This article explores the mechanics of institution building through a case study of Peru’s tax authority reform in the early 1990s. An agency riddled with corruption and despondency became a model bureaucracy oriented toward public service under the leadership of a career civil servant with a religious background. The explanation combines systemic factors associated with institutional change with other, less well-known forces. The profound socioeconomic crisis that had struck Peru at the time opened a window for reform. More significantly, the analysis focuses on the struggle to supplant old and enforce new institutional values. Management policy played a role by fostering a predisposed workforce. However, it was the charismatic performance of the reform leader and his task force, articulated around a nation-saving narrative, that instilled the belief that change was possible, encouraged employees to embrace new values, and paradoxically enabled the creation of an agency with a Weberian ethos. Subsequent developments hint at the limits of charismatic state building.

La labor periodística de Francisco Castañeda reconoce antecedentes formales tanto con los espectadores de la prensa moral europea, como con ciertas estrategias de la prensa porteña. Sus colaboraciones en los periódicos de Antonio Valdés permiten identificar un proceso de intervención en lo público signado por la sátira y la ficción que se desarrolla de manera progresiva a lo largo de la década de 1810. Su actuación en la prensa alcanza su máxima expresión en el período entre 1820 y 1823, con una producción propia en la que se destaca el lugar central de la ficción como modo de comprender la realidad política, la sátira como herramienta pedagógica y el montaje de fragmentos como método de resignificación crítica tanto de los textos como de la realidad.

This article examines the social and political impacts of President Nayib Bukele’s 2023 opening of a megaprison in El Salvador by analyzing his government-funded international public relations campaign. We chronicle how the design of the prison, along with policies for arresting, detaining, and prosecuting Salvadorans for alleged gang-related crimes, offers a mirage of transparency that obstructs the visibility needed to protect the human rights of Salvadorans. Our analysis places empirical accounts of conditions in El Salvador in conversation with the largely Twitter/X-based public relations campaign announcing the new prison. We show how the campaign works to justify an alarming degradation of democratic principles and practices during the current régimen de excepción (state of exception). Bukele rationalizes an iron-fist-style approach to gang violence while simultaneously silencing political opposition and obfuscating the expanding scope of state human rights violations. We argue that the trade-offs being made in El Salvador between increased safety for some and human rights violations for others ultimately contribute to the corrosion of democracy. Moreover, we discuss how Bukele’s tough-on-crime populism simultaneously produces and exports an “authoritarian playbook” for wider regional democratic erosion in line with Bukele’s model.

Indigenous peoples belong to the most underprivileged groups worldwide. To address this situation, countries in Latin America and beyond increasingly recognize Indigenous rights constitutionally. However, these constitutional rights are not implemented equally everywhere. This could relate to the corresponding ordinary law—or lack thereof. Here I ask, under which conditions are Indigenous peoples represented in ordinary legislation? To answer this question, I collected the original INDILEX dataset on the status of Indigenous peoples and their rights in the legislation of sixteen Latin American countries (1979–2018). Building on the political representation literature, I contrast descriptive representation with political allies, social movements, and favorable context factors as determinants of the substantive representation of Indigenous peoples. The analysis shows that leftist presidents and a broad constitutional mandate are key predictors of Indigenous rights legislation. The role of Indigenous civil society and democracy depends on the time frame and operationalization choice.

The present article focuses on a place-based repertoire of contention known as Punto de Encuentro, designed to defend a rural-urban territory against racialized processes of economic globalization and armed conflicts in Colombia. The article suggests that citizenship becomes meaningful when Afro-Colombians exercise their rights to their territories. To support this argument, the article delves into the 2017 civic strike mobilizations that reclaimed the city space of Buenaventura as a territory of life where Afro-Colombians can live with dignity and in peace. As the article describes, the civic strike activists created four crucial social participation processes: the crafting of a social movement, the production of a place-based knowledge from past struggles, the construction of a common ethical and political framework, and Puntos de Encuentro as places of social and cultural resistance.

