Latin American Perspectives – Details, episodes & analysis

LAP contributing editors Daniela García Grandón, Joana Salém Vasconcelos, and Andrew R. Smolski join the pod to discuss the January 2024 issue of LAP, "The Agrarian Question as an Ecological Question." The themes covered include the classic debate over agrarianism and development, the history of land reform in Latin America during the twentieth century, and the significance of centering ecology in the agrarian debate. 

Daniela García Grandón is a part-time professor in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa. Joana Salém Vasconcelos is a full-time Visiting Professor at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil, and has a PhD in Economic History from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. Andrew R. Smolski is an Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education at the Pennsylvania State University. 

Access the January 2024 issue of LAP here: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/51/1

For additional information about contacting the journal, podcast host, or guests, please contact latampodcasts@gmail.com

Historian Joana Salém Vasconcelos joins us to discuss her book Agrarian History of the Cuban Revolution: Dilemmas of Peripheral Socialism (Brill 2023; Haymarket 2023). 

Translated from Portuguese and originally published in Brazil in 2016, this meticulously researched study unpacks the complicated political and economic challenges Cuba has faced since its 1959 revolution, demonstrating why the sugar plantation economic structure in Cuba has persisted.  Drawing on diverse historical sources, Salém Vasconcelos narrates in detail the three dimensions of Cuban agrarian transformation during the decisive 1960s – the land tenure system, the crop regime, and the labor regime – and its social and political actors. She explains the paths and detours of Cuban agrarian policies contextualized in a labor-intensive economy that desperately needs to increase productivity and, simultaneously, promised widely to emancipate workers from labor exploitation. 

Joana Salém Vasconcelos is a full-time Visiting Professor at Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil, and has a PhD in Economic History from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil.

Agrarian History of the Cuban Revolution: Dilemmas of Peripheral Socialism is available for purchase through Haymarket books and Brill:

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2420-agrarian-history-of-the-cuban-revolution

https://brill.com/display/title/64107?language=en

For more information about Latin American Perspectives, our podcasts and guests, please contact  latampodcasts@gmail.com

El sociólogo argentino Daniel Feierstein conversa con nosotros sobre su libro Pandemia: Una balance social y político de la crisis del COVID-19 ( Fondo de Cultura Económica 2021).  Durante la pandemia, Feierstein participó en consejos nacionales y provinciales, y grupos interdisciplinarios para enfrentar la crisis de COVID-19.  Su libro analiza esta experiencia y las consecuencias diferentes de la pandemia en los vínculos y representaciones sociales. 

Daniel Feierstein se desempeña como profesor titular de la cátedra Análisis de las Prácticas Sociales Genocidas en la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires y como director del Centro de Estudios sobre Genocidio y de la Maestría en Diversidad Cultural, ambos en la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. Es experto independiente por las Naciones Unidas para la elaboración de las Bases de un Plan Nacional de Derechos Humanos argentino y anteriormente se desempeño como Presidente del Asociación Internacional de Estudiosos del Genocidio. 

Pandemia: Una balance social y político de la crisis del COVID-19 está disponible para su compra a través del Fondo de Cultura Económica:

 https://fce.com.ar/tienda/sociologia/pandemia/

La traducción de Inglés está disponible para su compra a través del Routledge:  https://www.routledge.com/Social-and-Political-Representations-of-the-COVID-19-Crisis/Feierstein/p/book/9781032212807

Para más información sobre nuestra revista, por favor póngase en contacto con  latampodcasts@gmail.com 

LAP contributing editors James N. Green and Tulio Ferreira join the podcast to discuss the January 2023 LAP issue "Brazil Under Bolsonaro: Social, Political, and Economic Impacts in the Country and in Latin America." Topics covered include the causes, consequences, and tragedies of Jair Bolsonaro's presidency, the political history of the far-right and fascist movements in Brazil, and the fascist tendencies of Brazil's contemporary far-right. For additional information about contacting the journal, podcast host, or guest please contact latampodcasts@gmail.com.

Be sure to check out James N. Green's podcast 'Brazil Unfiltered' : 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brazil-unfiltered/id1455527001

https://open.spotify.com/show/0nBMVB7KwcEsobBzl4zjYN?si=231042c24e3b4fec

Authors Linda Farthing and Thomas Becker join us on our inaugural episode of "Editor's Choice" to discuss their book Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia (Haymarket Books 2021).  Coup tells the story of the 2019 Bolivian political crisis, providing a critical analysis of the 14 years of the MAS government that preceded it as well as the MAS return to power in 2020. It includes personal stories and commentary from women and men on the streets, leaders in social movements, members of the MAS party and government, survivors of the Áñez government's abuses, and intellectuals.

Linda Farthing is a journalist and indepent scholar who reported and commented from Bolivia during the 2019-2020 coup for the Guardian, The Economist, Al Jazeera, Latino USA, NPR, and the BBC. She is the author of four books on Bolivia and a coordinating editor for Latin American Perspectives.

