Latin America has experienced a profound transformation in the first two decades of the 21st century: it has been fully incorporated into the global economy, while excluding regions and populations devalued by the logic of capitalism. Technological modernization has gone hand-in-hand with the reshaping of old identities and the emergence of new ones. The transformation of Latin America has been shaped by social movements and political conflicts. The neoliberal model that dominated the first stage of the transformation induced widespread inequality and poverty, and triggered social explosions that led to its own collapse. A new model, neo-developmentalism, emerged from these crises as national populist movements were elected to government in several countries. The more the state intervened in the economy, the more it became vulnerable to corruption, until the rampant criminal economy came to penetrate state institutions. Upper middle classes defending their privileges and citizens indignant because of corruption of the political elites revolted against the new regimes, undermining the model of neo-developmentalism. In the midst of political disaffection and public despair, new social movements, women, youth, indigenous people, workers, peasants, opened up avenues of hope against the background of darkness invading the continent. This book, written by two leading scholars of Latin America, provides a comprehensive and up-do-date account of the new Latin America that is in the process of taking shape today. It will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in Latin American Studies, sociology, politics and media and communication studies, and anyone interested in Latin America today.

Since the re-democratization of much of Latin America in the 1980s and a regional wave of anti-austerity protests in the 1990s, social movement studies has become an important part of sociological, political, and anthropological scholarship on the region. The subdiscipline has framed debates about formal and informal politics, spatial and relational processes, as well as economic changes in Latin America. While there is an abundant literature on particular movements in different countries across the region, there is limited coverage of the approaches, debates, and theoretical understandings of social movement studies applied to Latin America. In The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Social Movements, Federico M. Rossi presents a survey of the broad range of theoretical perspectives on social movements in Latin America. Bringing together a wide variety of viewpoints, the Handbook includes five sections: theoretical approaches to social movements, as applied to Latin America; processes and dynamics of social movements; major social movements in the region; ideational and strategic dimensions of social movements; and the relationship between political institutions and social movements. Covering key social movements and social dynamics in Latin America from the late nineteenth century to the twenty-first century, The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Social Movements is an indispensable reference for any scholar interested in social movements, protest, contentious politics, and Latin American studies.

The essays included in this volume provide both an assessment of key areas and current trends in sociology, specifically with regard to contemporary sociology in Latin America, as well as a collection of innovative empirical studies. The volume serves as an effective bridge of communication allowing sociological academies to mobilize and disseminate research dynamics from Latin America to the rest of the world.

Key Texts for Latin American Sociology is the first book to curate and translate into English key texts from the Latin American Sociological canon. By bringing together texts from leading sociologists in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Bolivia, and Uruguay, the book provides comprehensive coverage of a wide range of issues in Latin American Sociology; drawing attention to embedded issues such as inequalities, identities, development, oppression and representation. This volume is the result of five years of collaboration between colleagues from 15 Latin American Countries, coordinated by Fernanda Beigel (CONICET, UNCuyo, Mendoza-Argentina) with the collaboration of the ′Key Texts Scientific Committee′, the Committee consists of the following members: Nadya Araujo Guimaraes (PPGS-USP, Brazil), Manuel Antonio Garretón (Universidad de Chile), Raquel Sosa Elizaga (CELA-UNAM, México), Jorge Rovira Mas (Universidad de Costa Rica), Breno Bringel (IESP-UERJ, Brazil), Joao Ehlert Maia (FGV, Brazil), Hebe Vessuri (IVIC, Venezuela), André Bothelo (UFRJ, Brazil), Carlos Ruiz Encina (Universidad de Chile), Eloisa Martin (UFRJ, Brazil), Sergio Miceli (PPGS- USP, Brazil), Alejandro Moreano (UCE, Ecuador), Elizabeth Jelin (CONICET-IDES, Argentina), Patricia Funes (UBA-CONICET, Argentina), Claudio Pinheiro (FGV, Brazil), Pablo de Marinis (UBA, CONICET, Argentina), Diego Pereyra (UBA, CONICET, Argentina), José Gandarilla Salgado (CIICH-UNAM, México), Juan Piovani (UNLP-CONICET, Argentina).

Nowadays we are fortunate enough to be experiencing a boom in human rights - an enormous increase of their importance in the international sphere at all levels (political, economic, social, legal and moral). For the first time the condition of the individual as “citizen,” and not just as “subject,” has gained importance. Individuals, and not only states, have now become the subjects of international law, as a result of the boom in humanitarian law and international criminal law. However, although there have been many battles won and goals met concerning human rights, the war against injustice continues and the fight has not ended. It is necessary to stay alert and to avoid a potentially paralyzing self-complacency. This collection focusses on topics that are particularly relevant for the present era. It examines issues such as multiculturalism, globalization, international criminal justice (specifically third and fourth generation rights) and, within this thematic framework, the problems that have come about as a result of the expanding reach of the Internet and of new biomedical advances. In addition, it explores the increasingly urgent challenge of how to respond to international terrorism, in view of worldwide events since September 11, 2001, and its resulting aftermath. Originally published in Spanish, this thought-provoking collection will be of interest to human rights scholars and practitioners alike.

This book offers a new ideology critique for political analysis by revisiting Habermas via a Žižekian reading. The book includes an application of the theory to the case of the political consensus reached in Chile's post-Pinochet.