Latin American Development

by Cupples; Julie

• ISBN13: 9780415680622
• ISBN10: 041568062X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2013-05-03
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

For many decades, Latin America's diverse political and economic struggles, triumphs and upheavals have captured the global imagination. Scholars, students, activists, development practitioners and travellers across the world have been drawn to Latin America as a site of brutal dictators and revolutionary heroes, as a site in which the Cold War struggle between East and West was played out, and as a site in which the global debt crisis had some of its most lasting and devastating impacts. In the twenty-first century, Latin America continues to undergo rapid political, cultural and economic transformation and the region's development shows both inspirational change and frustrating continuities, processes which require analysis and understanding. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to Latin American development in the twenty-first century. It provides detailed and accessible information and analysis of the key development challenges facing the region, the diverse ways in which its peoples are responding to such challenges and ways in which such challenges and responses can be theorized. It covers key areas of Latin American development, emphasizing political, economic, social, cultural and environmental dimensions of development. It explores the region's historical trajectory, the implementation and rejection of the neoliberal model, the role played by diverse social movements, the ways in which Latin American development is shaped by relations of gender, class and race, the struggle underway to confront climate change and environmental degradation and the ways in which media and popular culture are forging new global imaginaries of the continent and new ways of doing development. The text contains critical historical and contemporary case studies from all parts of the continent and provides readers with the conceptual tools required to analyse such material. Written in language accessible to an educated readership and designed as a course text, this text is an indispensable resource for students and university lecturers in development studies, Latin American studies, geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics and media and cultural studies. In addition, it will provide an invaluable introduction to the continent for journalists and development practitioners.