The Spaces of Neoliberalism

The Spaces of Neoliberalism
Author: Jacquelyn Chase
Publisher: Kumarian Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2002
Genre: Land reform
ISBN: 1565491440

Annotation Explores how markets and market ideology affect the lives of Latin American people through their communities, culture, resource base, local labor markets, and households. Among the topics of the eight papers are tensions between women's and indigenous groups over land rights, gender and reproduction in a Brazilian company town, and the restructuring of labor markets and household economies in urban Mexico. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Empowering Women

Empowering Women
Author: Carmen Diana Deere
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2001-01-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822972327

The expansion of married women's property rights was a main achievement of the first wave of feminism in Latin America. As Carmen Diana Deeere and Magdalena Leon reveal, however, the disjuncture between rights and actual ownership remains vast. This is particularly true in rural areas, where the distribution of land between men and women is highly unequal. In their pioneering, twelve-country comparative study, the authors argue that property ownership is directly related to womenÆs bargaining power within the household and community, point out changes resulting from recent gender-progressive legislation, and identify additional areas for future reform, including inheritance rights of wives.

Race and the Chilean Miracle

Race and the Chilean Miracle
Author: Patricia Lynne Richards
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0822978679

The economic reforms imposed by Augusto Pinochet's regime (1973-1990) are often credited with transforming Chile into a global economy and setting the stage for a peaceful transition to democracy, individual liberty, and the recognition of cultural diversity. The famed economist Milton Friedman would later describe the transition as the "Miracle of Chile." Yet, as Patricia Richards reveals, beneath this veneer of progress lies a reality of social conflict and inequity that has been perpetuated by many of the same neoliberal programs. In Race and the Chilean Miracle, Richards examines conflicts between Mapuche indigenous people and state and private actors over natural resources, territorial claims, and collective rights in the Araucania region. Through ground-level fieldwork, extensive interviews with local Mapuche and Chileans, and analysis of contemporary race and governance theory, Richards exposes the ways that local, regional, and transnational realities are shaped by systemic racism in the context of neoliberal multiculturalism. Richards demonstrates how state programs and policies run counter to Mapuche claims for autonomy and cultural recognition. The Mapuche, whose ancestral lands have been appropriated for timber and farming, have been branded as terrorists for their activism and sometimes-violent responses to state and private sector interventions. Through their interviews, many Mapuche cite the perpetuation of colonialism under the guise of development projects, multicultural policies, and assimilationist narratives. Many Chilean locals and political elites see the continued defiance of the Mapuche in their tenacious connection to the land, resistance to integration, and insistence on their rights as a people. These diametrically opposed worldviews form the basis of the racial dichotomy that continues to pervade Chilean society. In her study, Richards traces systemic racism that follows both a top-down path (global, state, and regional) as well as a bottom-up one (local agencies and actors), detailing their historic roots. Richards also describes potential positive outcomes in the form of intercultural coalitions or indigenous autonomy. Her compelling analysis offers new perspectives on indigenous rights, race, and neoliberal multiculturalism in Latin America and globally.

The State of State Reforms in Latin America

The State of State Reforms in Latin America
Author: Eduardo Lora
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2006-10-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0821365762

Latin America suffered a profound state crisis in the 1980s, which prompted not only the wave of macroeconomic and deregulation reforms known as the Washington Consensus, but also a wide variety of institutional or 'second generation' reforms. 'The State of State Reform in Latin America' reviews and assesses the outcomes of these less studied institutional reforms. This book examines four major areas of institutional reform: a. political institutions and the state organization; b. fiscal institutions, such as budget, tax and decentralization institutions; c. public institutions in charge of sectoral economic policies (financial, industrial, and infrastructure); and d. social sector institutions (pensions, social protection, and education). In each of these areas, the authors summarize the reform objectives, describe and measure their scope, assess the main outcomes, and identify the obstacles for implementation, especially those of an institutional nature.

Multiple InJustices

Multiple InJustices
Author: R. Aída Hernández Castillo
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2016-11-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0816532494

R. Aída Hernández Castillo synthesizes twenty-four years of research and activism among indigenous women's organizations in Latin America, offering a critical new contribution to the field of activist anthropology and for anyone interested in social justice.