Thomas Becker is an activist, attorney, and acadmeic who has worked on human rights issues in Bolivia for over fifteen years. He spent much of 2019-2020 in Bolivia investigating abuses for Harvard Law School.

Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia is available for purchase through Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1745-coup

For additional information about contacting the journal, hosts, and guests please contact latampodcasts@gmail.com 

Anthropologist and LAP contributing editor Adrienne Pine discusses the November 2022 issue of LAP "Social Struggle in Neoliberal Central America." Topics covered include neoliberalism and the political-economic roots of violence and conflict in Central America, criticism of prominent (mis)representations of the issues confronting the region, and a case study examining psychiatric hospitals and social movement resistance in Honduras. For additional information about contacting the journal, podcast host, or guest please contact lap.outreach@gmail.com

The November 2022 issue of LAP can be accessed through Sage publishing: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/49/1 

For additional information about contacting the journal, host, and guests please contact latampodcasts@gmail.com 

Renowned intellectual and LAP contributing editor Professor Ronaldo Munck joins us to discuss the July 2022 issue of LAP "Marxism, Critical Thinking, and Andean Futures." Topics covered include the ideas and life of twentieth-century Marxist intellectual José Carlos Mariátegui, the critical thinking of some contemporary South American intellectuals, and the relevance of theorizing Andean futures and utopias. 

The July 2022 issue of LAP can be accessed through Sage publishing: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/49/1 

For additional information about contacting the journal, host, and guests please contact latampodcasts@gmail.com 

Alexander Scott speaks with LAP founding editor Ronald Chilcote and coordinating editor Joana Salem Vasconcelos to discuss their double issue of LAP "Reassessing Development: Past and Present Marxist Theories of Dependency and Periphery Debates," published in January and March of 2022. Topics covered include the founding and origins of the journal Latin American Perspectives, the history of dependency theory, the importance of marxist political-economic analysis, and how scholars have begun to return to marxist theories of dependency.

The January and March 2022 issue(s) of LAP can be accessed through Sage publishing: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/49/1 

For additional information about contacting the journal, host, and guests please contact latampodcasts@gmail.com 

Dando início à Segunda temporada do LAP Editor's Choice, nos juntamos ao renomado cientista político marxista e teórico Armando Boito para discutir seu recém-lançado livro "Reform and Political Crisis in Brazil: Class Conflicts in Workers' Party Governments and the Rise of Bolsonaro Neo-fascism" (disponível em inglês).

O livro examina o processo político brasileiro entre os anos de 2003 e 2020, focando nos governos do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), suas políticas reformistas, a crise política que levou ao impeachment da presidente Dilma Rousseff, e a ascensão do neofascismo com Bolsonaro. Com base em uma estrutura teórica marxista, Boito argumenta que conflitos ideológicos e partidários estão intimamente ligados aos conflitos distributivos baseados em classe social dentro da sociedade brasileira em geral. Portanto, após a quarta derrota consecutiva nas eleições presidenciais, partidos políticos representando o capital internacional, segmentos da burguesia e a classe média abandonaram normas democráticas com o objetivo de acabar com o ciclo de governança do PT, pavimentando o caminho para a ascensão do neofascismo.

Armando Boito é professor de Ciências Políticas na Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Brasil, e editor do jornal Crítica Marxista.

"Reform and Political Crisis in Brazil" pode ser comprado online através do site Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2019-reform-and-political-crisis-in-brazil

Outras leituras do LAP e Armando Boito:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0094582X221140419

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0094582X19887910

Para mais informações sobre Latin American Perspectives, nossos podcasts e convidados, por favor, entre em contato com: latampodcasts@gmail.com ou lap@ucr.edu 

Esse episódio foi co-produzido pelos estagiários do LAP, Lara Paredes e Mateus Quesada.

Professor's Kristin Ciupa and Jeffery Webber join the podcast to discuss their new co-edited volume The Labor of Extraction in Latin America that was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield as part of the "Latin American Perspectives in the Classroom" series. 

This edited volume traces the power of labor in extractive sectors in Latin America starting in the 1980s and shows how labor shapes national export sectors, economies, politics, and societies more broadly. Bringing together a team of international experts who look at labor in several extractive sectors—including oil and gas, mining and agriculture, and migrant labor, the volume presents a variety of viewpoints and case studies, exploring themes of the strategic organizing potential of extractive workers, the rise of informal labor and its impact on organizing and worker solidarity, and migrant labor-power as extraction.

Kristin Ciupa is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Regina and the author of the forthcoming book The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market. 

Jeffery R. Webber is a professor of politics at York University, Toronto. He is the author or co-author of five books, and co-editor of two books. Most recently, he co-authored The Impasse of the Latin American Left (Duke 2022) with scholars Franck Gaudichaud and Massimo Modonesi. 

The Labor of Extraction in Latin America is available for purchase through Rowman & Littlefield at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538187548/The-Labor-of-Extraction-in-Latin-America

For more information about Latin American Perspectives, our podcasts, and guests, please contact  latampodcasts@gmail.com or lap@ucr.edu