This article examines the adverse impact of the La Niña phenomenon in Argentina from 1988 to 1989 on the country’s economy, which led to a profound crisis. The severe drought significantly affected agricultural exports, exacerbating poverty and inflation. The resulting economic downturn was triggered in part by the drought and precipitated a political crisis, ultimately resulting in the resignation of President Alfonsín and paving the way for the election of Carlos Menem as Argentina’s president. This study sheds light on the intricate interplay between climatic events, economic performance, and political dynamics, highlighting the vulnerability of countries heavily reliant on agriculture and emphasizing the need for comprehensive strategies to mitigate the socioeconomic consequences of natural disasters.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti. By Brandon Byrd. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020. Pp. xi + 297. $99.95 hardcover, $34.95 paperback, $34.95 ebook. ISBN: 9780812225198

The Haitians: A Decolonial History. By Jean Casimir, translated by Laurent Dubois. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xxix + 419. $99.00 hardcover, $41.95 paperback, $26.99 ebook. ISBN: 9781469660486

You Can Cross the Massacre on Foot. By Freddy Castillo, translated by Margaret Randall. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 176. $119.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback, $29.95 ebook. ISBN: 9781478003830

Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean. By Laurent Dubois and Richard L. Turits. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. 395. $29.95 paperback, $19.99 ebook. ISBN: 9781469653600

A Secret among the Blacks: Slave Resistance Before the Haitian Revolution. By John D. Garrigus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023. Pp. 236. $39.95 hardcover, $31.16 ebook. ISBN: 9780674272828

White Gloves, Black Nation: Women, Citizenship, and Political Wayfaring in Haiti. By Grace S. Johnson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Pp. xi + 316. $99.00 hardcover, $29.95 paperback, $22.99 ebook. ISBN: 9781469673684

Transnational Hispaniola: New Directions in Haitian and Dominican Studies. Edited by April J. Mayes and Kiran C. Jayaram. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2018. Pp. 273. $89.95 hardcover, $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781683400387

Haiti’s Paper War: Post-Independence Writing, Civil War, and the Making of the Republic, 1804–1954. By Chelsea Stieber. New York: NYU Press, 2020. Pp. xi + 367. $99.00 hardcover, $32.00 paperback, $32.00 ebook. ISBN: 9781479802159

In this article, we argue that Brazilian tan lines constitute a new site of race and class struggle on and over women’s bodies. Popular in Rio’s socially and geographically marginalized periphery, fita (electrical tape) bikinis leave sharp and shocking tan lines that call attention to the contrast between lighter and darker skin. Brazil’s funk music sensation Anitta brings this aesthetic practice to the global stage as part of her brand, disrupting hegemonic beauty norms and attracting attention for herself and her fans. Through the public display of their bronzed sensuality, Brazilian women accrue “visibility capital” as they create new forms of bodily value and self-esteem in what we call a look economy. While global beauty hierarchies continue to promote and glorify whiteness, Anitta and fita tanners simultaneously turn heads (in person), attract eyeballs (online), and lay claim to the right to represent Brazil.

This article analyzes structures of feeling among the generation of trauma carriers who grew up under Pinochet’s dictatorship. Drawing on interviews with thirty-seven cultural producers (including filmmakers, novelists, visual artists, and memory activists), we shed light on the generational memory work involved in processing cultural trauma, emphasizing the emotional force behind memory transmission in postconflict societies dealing with legacies of terror. Drawing on Raymond Williams’s notion of structures of feeling, we explore how the generational memory of children during Pinochet’s dictatorship is shaped by melancholic intergenerational identification with past struggles. This intergenerational bond is characterized by melancholic affect in representing the previous generation, which is rooted in experiences of state violence and resistance and plays a key role in processing historical trauma and shaping contemporary social critique in postconflict Chile.

