial se vio caracterizado por la incorporación de movimientos sociales combativos a través de una cooptación multidimensional de dichos movimientos y la competencia tecnocrática de las demandas del movimiento central en torno a la nacionalización del gas y la modificación de la constitución por una asamblea constituyente. Sin embargo, para 2010, esta incorporación había despojado a los movimientos sociales de su capacidad de movilizarse a favor del cambio y la coyuntura política había cambiado, haciendo que el gobierno dependiera menos de sus bases sociales para mantener la estabilidad política. Esto transformó a los movimientos en entidades defensivas dedicadas a proteger las ganancias del período anterior y las relaciones entre el estado y los movimientos sociales en regímenes informales de impugnación dentro de los cuales los movimientos mismos sólo podían luchar contra las agendas políticas propuestas.

Democracy and representation

2019 ◽  
pp. 104-118
Author(s):  
Claude Lefort
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Claude Lefort ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Sciences Sociales

This chapter presents the first English translation of an essay that was originally presented in 1989 by Claude Lefort at the Colloquium on Latin America, sponsored by the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), organized by Daniel Pécault. In this essay, Lefort affirms his important thesis regarding the disembodiment of power in representative democracy and begins to elaborate institutional conditions for its modern practice. He emphasizes that representation must be supported by independent political organizing by social movements and dissenting groups within institutions such as labor unions, schools, and hospitals. He also emphasizes the importance of participation, understood distinctively neither as voting nor as taking to the streets but as a feature of political judgment that he terms a “capacity to understand the political game,” a feature that he considers to be lacking where there exist great divides between elite political actors as mass publics.

Byron’s Opposition

2019 ◽  
pp. 229-263
Author(s):  
John Owen Havard
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Literature And Politics ◽  
Political World ◽  
Political Critique ◽  
The One ◽  
English Politics ◽  
George Iii

This chapter examines Byron’s poetry in relation to his continuing attachment to an oppositional ‘party’ role, on the one hand, and his cultivated detachment from English politics, on the other. Byron wrote The Vision of Judgment, his 1821 riposte to Robert Southey’s Tory celebration of the reign of George III, from what he described as a ‘Whig point of view’. Rather than aligning with the ‘devil’s party’ of a Satanic opposition or cultivating a checked-out, bemused, indifferent stance, that poem—in common with Byron’s late satirical poetry more widely—established a stance at once of crisp detachment and incipient political critique (one that, in consigning the political world left undone by George III to oblivion, looked back to preceding decades of oppositional dynamism). Byron thereby provides a test-case for this book’s wider arguments about the relationships between literature and politics—and more specifically between partisanship and disaffection—bringing into focus the contours of a combative, snarling ‘cynicism’ and ways of seeing beyond politics altogether.

scholarly journals Progress towards eliminating canine rabies: policies and perspectives from Latin America and the Caribbean

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1623) ◽  
pp. 20120143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Antonio Natal Vigilato ◽  
Alfonso Clavijo ◽  
Terezinha Knobl ◽  
Hugo Marcelo Tamayo Silva ◽  
Ottorino Cosivi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Disease Diagnosis ◽  
Human Rabies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Post Exposure Prophylaxis ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Canine Rabies ◽  
Rabies Control ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Health Organization

Human rabies transmitted by dogs is considered a neglected disease that can be eliminated in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by 2015. The aim of this paper is to discuss canine rabies policies and projections for LAC regarding current strategies for achieving this target and to critically review the political, economic and geographical factors related to the successful elimination of this deadly disease in the context of the difficulties and challenges of the region. The strong political and technical commitment to control rabies in LAC in the 1980s, started with the regional programme coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization. National and subnational programmes involve a range of strategies including mass canine vaccination with more than 51 million doses of canine vaccine produced annually, pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, improvements in disease diagnosis and intensive surveillance. Rabies incidence in LAC has dramatically declined over the last few decades, with laboratory confirmed dog rabies cases decreasing from approximately 25 000 in 1980 to less than 300 in 2010. Dog-transmitted human rabies cases also decreased from 350 to less than 10 during the same period. Several countries have been declared free of human cases of dog-transmitted rabies, and from the 35 countries in the Americas, there is now only notification of human rabies transmitted by dogs in seven countries (Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and some states in north and northeast Brazil). Here, we emphasize the importance of the political commitment in the final progression towards disease elimination. The availability of strategies for rabies control, the experience of most countries in the region and the historical ties of solidarity between countries with the support of the scientific community are evidence to affirm that the elimination of dog-transmitted rabies can be achieved in the short term. The final efforts to confront the remaining obstacles, like achieving and sustaining high vaccination coverage in communities that are most impoverished or in remote locations, are faced by countries that struggle to allocate sufficient financial and human resources for rabies control. Continent-wide cooperation is therefore required in the final efforts to secure the free status of remaining countries in the Americas, which is key to the regional elimination of human rabies transmitted by dogs.

Riot, Strike, Commune: Gendering a Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-131
Author(s):  
Joshua Clover
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil War ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intentional Community ◽  
Political Sovereignty

AbstractThis article departs from Joshua Clover’s historical and theoretical schema that locates riots and strikes within the categories of circulation and production struggles, moving from the categories of capital’s reproduction to the reproduction of the proletariat. Here it offers the commune as the exemplary form of the category of reproduction struggle. The commune is understood not as an intentional community of withdrawal but as something like counter-reproduction, able not just to reproduce itself but to strike at capital as an antagonistic force — striking at the vital exposure of an increasingly circulation-centered capitalism. Crucial examples are encampments against extractive capital such as Standing Rock or the ZAD. The article shows how political sovereignty and economic circulation are entirely entangled, pointing to the ways that social movements have looked upon them as separate domains. Therefore, the commune is a process at the crux of the political and the economic, overcoming the tendency to prefer one or the other. Finally, the article discusses the gendered aspect of the sphere of reproduction that makes possible the double confrontation of counter-reproduction.

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