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Mainstream views for the study of democracy and of democracy in Latin America tend to center around a restricted model of democratic systems, which decides to ignore the wider social environment in which they exist. This article seeks to contribute toward a more sociological understanding of democracy and democratization in Latin America and the world. It does that through a review of structuralist and neo-structuralist theories of democracy and of Latin American democracy, which is put in dialogue and confrontation with mainstream political science views of democracy and more recent critical views of really existing democracy. From that exercise the article proposes what it calls a historical-structuralist view of Latin American democracy based on looking at the interaction of social structures, political institutions, and sociopolitical actors, to understand its democratic systems as determined by the possession or lack of sociopolitical power through resources within the inequalities of capitalist and global structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a land of devastating earthquakes, Chile experienced a tremor of historical proportions on 18 October 2019 when thousands of protestors flooded the streets and squares of this long and narrow South American country. It became known as the 'estallido social' - the social explosion. The protests reflected mass discontent with the political and financial elite - and its strong grip on the commercial mainstream media. This paper examines the media's coverage of the social explosion and argues that it was essentially designed to defend the privileges of the country's elite and criminalise the Chileans' demands for social change and justice. It also highlights the distinctive role played by the alternative media in challenging the consensus of the corporate media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the relevance of militant ethnography as a collaborative and politically engaged form of knowledge production for the study of Latin American social movements. Drawing on my militant ethnographic research with four autonomous groups from Chile and Mexico, the article presents a reflective account of my experience as a militant researcher throughout the different stages of the inquiry. More specifically, I describe the ethical and methodological procedures carried out in the field and their importance in fostering collaboration and horizontality. Furthermore, I discuss the challenges of conducting militant ethnography within Latin American autonomous movements whilst pursuing doctoral studies in a European university and an English-speaking country. Finally, by acknowledging the tensions resulting from my multiple and entangled roles, I suggest an alternative route to militant research that challenges the temporalities and spatialities of traditional research designs and proposes an ongoing process of collaboration and solidarity in the post-fieldwork stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a planned series from Global Public Health aimed at exploring both the epistemological and political differences in diverse public health approaches across different geographic and cultural regions, this special issue assembles papers that consider the legacy of the Latin American Social Medicine and Collective Health (LASM-CH) movements, as well as additional examples of contemporary social action for collective health from the region. In this introduction, we review the historical roots of LASM-CH and the movement's primary contributions to research, activism and policy-making over the latter-half of the twentieth century. We also introduce the special issue's contents. Spanning 19 papers, the articles in this special issue offer critical insight into efforts to create more equitable, participatory health regimes in the context of significant social and political change that many of the countries in the region have experienced in recent decades. We argue that as global health worldwide has been pushed to adopt increasingly conservative agendas, recognition of and attention to the legacies of Latin America's epistemological innovations and social movement action in the domain of public health are especially warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A contemporary challenge is inequality. This paper illustrates why ideas matter, and how they can change over time. Inequalities are reinforced when they are taken for granted. But this can be disrupted when marginalised people gain self-esteem; challenge hitherto unquestioned inequalities; and gain confidence in the possibility of social change. Slowly and incrementally, social mobilisation can catalyse greater government commitment to socially inclusive economic growth. This is illustrated with ethnographic research from Latin America, where income inequality has recently declined. Clearly, however, no single paper can provide a comprehensive account of political change in an incredibly diverse region. By highlighting some ways in which ideas matter (and the limitations of alternative hypotheses about increased fiscal space and democratisation), this paper merely seeks to persuade political economists to go beyond ‘incentives’. Future efforts to tackle inequality might harness the power of ideas: tackling ‘norm perceptions’ (beliefs about what others think and do); publicising positive deviance; and strengthening social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's Latin America, governments implementing public policies for development and against poverty and inequality meet with social movements that engage in practices for social change, poverty reduction, and empowering. In this context, we analyze the interplay between both processes, describing its conflicts in three specific dimensions: the material, the democratic, and the environmental. Social movements are permanently contesting and challenging public policy when they autonomously appropriate public policy resources; yet, governments respond with criminalization and cooptation strategies. In a setting where social conflict takes place in response to existing poverty and inequality levels, movements challenge development and poverty reduction projects of an 'assistentialist' and extractivist nature, and propose an integral understanding of development and the emergence of new relationships among individuals, society, and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Over the past 30 years, the Brazilian Landless Winkers' Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America, has developed a series ofpedagogical practices for public schools that support the movement's struggle for agrarian reform in the Brazilian countryside. The MST's educational initiatives can be viewed in terms of their place in the debate about how grassroots movements develop alternatives to dominant educational practices. Purpose: This article examines the diverse pedagogies and educational theories that MST activists have drawn on, while also assessing the political implications of this participation in the public schools. Setting: Research took place in Brazil, in several dozen public schools located in MST communities. Population: Research participants included MST activists, students attending schools in MST communities, teachers working in these schools, administrators, and public officials. More than 150 people were interviewed. Research Design: This research is an ethnographic, qualitative case study, examining the MST's educational initiatives in four different regions of Brazil. Field research