Los estudios sobre las acciones colectivas de las trabajadoras sexuales se han centrado principalmente en la esfera pública, abordando procesos de organización sindical, movimientos sociales y articulación de redes para la reivindicación de sus derechos. Sin embargo, han prestado escasa atención a las acciones que les permiten sobrellevar los agravios en su contexto laboral. Este estudio tiene como objetivo comprender las acciones colectivas cotidianas de protesta de las trabajadoras sexuales en entornos laborales estigmatizados por la norma de género. Para ello, realizamos una etnografía etnometodológica feminista durante dieciocho meses en el norte de Chile, donde observamos diversos escenarios del trabajo sexual y realizamos dieciocho entrevistas en profundidad. Concluimos que las trabajadoras sexuales producen acciones colectivas de protesta situadas y efímeras, mediante las cuales buscan restituir, aunque precariamente, el equilibrio de poder en sus escenarios laborales, y que relegan la posibilidad de impugnar directamente el orden social debido al costo que significaría en sus vidas.

Este texto tiene un carácter exploratorio a partir de la experiencia etnográfica del levantamiento indígena y popular que paralizó Ecuador en el mes de junio de 2022. Con epicentro en Quito, la capital del país, dicha movilización fue la más larga de todas las que ha protagonizado el movimiento indígena ecuatoriano desde la década de 1990. El artículo reflexiona sobre las características de esta última protesta; señala sus diferencias con respecto a las movilizaciones de los años noventa y de los primeros años de este siglo XXI; y plantea algunas hipótesis sobre la nueva generación de líderes que están al frente de la organización indígena más importante del país, la CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador). El argumento principal que se explora es que la adopción de discursos y repertorios de protesta más orientados hacia una dimensión clasista que hacia una puramente etnoidentitaria ha sido la clave en la mayor capacidad de convocatoria del movimiento. Esto se reflejó en el masivo respaldo al llamado de la CONAIE contra las medidas neoliberales adoptadas por el Gobierno nacional.

This essay reviews the following works:

Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms. Edited by Tom Angotti. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017. Pp. 306. $37.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781442274488.

Urbanización y revolución en América Latina: Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires y Ciudad de México (1950-1980). By Óscar Calvo Isaza. Mexico City: El Colegio de México and Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2023. Pp. 398. $13.00 paperback. ISBN: 9786075644189.

Monstrous Politics: Geography, Rights, and the Urban Revolution in Mexico City. By Ben A. Gerlofs. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2023. Pp. xiv + 262. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826504777.

La ciudad latinoamericana: Una figura de la imaginación social del siglo XX. By Adrián Gorelik. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2022. Pp. 424. $55.82 hardcover, $7.99 ebook. ISBN: 9789878011370.

Representing the Barrios: Culture, Politics, and Urban Poverty in Twentieth-Century Caracas. By Rebecca Jarman. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023. Pp. xvii + 352. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822947653.

Reclaiming the Discarded: Life and Labor on Rio’s Garbage Dump. By Kathleen M. Millar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Pp ix + 248. $24.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822370505.

Historia de las villas en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. By Valeria Snitcofsky. Buenos Aires: Tejido Urbano, 2021. Pp. 326. Open-access ebook. ISBN: 9789873779541.

The relationship between Zapatismo and women’s liberation has sparked heated debates between academics and activists alike. Although the Zapatistas’ official communiqués have promoted gender parity, criticism has been aimed at Zapatista fiction for accentuating gender stereotypes and for contradictions regarding women’s rights. This article discusses the children’s books Habrá una vez (2016) and Hablar colores (2018), encountered during archival and ethnographic research in Zapatista territory, and examines how “Zapafiction” embraces contradiction as constructive revolutionary politics. The children’s books analyzed here depict ecofeminist characters, including Defensa Zapatista (an approximately eight-year-old schoolgirl), Gato-Perro (a cat-dog symbolizing nonbinary identities), a disabled horse, and Loa Otroa (embodying queer identities). Instead of solving contradictions, I argue that these characters reject the romanticization of progressive political movements while viewing Zapatismo as the venue for advancing dignity as a way of life (jch’uleltik). Through the concept of imperfect politics, Zapafiction leverages the principle of caminando y preguntando, “walking, we ask questions,” to reimagine the governing structures of the organization through fiction, moving beyond theoretical doctrines on how politics should be.

