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South-South cooperation between Brazil, Chile and Venezuela and developing country partners in Africa, Asia and the Middle East showed great dynamism from 2000 to 2010. This paper questions the specificity of the activities carried out by these three countries. Taking the studies of sociologist Marcel Mauss on donation as a starting point, it observes that these actors see their cooperative action as self-interested, which should come as no surprise from an anthropological perspective. So, although South- South cooperation is symbolised by three ideals (horizontality, reciprocity and equality), the three countries differentiate the content of projects according to the recipient country. Though nuances exist, generally reciprocity is respected only to a degree with emerging partners and not at all with other developing countries. Such practices contradict the original conception of South-South cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the features of the emerging donors in Africa and the challenges they face. The case study explores how Brazil positioned itself as a development partner in Africa by focusing on Ghana, a country often described as a "donor darling". Based on qualitative research on the bilateral relationship since the turn of century, the study describes a range of difficulties Brazil encounters in the competition with other aid providers. Faced with the financial advantages of both China and Western donors, Brazil established its cooperation within the niche of agricultural programmes. However, the normative and technical stance of this approach was unable to bridge divergent expectations and Brazil ultimately refocused its Africa engagement to its competitive advantage in Portuguese-speaking Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the border shared by Peru, Colombia and Brazil has become an enclave of drug production and trafficking for the international markets. It is a territory whose control is disputed by non-state actors and where state security forces suffer from severe material and transport limitations. This paper takes an ethnographic approach to explain the limitations of border security and the institutional challenges of controlling drug and wood trafficking in this context. It places the ideas of reproduction and social change at the centre of the discussion on drugs and borders, as key ways of thinking about the dynamics of growing and processing coca-derived drugs in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]