took place over 15 months, between October 2010 and December 2011. Research methods included semistructured interviews, classroom observation, participation observation, analysis of primary documents, and focus groups with teachers and students. Findings: Although the MST initially invested only in informal, popular education, by the late 1980s activists began to realize that transforming public schools was necessary for the realization of the movement's social and political goals. By drawing on their previous experiences with popular education, as well as the theories of several outside intellectuals, activists developed educational utopias that allowed them to solidify their educational proposals in practice. Conclusions: This article provides insights into the process of grassroots educational innovation, illustrating that communities draw on a diverse set of educational theories that resonate with local practices and beliefs to develop alternative proposals for their schools. The article also suggests that certain questions arise about the purpose of public education when social movements with particular visions of societal transformation demand participation in the public school sphere. The article argues that this social movement participation is appropriate if activists can mobilize parents, students, teachers, and other community members to implement this vision through a collective process of participatory governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HDRs systematize a set of proposals that undergo the redefinition of the state intervention pattern in the social area. They propose changes in policies for education, health and sanitation. These are general proposals that attempt to find common and viable solutions for several countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The reports show, over hundreds of pages, examples of social policies that have been implemented in various parts of the world. This study aims to demonstrate both the social policy suggestions contained in the HDRs, and the difficulties faced by such proposals in Brazil, where the main binding in the redefinition of forms of intervention in the social area, consists of a political logic that does not dismantle a model of income transfer which strengthens the concentration of resources and power. Changing the orientation of the State actions is the biggest political challenge posed to the segments (civil society organizations, political leaders, social movements, associations, intellectuals) that fight for a more inclusive and equitable pattern of social organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies ethnic social movement autonomy claims in three regions of Colombia. It maintains that place-based and regime-specific political processes condition institutional change affecting common property regimes. The article finds that to assert local self-determination and territorial control, ethnic social movements (a) respond to territorial regimes threatening local autonomy; (b) use innovative tactics to negotiate autonomy; and (c) engage in deliberation to redefine identities and understand the conditions limiting local autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Much theoretical study related to the subject of revolution has grappled with the role or question of the state. In this vein, Theda Skocpol's work has become an important reference of analysis. Under the premise that revolutions are less facilitated by the marginalised and more an occurance by competing predominant groups by those already in - or thirsty for - power, Skocpol argues that those 'from below' have little significant relation to the overall outcome of social transformation. This position is of importance when concerning the revolutionary conditions alive in Colombia and the role of the rural-based peasant-led insurgency therein. The following article critiques Skocpol's structural approach through an examination of the social composition of Colombia's most radical social movement and the Colombian state's nonexistent presence within the countryside. The work suggests that a 'from below' theoretical approach more accurately characterises the dynamics of radical social change within rural Colombia, while emphasising the need to create change at the level of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution stems from a personal interest in expanding Minority Language Media research into the Latin American context. It also arises from a desire to present some of the achievements of Communication for Social Change in Latin America to a European media studies community not acquainted with them. In order to do this, the paper begins by presenting the common ground between the two areas of studies. It draws attention to the fact that language is but one of many cultural aspects under which indigenous and ethnic communities are marginalised from and by the main media outlets in Latin America. Because of this, research into Latin American Minority Language Media needs to have a contextual approach that studies the processes of identity negotiation and participatory agency defined under the concepts of hybridity and convergence. It also demands for research to increase participation of its subjects of inquiry, as consistently requested by practitioners of Communication for Social Change. Finally, both of these aspects, a contextual approach of hybridity and convergence, and the encouragement for more participatory research, are presented as the fundamental dialogue to expand Minority Language Media studies to Latin America and to provide feedback for its further advances in Europe [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern NGOs have come under critical scrutiny since the 1990s, often with negative conclusions as organisations which had supported radical social change in the 1970s and 1980s have since turned themselves into a professionalised and bureaucratic aid sector. The article focuses on the Northern NGOs that purport to fund progressive social change and which encourage beneficiaries to question market and political power, and on the NGOs to which they channel funds in Latin America. After examining various types of critique, the article asks whether it is not only dangerous in practice to fund social change but also misguided in principle, or whether there remain ways to use resources to enhance the capacity of local change agents to make the choices that they deem appropriate. It concludes that much depends on the theory and practice of social change that underpin the resource transfer, particularly in relation to the transformation of power (as opposed to 'empowerment'), to social activism, and to the robustness of efforts within NGOs to resist or modify bureaucratic imperatives from back-donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines governments and political movements in Latin America and whether they are autonomous or some form of domination. According to the author, the election of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez was the first popular movement against neoliberalism which resulted in a party-system that has sustained elite domination. The author presents a brief list of countries that either changed from the top down through steady electoral growth, such as Brazil, and those that changed from the bottom up through social movements, such as Bolivia. An evaluation of the various processes in several Latin American countries that lead to political-institutional changes and the fundamental thing they all share, including the return of the state as the central driver of change, is presented

