In 1926, the Fox Film Corporation held a “Masculine and Feminine Photogenic Beauty Contest” to find Hollywood’s newest “Latin” star in Brazil and other countries. North American film representatives asked for contestants who were “white with Latin blood.” The exotic allure of this racialized category contradicted Brazilian elites’ preference for eugenic, chaste, white beauty. Brazilian film critics, advertisers, and beauty contestants negotiated transnational standards of beauty as they sought faces, bodies, and sexual appeal that would conquer Hollywood. Ultimately, Brazilian films intellectuals forged their own meanings of “white with Latin blood” even as they upheld the supremacy of white beauty. However, the contest demonstrates how the transnational contours of cinema offered a liminal space for competing standards of racialized beauty in Brazil.

Does national media news coverage affect the behavior of legislators when deciding foreign policy matters? This article aims to disentangle the relationship between the media and legislative behavior in foreign policy, using Paraguay as a case study. We analyze the level of public debate on international affairs, measured by the frequency of news in the newspaper ABC Color in the six months before the roll-call votes on the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay. The literature on Latin American studies finds a lack of parliamentary interest in foreign affairs due to low voter attention to this subject, and therefore a low impact on reelections. We find the relationship between parliamentary polarization and public interest in a bill to be mediated by mass media. After estimating a Tobit model, we observe a significant and positive relationship between the news coverage a law receives and the degree of polarization among parliamentarians. Thus, our empirical evidence contradicts the idea that there is a lack of electoral interest in foreign policy. We confirm this finding through qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews.

This article traces the origins of María Elena Velasco’s comic character “la India María” through what Fatimah Tobing Rony has labeled ethnographic film. It explores how Velasco’s first film, Tonta, tonta, pero no tanto (dir. Fernando Cortés, Mexico, 1972), borrows conventional linguistic and performative representations from the so-called Indigenista films of Emilio “Indio” Fernández and Benito Alazraki. The essay also studies how popular discourses regarding Indigenous intelligence and the trope of illiterate Natives as “burros” coincide with the state ideologies behind comic representations of Indigenous characters.

This essay reviews the following works:

Medicine and Nation Building in the Americas, 1890–1940. By José Amador. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 219. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826520210.

Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History. By Marcos Cueto and Steven Palmer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 306. $32.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781107633018.

A History of Family Planning in Twentieth-Century Peru. By Raúl Necochea López. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 234. $37.50 paperback. ISBN: 9781469618081.

Progressive Mothers, Better Babies: Race, Public Health, and the State in Brazil, 1850–1945. By Okezi T. Otovo. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. x + 273. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477309056.

This essay reviews the following works:

From Idols to Antiquity: Forging the National Museum of Mexico. By Miruna Achim. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Pp. ix+ 327. $30.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781496203373.

Framing a Lost City: Science, Photography, and the Making of Machu Picchu. By Amy Cox Hall. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. xiv + 267. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477313688.

Knowing the Day, Knowing the World: Engaging Amerindian Thought in Public Archaeology. By Lesley Green and David R. Green. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2013. Pp.vi + 308. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816530373.

Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building under Lázaro Cárdenas. By Jennifer Jolly. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 340. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477314203.

Nature and Antiquities: The Making of Archaeology in the Americas. Edited by Philip L. Kohl, Irina Podgorny, and Stefanie Gänger. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 246. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816531127.

Our Indigenous Ancestors: A Cultural History of Museums, Science, and Identity in Argentina, 1877–1943. By Carolyne R. Larson. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 221. $79.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780271066967.

Maya Cultural Heritage: How Archaeologists and Indigenous Communities Engage the Past. By Patricia A. McAnany. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Pp. ix + 245. $85.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781442241275.

Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru. By Mark Rice. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. xvi + 233. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469643533.

El enorme caudal de mensajes generados espontáneamente tras el sismo que sacudió a la Ciudad de México el 19 de septiembre de 2017 constituye todo un género de emergencia con el que leer no solo el evento sísmico, sino el espacio político donde se inserta, sus tensiones y debates. En este ensayo propongo analizar las narrativas que suceden a un desastre natural como integrantes de un género textual que puede trasladarse a otros escenarios, así como explorar las lecturas más inmediatas que provocó este evento y el modo en que visibilizaron dinámicas normalmente ocultas bajo las configuraciones espaciales cotidianas: El derrumbe causó una nueva visibilidad del espacio urbano que implicó una nueva legibilidad del espacio político que lo contiene.

This essay reviews the following works:

Peru: Elite Power and Political Capture. By John Crabtree and Francisco Durand. London: Zed Books (distributed by University of Chicago Press), 2017. Pp. viii + 206. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781783609031.

