Bulletin of Latin American Research Book Series – serie

Written by leading scholars from the Americas and Europe, this is a thorough assessment of state-supported murder and violence in Latin America. Examines the trajectory of murder and violence in the region over the past two centuries and elucidates theories and trends regarding violence since the end of colonial rule Covers topics such as “the disappeared,” the rise of drug cartels and narco-violence, physical violence against wives, the judging and sentencing of violent crimes, genocide, and state terrorism Explains and applies macro-level theories regarding the rise of civilization, state building, and violence to contemporary Latin America Demonstrates the complexity of an issue at the forefront of life and politics in the region today

Informality Revisited offers an overview of recent debates about Latin American government programmes for the formalisation of informal settlements and housing provision in a neo-liberal context. Contributions from Latin American researchers analyse the contradictions in government actions and evaluate the consequences for urban poverty. Brings together nine leading Latin American researchers in the field of land and housing policy to address the question of informal urban development, particularly in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and PeruHighlights the interrelationships between the production of formal and informal urban development and demonstrates how economic and legal reforms intended to make the market more effective and profitable have affected the production of urban spaceExplores how Latin American governments are applying neo-liberal principles to land and housing policiesInvestigates the implications of government actions for the production and commodification of urban land as well as the formalisation of property rights and provision of housing for the urban poor Contributors draw on a wide range of quantitative and qualitative data, including census results and previously unpublished official statistics

This volume maps the trends in cultural policies and political cultures that accompanied Chávez’s four presidential terms (1999-2013) in twenty-first century Venezuela.  Assesses the manifold impacts that the politics of chavismo had on the cultural sphereMaps key shifts and trends in cultural policies and political cultures that accompanied Chávez’s four presidential terms, situating these in the regional context of “Pink Tide” politicsAn ambitious, interdisciplinary volume offering a range of perspectives, from broad overviews of cultural and media policy, to close readings of varied aesthetic manifestationsEncompasses conventional cultural products, such as recent film and literature, as well as engagements with cultural imaginaries that play out in political protest, urban culture, and grassroots heritage projectsExamines how individual and collective imaginaries were negotiated and formed within, alongside or against the state with the advancement of the Bolivarian Revolution

This collection is the first concerted attempt to explore the significance of classical legacies for Latin American history – from the uses of antiquarian learning in colonial institutions to the currents of Romantic Hellenism which inspired liberators and nation-builders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Discusses how the model of Roman imperialism, challenges to Aristotle’s theories of geography and natural slavery, and Cicero’s notion of the patria have had a pervasive influence on thought and politics throughout the Latin American regionBrings together essays by specialists in art history, cultural anthropology and literary studies, as well as Americanists and scholars of the classical traditionShows that appropriations of the Greco-Roman past are a recurrent catalyst for change in the AmericasCalls attention to ideas and developments which have been overlooked in standard narratives of intellectual history

An interdisciplinary interrogation of the concept of British ‘informal empire’ in Latin America. Builds upon recent advances in the historiography of imperialism and studies of the nineteenth-century modern world, most obviously the work of Ann Stoler, Catherine Hall and C.A. BaylyCombines a comparative perspective with the juxtaposition of political economy, cultural history, gendered and postcolonial approachesBy proposing and debating alternative explanatory models, the book breathes new life into the flagging concept of ‘informal empire’Illuminates the study of British imperialism, from which Latin America is usually conspicuous only by its absence, and provides a broad and sound basis for interpreting the complex processes of nation-building and state-formation in Latin AmericaIncludes essays by scholars who have been shaping the debate for several decades, alongside work by a younger generation of researchers keen to re-conceptualise and re-assess the roles of commerce and culture in shaping informal empire

Negotiating Difference in the Hispanic World invites us to rethink the complex dialogical process of identity formation and self-definition in Latin America from the Conquest to the present day. Essays from an international scholarship provide an important theoretical contribution to debates on identity. Explores the various instances of cultural encounters in Latin America from the Conquest to the present dayThis volume is singularly wide in its breadth, covering sixteenth-century Aztec heraldry and Sahagún's Universal History of the Things of New Spain, to eighteenth-century notions of culture, nineteenth-century theatre, turn-of-the-century degeneration theory, and contemporary literature and culture.The book’s interdisciplinary approach combines literary and cultural studies, cultural history, art history, translation studies and cultural anthropologyA broad geographical scope covers Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Cuba and the United States.The book makes an important theoretical contribution to the debates on identity through its innovative approaches, maintaining a fine balance between theoretical argument and empirical studyThe essays are written by specialists of different nationalities based in the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway and Argentina, providing an international cutting-edge scholarship

Rethinking the Cuban Revolution offers new perspectives on the political and cultural life of the Cuban Revolution based on inter-disciplinary methods. Contributions reassess the national survival of the Revolution, and propose new approaches to cultural and political identity in Cuba. Presents original research data based on contemporary fieldwork and archival research, which rethinks the political and cultural life of the Cuban RevolutionInnovative approaches question the assumption that Cuban revolutionary policy and practice function according to top-down structureCombines an indispensable understanding of the importance of nation in the Cuban context with an awareness of regional or transnational actors and patternsReassesses the national survival of the Revolution beyond the Special Period, and propose new approaches to cultural and political identity in Cuba

Drawing on the challenges of urban expansion and increasing population density facing contemporary Brazil, Shifting Horizons is an interdisciplinary investigation of the treatment of social difference in documentary film and photography and its potential to effect social and political change. Explores the Brazilian documentary tradition of conscientização, alongside new movements such as inclusão visual, introducing the voices of a range of innovative and highly contemporary artists, filmmakers, and cultural commentatorsDiscusses traditionally marginalized urban spaces using the concepts of inequality, segregation, integration, and relationalityBridges the domains of film and photography and brings greater awareness to Brazilian cultural outputHighlights new ways in which today’s social documentary practice and production can inspire social and cultural transformation, in Brazil and around the world

The Politics of Violence develops an interdisciplinary feminist perspective grounded in original ethnographic research on everyday forms of violence in El Salvador. Hume challenges dominant theories of violence through foregrounding subaltern vocabularies that have been historically ignored in debates on violence. Unites a critical analysis of theories of violence with original ethnographic research on its use and broader responses to its different manifestationsMakes an important theoretical contribution to debates on violence, through developing in-depth accounts of the violence of everyday life from a feminist perspectiveExamines the vocabularies of violence of those who live with it on an everyday basis, locating these vocabularies in a critical analysis of the relations of domination that have shaped Salvadoran history