This paper examines the socio-economic, political, and cultural transformations that have been taking place in South America during the past ten years, particularly in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Whereas at the level of the states the transformations do not seem to venture beyond alternative forms of modernization, the discourses and strategies of some social movements suggest radical possibilities towards post-liberal, post-developmentalist, and post-capitalist social forms. To entertain such a possibility requires that the transformations in question be seen in terms of a double conjuncture: the crisis of the neoliberal project of the past three decades; and the crisis of the project of bringing about modernity to the continent since the Conquest. At stake in many cultural-political mobilizations in Latin America, it is further argued, is the political activation of relational ontologies, such as those of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendents, which differ from the dualist ontologies of liberal modernity. Al maestro Orlando Fals Borda, luchador incansable, In Memoriam, por su honestidadintelectual y su compromiso politico con America Latina, con la vida y con el mundo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the tradition of social movement studies in Latin America, the present text brings some reflections about the emergence of a post-colonial approach directed to the study of subaltern groups on our continent. To fulfill this objective, the connections among four elements in the production of knowledge about contemporary social movements are examined: the relation between the subject studied and the subject that produces knowledge; the relation between life experience, representation and recognition; the human rights in the perspective of subaltern subjects; and discourse formations derived from the historicity and emancipatory desire of these subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text presents a classification of the principal popular social movements in Latin America and approaches problems of the axis of diversity, identity and their interrelationship. Some current problems are analyzed on the new scene and in regional political territory marked by post-neoliberal policies and the emergence of popular social movements opposed to the exclusive, patriarchal, discriminatory, predatory civilization of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Avances en PsicologÍa Latinoamericana is the property of Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Senora del Rosario and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: This special section brings together 4 of the 12 studies conducted within a research program analyzing the relationships among social mobilization, governance, and rural development in contemporary Latin America. The introduction gives an overview of the contemporary significance of social movements for rural development dynamics in the region, and of the principal insights of the section papers and the broader research program of which they were a part. This significance varies as an effect of two distinct and uneven geographies: the geography of social movements themselves and the geography of the rural political economy. The effects that movements have on the political economy of rural development also depend significantly on internal characteristics of these movements. The paper identifies several such characteristics. The general pattern is that movements have had far more effect on widening the political inclusiveness of rural development than they have on improving its economic inclusiveness and dynamism. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Journal History of Latin American Education / Revista Historia de la Educación Latinoamericana is the property of Universidad Pedagogica y Tecnologica de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents information on the development of feminist movements in Latin America. The author discusses how the region, like Europe and the United States, experienced two distinct feminist movements during the course of the 20th century. Latin American leaders in these movements included the Southern Cone, Southern Brazil and Mexico. The author discusses how these countries benefited from industrialization as well as economic and social development which helped develop an educated middle class willing to fight for women's rights.