Peru in Theory. Edited by Paulo Drinot. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. ix + 255. $105.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137455253.

Rethinking Community from Peru: The Political Philosophy of José María Arguedas. By Irina Alexandra Feldman. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 175. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822963073.

The Rarified Air of the Modern: Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes. By Willie Hiatt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 215. $49.54 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190248901.

Andean Truths: Transitional Justice, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production in Post–Shining Path Peru. By Anne Lambright. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 212. $120.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781781382516.

Now Peru Is Mine: The Life and Times of a Campesino Activist. By Manuel Llamojha Mitma and Jaymie Patricia Heilman. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 229. $23.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822362388.

Peru: Staying the Course of Economic Success. Edited by Alejandro Santos and Alejandro Werner. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2015. Pp. xv + 440. $40.00 ISBN: 9781513599748.

This article analyzes the structure and the stability of Brazilian public attitudes toward foreign policy issues. It argues that Brazilian attitudes on foreign affairs are more structured and stable than has previously been believed. It asserts that deep and historical beliefs about Brazil’s role in international affairs, such as pacifism and protagonism, are responsible for creating reasonably consistent and stable public attitudes toward specific foreign policy preferences. The argument builds on the model proposed by Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley (1987) in their study on the coherence of US public opinion on foreign policy issues. The article uses survey data from two national samples undertaken in 2014 and 2019 (about 1,800 respondents each). The samples are part of the “Brazil, the Americas and the World” project, which conveys information about Brazilian public opinion on foreign policy issues.

This essay reviews the following works:

Democracia em risco? 22 ensaios sobre o Brasil hoje. By Sérgio Abranches and twenty-three others. bold>São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018. Pp. 328. R$69.90 paperback. ISBN: 9788535932027.

Presidencialismo de coalizão: Raízes e evolução do modelo político brasileiro. By Sérgio Abranches. bold>São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018. Pp. 434. R$69.90 paperback. ISBN: 9788535931556.

Brazil Apart: 1964–2019. By Perry Anderson. bold>London: Verso, 2019. Pp. 224. $21.56 hardcover. ISBN: 9781788737944.

Dinheiro, eleições e poder: As engrenagens do sistema político brasileiro. By Bruno Carazza. bold>São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018. Pp. 324. R$69.90 paperback. ISBN: 9788535931259.

Valsa brasileira: Do boom ao caos econômico. By Laura Carvalho. bold>São Paulo: Todavia, 2018. Pp. 192. R$49.90 paperback. ISBN: 9788593828621.

Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems. By Paul Chaisty, Nic Cheeseman, and Timothy J. Power. bold>Oxford: Oxford University Press. US$85.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780198817208.

O lulismo em crise: Um quebra-cabeça do período Dilma (2011–2016). By André Singer. bold>São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018. Pp. 392. R$54.90 paperback. ISBN: 9788535931150.

A batalha dos poderes: Da transição democrática ao mal-estar constitucional. By Oscar Vilhena Vieira. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018. Pp. 233. R$49.90 paperback. ISBN: 9788535931815.

This essay reviews the following works:

When Movements Become Parties: The Bolivian MAS in Comparative Perspective. By Santiago Anria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xxi + 275. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108427579.

Between the Andes and the Amazon: Language and Social Meaning in Bolivia. By Anna M. Babel. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018. Pp. xii + 265. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816537266.

Domesticating Democracy: The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia. By Susan Helen Ellison. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Pp. xiii + 281. $25.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822371083.

Latin America since the Left Turn. Edited by Tulia G. Falleti and Emilio A. Parrado. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 376. $69.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780812249712.

Coca Yes, Cocaine No: How Bolivia’s Coca Growers Reshaped Democracy. By Thomas Grisaffi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. vii + 261. $25.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781478002970.

USAID in Bolivia: Partner or Patrón? By Lawrence C. Heilman. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press. Pp. xiii + 345. $85.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781626374362.

Beyond Indigeneity: Coca Growing and the Emergence of a New Middle Class in Bolivia. By Alessandra Pellegrini Calderón. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Pp. xiv + 205. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816533107.

The Indigenous State: Race, Politics, and Performance in Plurinational Bolivia. By Nancy Postero. Oakland: University of California Press. Pp. xii + 228. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520294035.

Along the Bolivian Highway: Social Mobility and Political Culture in a New Middle Class. By Miriam Shakow. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 259. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780812246148.

Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America: From Resisting Neoliberalism to the Second Incorporation. Edited by Eduardo Silva and Federico M. Rossi. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 403. $32.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822965121.

Political Networks and Social Movements: Bolivian State-Society Relations under Evo Morales, 2006–2016. By Soledad Valdivia Rivera. New York: Berghahn Books, 2019. Pp. vi + 271. $135.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781789202199.

