Cultures Of Politics/politics Of Cultures: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements

by Alvarez,Sonia E

• ISBN13: 9780813330723
• ISBN10: 0813330726
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1998-02-27
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Investigating the complex interrelations between culture and politics in a wide range of social movements in Latin America, this book focuses on the cultural politics enacted by social movements as they struggle for new visions and practices of citizenship, democracy, social relations, and development. The volume explores the potential of these cultural politics for fostering alternative political cultures and social transformations. Theoretical and empirical chapters assess and build upon novel conceptions of culture and politics in a variety of disciplines and fieldsparticularly anthropology, political science, sociology, feminist theory, and cultural studies.The notion of the cultural politics of social movements provides a lens for analyzing emergent discourses and practices grounded in society and culture, the state and political institutions, and the extent to which they may unsettle, or be reinscribed into, the dominant neoliberal strategies of the 1990s. Contributors explore how social movementsurban popular, women's, indigenous, and black movements as well as movements for citizenship and democracyengage in the cultural resignification of notions such as rights, equality, and difference, thus altering what counts as political. By highlighting simultaneously the cultural dimensions of the political and the political dimensions of the cultural, the book transcends the distinction between "new" and "old" social movements and thus significantly renews our understanding of them.

Author Biography

Arturo Escobar is assistant professor of anthropology at Smith College. Sonia E. Alvarez is associate professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Sonia E. Alvarez is associate professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Evelina Dagnino is associate professor of political science at the State University of Campinas in São Paulo. Arturo Escobar is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts. Arturo Escobar is assistant professor of anthropology at Smith College. Sonia E. Alvarez is associate professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Cultural and the Political in Latin American Social Movements	p. 1
Notes	p. 23
References	p. 25
The Cultural Politics of Citizenship, Democracy, and the State	p. 31
Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy: Changing Discourses and Practices of the Latin American Left	p. 33
Notes	p. 57
References	p. 61
Social Rights: Conflicts and Negotiations in Contemporary Brazil	p. 64
Notes	p. 86
References	p. 89
New Subjects of Rights? Women's Movements and the Construction of Citizenship in the "New Democracies"	p. 93
Notes	p. 111
References	p. 115
The Explosion of Experience: The Emergence of a New Ethical-Political Principle in Popular Movements in Porto Alegre, Brazil	p. 118
References	p. 136
The Cultural Politics Of Ethnicity, Race, and Gender	p. 139
"Ambiguity and Contradiction in a Radical Popular Movement	p. 141
Notes	p. 161
References	p. 163
Indigenous Movements as a Challenge to the Unified Social Movement Paradigm for Guatemala	p. 165
Notes	p. 188
References	p. 191
The Process of Black Community Organizing in the Southern Pacific Coast Region of Colombia	p. 196
Notes	p. 214
References	p. 217
Black Movements and the "Politics of Identity" in Brazil	p. 220
Notes	p. 246
References	p. 249
Beyond the Domestic and the Public: Colonas Participation in Urban Movements in Mexico City	p. 252
Notes	p. 273
References	p. 275
Defrocking the Vatican: Feminism's Secular Project	p. 278
Notes	p. 287
Globalization, Transnationalism, and Civil Society	p. 291
Latin American Feminisms "Go Global": Trends of the 1990s and Challenges for the New Millennium	p. 293
Notes	p. 317
References	p. 320
Cybercultural Politics: Political Activism at a Distance in a Transnational World	p. 325
Notes	p. 345
References	p. 348
The Globalization of Culture and the New Civil Society	p. 353
Notes	p. 374
References	p. 375
Rethinking the Spatialities of Social Movements: Questions of (B)orders, Culture, and Politics in Global Times	p. 380
Notes	p. 397
References	p. 399
Theoretical and Methodological Rflections on the Cultural and the Political in Latin American Social Movements	p. 403
Toward a Culture of Participation and Citizenship: Challenges for a More Equitable World	p. 405
Notes	p. 413
References	p. 414
Final Comments: Challenges to Cultural Studies in Latin America	p. 415
Notes	p. 420
References	p. 420
Third World or Planetary Conflicts?	p. 422
Where To? What Next?	p. 430
Notes	p. 436
About the Editors and Contributors	p. 437
Index	p. 441
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