An Argentine Social Movement

This chapter will focus on the reclaimed Bauen hotel as one of the pioneering manifestations of the SSE in Argentina, as an example of the post-crisis social and solidarity movement of 2001. The evolution of the events related to its establishment will be traced, highlighting some of its particularities. It will also provide a vision of what the SSE represents in Latin America. The question that arises from the study of the Bauen hotel is: Is the solidarity economy presented in the particular case of the Bauen workers a social movement that fights against the government for its rights?

Social Movements Taking Place in the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico

This idea compels the authors, at least, to take a quick look, with limitations by the length of the text, to some of the manifestations of the crisis situation prevailing in the country during the period of imposition of the neoliberal pattern of capital accumulation and to the essential features and the contradictions that it has printed to the great metropolis and national capital. From this outline, in the central part of this work, they analyze the specific characteristics of the social movements and the actions that they have developed in the metropolis, between 2011 and 2018, registered in the Laboratory of Urban Conflicts of the Autonomous Metropolitan University, Unit Xochimilco.

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

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.

Fascism or Illusionism of Capitalist Dominance in Brazil?

This chapter aims to debate the pertinence of fascism as a concept for analyzing the recent socio-political situation in Brazil. It confronts the fact that there has been, in the last few years, a rise of politicians and movements that seem to reproduce elements typical of fascism: a tendency towards authoritarianism, leadership strength, the decimation of minorities, and a hatred towards the left and differences in general. Confronting the emergence of these phenomena, the chapter will examine certain facts, tendencies, and social classes in contemporary Brazil. The particularities of the political system of domination in dependent capitalism will be highlighted. The power and exploitation structure of dependent capitalism presents significant obstacles for the emergence of a minimally cohesive fascist movement. The country has, however, a repressive and political structure that is not very democratic.

Outline of Border Relations Between Mexico and the United States

This chapter bases its premise on the fact that US foreign policy becomes a reality with certain areas of opportunity, dictated from the presidency, as it promotes unilateral policies focusing on migration from Mexico, securitization and militarization of the border, and the development of an economic strategy. Unfortunately, this defense of interests unilaterally has caused border states and municipalities to set their own objectives, development plans, and border and binational diplomacy and policy decisions and strategies.

Gender and Ethnic Identities Against Neoliberalism in Bolivia

This chapter will address the relevance of social movements as promoters of change in Latin America since the crisis of neoliberalism. The case of Bolivia will be studied specifically, since it is a country that has gone through one of the most remarkable political and social transformation processes in the region. Indigenous-peasant social movements alongwith Bolivian trade unions have opposed to the neoliberal policies applied in their country for more than four decades, to dictatorial governments, to the interference of external powers, and they have mainly claimed for their ethnic and class identity. In this context, the National Confederation of Indigenous Peasant Women of Bolivia - Bartolina Sisa (CNMCIOB-BS) was founded in 1980 within the Central Union of Peasant Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB).

“Just Listen to What the Panthers Are Saying”

Within the American Black Movement, the Black Panther Party (BPP) became the most prominent and influential organization of the 1960s and 1970s. The movement initiated in Oakland (California) and captured the attention of politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and scholars. From a documentary corpus that shows its protagonists' perspective, this chapter aims to focus on the actions, goals, and development of the Black Panthers: what they did, how and why they did it, and what they represented to the Black freedom struggle. It offers an analysis of their tactics and strategies of struggle against police brutality, poor housing and living conditions, unemployment, poverty, and structural racism. The authors aim to show how the BPP went from being a local grassroots organization to a national and highly popular political party for collective action, much more complex and influential than what the collective memory and the dominant historiography have shown.

The Unarmed Left Against Third Peronism (1973-1976)

This chapter tackles the junction between these two phenomena: the growth of the Argentine left and the politics of the third Peronism in the 1970s in Argentina. The authors study the positioning of the first actor against the measures of the second. To this end, they examine two political parties from two opposite traditions within Marxism: the Communist Party (CP), formed in the Stalinist tradition, and the Socialist Workers Party (PST), part of Argentine Trotskyism. These are, in both cases, organizations that did not bet on the deployment of forms of armed struggle and thus have been relegated by the historiography. Indeed, the main contributions to the study of the left were concentrated in the main political-military organizations: Montoneros.

Violence and Politicization in Argentina in the 1970s

From the late 1960s throughout the 1970s, Argentina saw the rise and demise of more than a dozen guerrilla organizations. Were they the result of the weakeness of Argentine democracy? Or rather, were they themselves a form of political radicalization that arose by linking left politics with a worker culture of struggle and feelings of oppression? If the latter, political violence became a way to express demands and as such a type of democratic practice by the underclass. This chapter examines a specific guerrilla organization, the PRT-ERP, by seeking to answer who were its members, why did they join such a group, what they believed. The sources for this research include both documents and extensive interviews with members of the guerrilla.

“Ousar Lutar, Ousar Vencer”

The 1959 Cuban Revolution had intense and long-lasting repercussions in Brazil. To highlight this, it is worth mentioning two recent events that occurred exactly 60 years after that revolutionary triumph: first, the release of the movie Marighella, directed by Wagner Moura, based on the life of the writer and former congressman of the Brazilian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Brasileiro, PCB) Carlos Marighella (1911-1969); second, the speech delivered by President Jair Messias Bolsonaro at the opening of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, with abundant distribution of insults to the Cuban government.