Marking the bicentennial of US-Brazil relations, this article assesses the fraught inception of the bilateral relationship and where it stands today. The United States, fueled by the ideals of its revolution, viewed itself in the nineteenth century as a beacon of democratic principles beset by powerful European discontents. Brazil’s position as an independent nation with deep ties to Portugal bred suspicion. The promulgation of Brazil’s 1824 Constitution offered a modicum of common ground, creating space for a political rapprochement culminating in formal recognition. The relationship thereafter was proper but distant. Brazil today is not a rival of the United States, but some worry that it has not done enough to distance itself from Washington’s antagonists. Indeed, while friendship and commonality have been common bywords of leaders in both nations, suspicion and ambivalence have been ever-present. If anything, the surprise is that both countries remain as close as they are today.

Puerto Rico’s seven hundred miles of coastline are the most dynamic, biodiverse, heavily populated, and hotly contested part of the archipelago. Hurricanes beat the island from the ocean side while luxury tourist developments encroach from the land. These forces converge in the zona marítimo terrestre (ZMT), which includes littoral areas and navigable portions of waterways in which, according to Puerto Rican law, tides and the biggest waves from storms can be felt. This clunky legal term, notable for its shifting and affective dimension, has become part of everyday conversations and creative practices in contemporary Puerto Rico, but no academic study has considered its cultural significance. This article brings together insights from the fields of environmental justice and environmental humanities to propose that works of art and literature in the ZMT are autogestiones acuáticas, or independently imagined and managed shoreline activities that contest coastal displacement and articulate a decolonial sense of place within nonsovereign dynamics.

Observaremos la manera en que el extractivismo económico y otras de sus formas aparecen en la obra Los pasos perdidos de Alejo Carpentier: El protagonista anónimo expresa formas de pensar y de actuar que pueden entenderse como construcciones culturales de cuño extractivo. Analizaremos el uso narrativo del presente, pues se relaciona de manera explícita con las reflexiones del protagonista sobre el mundo contemporáneo y sus descubrimientos. Se examinará la manera en que las descripciones de los paisajes se relacionan con el presente, y permiten analizar el lenguaje usado para hacerlas. Por último, presentaremos algunas conclusiones acerca de las relaciones entre el modelo económico extractivo y el lenguaje en la obra: el protagonista intenta reconstruir —inútilmente— un vínculo sacro entre la realidad y la palabra.

Este artículo cuestiona la suposición común de que las organizaciones negras son inherentemente antirracistas, enfatizando la necesidad de explorar cómo esas organizaciones desarrollan perspectivas antirracistas que se integra en su trabajo y prácticas. A partir de una experiencia de trabajo con Sankofa Danzafro, este estudio analiza los resultados de seis laboratorios de danza realizados con niños, adolescentes y jóvenes afrocolombianos. Estos laboratorios culminaron en la creación de “Ancestros del Futuro”, una obra de danza inspirada en el afro-futurismo y el Black joy, interpretada por la compañía de danza afro contemporánea en Colombia. Esta investigación resalta cómo la perspectiva antirracista en la danza afro contemporánea se forma a través de una combinación única de estéticas que emergen de prácticas de danza rutinarias y una dimensión afectiva que evoluciona en momentos clave en las trayectorias de vida de los bailarines. Esta fusión desafía los discursos antirracistas dominantes que generalmente enmarcan el antirracismo como una agenda programática estática, presentándolo en cambio como una conciencia política-afectiva dinámica desarrollada mediante un compromiso reflexivo con el cuerpo a través de la danza.

This article explores how the editors and contributors of Revista de Avance formulated an idiosyncratic version of visual modern art and how that discernment shaped their idea of a nationalist and regional culture. Their artistic disquisitions were influenced by complicated political agendas and funding. After the collapse of the Cuban economy in the early 1920s, the magazine’s editors, who held socialist and anti-American imperialist beliefs, looked to Spain as a cultural model. In its pages, the magazine privileged Spanish civilization and conflated it with both European modernist culture and Cuban art and literature. At the same time, Revista de Avance voiced the ideas of the Institución Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, led by Fernando Ortiz.