The article presents an examination of the development of human rights in Latin America in the second half of the 20th century. The development of the human rights process in Latin American mirrored the larger global human rights process that began in the middle of the 20th century. The author examines the human rights policies that were in place in Latin America during the 1970's and 1980's and explores the changes that occurred to these policies during the 1990's. The author discusses the relationship that this process had with the inter-American human rights movement of the 20th century.

‘Globalisation’, driven by neoliberal-based policies, can be seen to have significant impacts on ethnobotanical practices, particularly through the commercialisation of traditional knowledge and rise in identity-based social movements. Despite its relative political and economic isolation in comparison to more ‘neoliberalised’ areas of Latin America, local-level shifts occurring in post-Soviet Cuba are similar to those occurring elsewhere in the region. Afro-Cuban ritual activities have proliferated, particularly in Havana, leading to an increased dependence on the rich magico-medicinal pharmacopoeias employed in hybridised religions such as santería and palo monte – suggesting that ‘globalisation’ may have profound, albeit indirect, implications for even the most economically marginalised countries such as Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of an accelerating capitalist crisis, the enthusiasm of many academic commentators for social movements as a form of grassroots political agency capable of successfully resisting a globally rampant capitalism has not abated. This despite the weight of evidence to the contrary, which indicates that in Latin America the interests of farmers and smallholding peasants belonging to these movements are not best served by engaging with center-left parliamentary politics. Case studies of such alliance-building examined here include social movements in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and also Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Latin America, it is possible to identify three basic modalities of social change and political power: electoral politics, the construction of social movements, and social action in the direction of local development. But radical politics of mass mobilisation remains the indispensable condition for advancing the struggle for social change towards a new world of social justice and real development based on popular power. An analysis of events over recent years shows that the regional scene has become punctuated with new dynamics of change. This change is based on the advance of an alternative social or non-political approach associated with the rise of grassroots, community forms of social organization and local development. This phenomenon constitutes a central issue in political developments across Latin America today. The authors have come to this conclusion on the basis of a systematic comparative analysis of the relationship between the state and social movements in four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the exhaustion of the political-ideological project of the State as intervener and benefactor in Latin America, as well as its inability to continue assuming its responsibilities autonomously, a new actor, Civic Society, is viewed as emerging with relative force in the developing scenarios that orient the transition of the Latin American context towards the 21st century. This new actor's performance (under the figures of peaceful, urban, feminist, popular, and ecological social movements), represents an important political force which has assumed both the accusations against and the criticism of the "system" and of the shared values of modernity in its claim for participation and new spaces for the solution to many of the problems that modernization has engendered. Among them are environmental deterioration and the growth of poverty. In the case of environmental movements in particular, the socio-political demands that are proposed as a social answer to global changes and the implications of affecting vital spaces will be analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El artículo enfoca en la historia del movimiento de mujeres a nivel nacional y transnacional en América Latina. Se describen los factores y las condiciones que impulsaron la formación de movimientos regionales y se analizan las estrategias de acción y las campañas transnacionales que han emprendido desde mediados de la década de 1980.

Comments on the topics discussed at the November 2002 meeting on communication for social change in Latin America organized by the Communication Initiative. Latin American contributions to the field of communication for social change; Lessons that can be learned about communication for social change from social movement theories.