Mothers Making Latin America

Mothers Making Latin America
Author: Erin E. O'Connor
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2014-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118341120

Mothers Making Latin America utilizes a combination of gender scholarship and source material to dispel the belief that women were separated from—or unimportant to—central developments in Latin American history since independence. Presents nuanced issues in gender historiography for Latin America in a readable narrative for undergraduate students Offers brief, primary-source document excerpts at the end of each chapter that instructors can use to stimulate class discussion Adheres to a focus on motherhood, which allows for a coherent narrative that touches upon important themes without falling into a “list of facts” textbook style

Changing Paths

Changing Paths
Author: Peter P. Houtzager
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2009-12-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780472024810

After two decades of marketizing, an array of national and international actors have become concerned with growing global inequality, the failure to reduce the numbers of very poor people in the world, and a perceived global backlash against international economic institutions. This new concern with poverty reduction and the political participation of excluded groups has set the stage for a new politics of inclusion within nations and in the international arena. The essays in this volume explore what forms the new politics of inclusion can take in low- and middle-income countries. The contributors favor a polity-centered approach that focuses on the political capacities of social and state actors to negotiate large-scale collective solutions and that highlights various possible strategies to lift large numbers of people out of poverty and political subordination. The contributors suggest there is little basis for the radical polycentrism that colors so much contemporary development thought. They focus on how the political capabilities of different societal and state actors develop over time and how their development is influenced by state action and a variety of institutional and other factors. The final chapter draws insightful conclusions about the political limitations and opportunities presented by current international discourse on poverty. Peter P. Houtzager is a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He has been a visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, visiting lecturer at Stanford University, and lecturer at St. Mary's College. A political scientist with broad training in comparative politics and historical-institutional analysis, he has written extensively on the institutional roots of collective action. Mick Moore is a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, as well as Director of the Centre for the Future State. He has been a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His professional interests include political and institutional aspects of poverty reduction and of economic policy and performance, the politics and administration of development, and good government.

Peasants and Globalization

Peasants and Globalization
Author: A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-08-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134064640

In 2007, for the first time in human history, a majority of the world’s population lived in cities. However, on a global scale, poverty overwhelmingly retains a rural face. This book assembles an unparalleled group of internationally-eminent scholars in the field of rural development and social change in order to explore historical and contemporary processes of agrarian change and transformation and their consequent impact upon the livelihoods, poverty and well-being of those who live in the countryside. The book provides a critical analysis of the extent to which rural development trajectories have in the past and are now promoting a change in rural production processes, the accumulation of rural resources, and shifts in rural politics, and the implications of such trajectories for peasant livelihoods and rural workers in an era of globalization. Peasants and Globalization thus explores continuity and change in the debate on the ‘agrarian question’, from its early formulation in the late 19th century to the continuing relevance it has in our times, including chapters from Terence Byres, Amiya Bagchi, Ellen Wood, Farshad Araghi, Henry Bernstein, Saturnino M Borras, Ray Kiely, Michael Watts and Philip McMichael. Collectively, the contributors argue that neoliberal social and economic policies have, in deepening the market imperative governing the contemporary world food system, not only failed to tackle to underlying causes of rural poverty but have indeed deepened the agrarian crisis currently confronting the livelihoods of peasant farmers and rural workers. This crisis does not go unchallenged, as rural social movements have emerged, for the first time, on a transnational scale. Confronting development policies that are unable to reduce, let alone eliminate, rural poverty, transnational rural social movements are attempting to construct a more just future for the world’s farmers and rural workers.

The Mystery of Capital

The Mystery of Capital
Author: Hernando De Soto
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2007-03-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0465004016

A renowned economist argues for the importance of property rights in "the most intelligent book yet written about the current challenge of establishing capitalism in the developing world" (Economist) "The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up one of the most pressing questions the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail? In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly extralegal property arrangements, such as squatting on large estates, to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book revolutionized our understanding of capital and points the way to a major transformation of the world economy.