Recent studies have discussed changes within the politics of the urban poor in Latin America. One perspective finds such politics limited to local material needs petitioning by isolated groups. By contrast, I found a community organization in urban Mexico that was sponsored by another group, and brought into national political efforts and debates by that sponsor. Sponsorship, as a form of relationship between allies, is linked to the grievances felt by Mexican citizens, and these grievances are analyzed as affecting the political opportunity structure of the Mexican urban popular movement. The sponsor brought substantial benefits to the community organization, but the latter organization also suffered from the relationship. The examination of sponsorship between the urban poor and the middle-class allies reveals both benefits and pitfalls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most striking fact about revolutionary politics in Latin America is that its only socialist revolutions were not organized by political parties but by political movements. The political class in Latin America is made up of those individuals who have a vocation for politics, particularly electoral politics. They are largely made up of professionals-lawyers, professors, business people, etc., who engage in negotiations and transactions within established political institutions. Their shared norms of reciprocity and loyalties compromise their vertical ties with extraparliaruentary groups. Postmodernist conceptions of classless democracies have passed into the history of dead slogans. The class-biased austerity programs, large-scale transfer of foreign exchange to overseas bankers, and increased collaboration between the military and liberal regimes have shattered any residual hold which worn out rhetoric might have had on the democratic practice of popular movements. The deep contradictions between the concentration and centralization of financial and export capital and the declining incomes and increasing precariousness of the working class have exploded the consensual politics that the postmodernist ideologues postulate as the realist conception of democratic consolidation.

The article explores social movement literature and socio-political change in Latin America. During the 1960s, scholars were preoccupied with modernization theory, and when that failed to produce the expected social change, international and structural approaches, most importantly dependence theory, became prevalent. After its decline in the 1970s, modernization theory's concern with urban industrialization and high frequency migration inspired a series of empirical studies of marginality. The urban poor of this period were often portrayed as relatively acquiescent and powerless in relation to authoritarian governments. Meanwhile, during the early and mid-1970s, Marxist inspired frameworks sought to read the particulars of revolutionary conditions in specific geographical locations, with different degrees of influence from Maoist, Cuban and Trotskyist thinking. Scholarly interest in Latin American social movements increased markedly during the 1980s. Much of the literature associated with the transition period was extremely optimistic about the ability of movements to help shape politics during the consolidation of democratic institutions and practices. The literature from the 1980s and early 1990s reflected these changes by emphasizing identity politics while de-emphasizing the relatively disappointing political achievements of movements, as measured by their inability to shape the policy process. The high profile of urban social movements in the democratic transitions of the 1980s caught the attention of graduate students in search of exciting dissertation topics. Two of the books deal with the role of shantytown movements in the struggle for democracy in Chile. Susan Stokes has written a Gramscian inspired case study of changing consciousness among a sector of Lima's urban poor. Robert Gay's book is a comparative study of two politically dissimilar favelas in Río de Janeiro.

The relationship between society and the individual is of a dialectical character, therefore, it is important to ascertain the state of the individual's consciousness and how it may promote or inhibit social developments. Social movements related to national, cultural or ethnic identity, which one may loosely call "nationalistic," have played an important role as motors of history at different periods, and there is evidence of their renewed importance. This article tries to analyze the case of continental nationalism" or what one may call "Latin-Americanism." There exists in Latin America an "identifying label which is both externally and internally recognizable," there is also identification and emotional investment as demonstrated by part of the research that has been reported. Social and historical events are evidently the result of more objective forces at work; but it would be an equally unscientific simplification to fail to take into account the existence of certain socio-psychological realities that may help to condition socio-historical events.

The study of social movements flared up at the height of structural (Althusserian) Marxism in the late 1960s. At the time, the leading figure in the sociology of social movements was Alain Touraine and it was his student, Manuel Castells, who shifted the focus of research to the subcategory of urban movements which are of interest in this article. Castells can take much of the credit for disseminating the French work to the new world, where it stimulated a host of studies in Portuguese, Spanish and English. The argument in this article concerns the impact on social change of collective actions at the "barrio" level. It also brings into question the class nature of social movements. Touraine's influence on the Latin American sociological establishment, especially in Brazil, should not be underestimated. It has led numerous Latin American sociologists to speak of the popular as the "excluded" sector, that is, excluded from politics and effective participation in society, as well as from the benefits of socioeconomic development. In short, the popular sector is regarded as having a purely passive voice in politics and as comprising a virtual "underclass."

The article considers United States imperialism in Latin America. Since the Monroe Doctrine was first pronounced in 1823, the U.S. has been exerting its social, military, and economic influence over Latin America to the detriment of the region. Imperialist policies from the U.S. have resulted in stagnant or negative development and oppressive regimes. Neoliberal policies in Latin America are no loner tenable to the citizens of the continent and they are rising up in social movements to overthrow neoliberal regimes.