We analyze class structures in Latin America from a sociological perspective, defining social classes as labor market positions. We propose an adaptation of the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) class schema, which has become a standard in advanced industrialized countries but presents some limitations in accounting for labor relations in Latin America. Then, we use recent survey data for nine Latin American countries to delineate a map of current class structures and explore the association between social class and social/economic conditions. Our results indicate that class structures differ significantly not only between Latin America and advanced industrialized nations but also among Latin American countries. There is also a close association between class membership and socioeconomic conditions, including social protection and the risk of poverty. These results suggest that a sociological approach to social class is still pertinent to understanding the relationships among productive structures, labor markets, and living conditions in Latin America.

This article examines patterns of change and continuity in Latin American foreign policies. It asks two interrelated questions: How can we conceptually and empirically account for foreign policy change? And why do states change their foreign policies in Latin America? To answer these questions, we used the results of a new expert survey on foreign policy preferences in the region between 1980 and 2014. The results we obtained using both linear and nonparametric specifications are very clear and consistent: presidential ideology is what matters the most. Simply put, a change in the ideology of the president produces a change in foreign policy that is almost equivalent in magnitude, all other theoretically relevant factors set to their means.

To explain the high rates of violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle, this article argues that it is rooted in an armed arena comprised of state and nonstate actors with roles in security, ranging from the military to organized crime. In this space of collaboration, those actors bring resources and reap rewards, strengthening their relationships in the process. Of the many activities within the armed arena, one of the most destructive is the trafficking of firearms. Based on fieldwork in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, this article focuses on two sets of relationships that demonstrate the armed arena’s strength. The first set is the area of criminal justice, centered on investigations, ballistics, inventories, and destruction of arms. The second is the arms market: regional trafficking, internal arms sales, and the state’s licensing system. Evaluating governmental responses, the final section shows that arms control policies are most effective when they target and disrupt these relationships.

Este articulo analiza el papel que desempeñaron turistas norteamericanos en la redefinición de la vocación productiva de dos localidades mexicanas. Estos visitantes desde sus actividades empresariales tuvieron un papel fundamental en la constitución de estos espacios sociales como lugares turísticos. El trabajo analiza el papel de los emprendedores como agentes en la transformación de la identidad cultural de pequeñas poblaciones que, hasta antes de la presencia de estos emprendedores, no eran considerados destinos turísticos y pasaban por una crisis económica por lo que sus proyectos parecían una aventura destinada al fracaso. El papel que los visitantes norteamericanos han tenido en la definición de la cultura y la actividad turística en México ha sido poco analizado. Los casos de estudio son Taxco (Guerrero) y Álamos (Sonora).

El artículo analiza de las percepciones y legitimación frente a las desigualdades para el caso chileno, enfocándose en su dimensión socioecológica. Muestra resultados de una investigación cualitativa de cuatro años realizada en cinco casos de territorios sometidos a altos niveles de degradación ambiental, con el fin de analizar los procesos a través de los cuales los sujetos perciben esta dimensión de la desigualdad y van construyendo una gramática al respecto, considerando que son espacios en los que la intersección de variables que configuran las posiciones de desventaja adquieren una violencia tal que amenaza la vida misma de los sujetos y la de su entorno. Para esto analiza los elementos del contexto tóxico que atraviesan las percepciones de desigualdad, para establecer cuatro gramáticas de la legitimación: la naturalización, la relativización, la negación y la resignación.

La identificación partidista es importante para explicar las actitudes, opiniones y el comportamiento político de los individuos en muchos contextos. Sin embargo, poca atención se ha puesto a su contraparte, la independencia partidista. En América Latina, los votantes independientes son el 62 por ciento del electorado. Pero ¿quiénes son los votantes independientes en América Latina? ¿cuáles son sus actitudes y comportamiento político? y ¿qué factores inciden en su decisión de voto? Usando datos del Barómetro de las Américas, se distinguen dos tipos de votantes independientes a partir de sus niveles de movilidad cognitiva: apolíticos y apartidistas. Los resultados muestran que los apartidistas se comportan de manera más similar a los partidistas que a los apolíticos en América Latina. Los apartidistas poseen niveles más altos de participación electoral y no electoral, se exponen más a las noticias en medios de comunicación, usan más internet y tienen un mayor conocimiento político que los apolíticos. Además, son más propensos que los apolíticos a utilizar la evaluación del desempeño del gobierno como factor en su decisión de voto.

How might industrial transformations with mutual gains unfold in late-developer contexts devoid of the state’s helping hand or the pedagogical guidance of multinational buyers in global value chains? This article addresses this question through the study of a deviant case focused on a set of seven cheese-processing cooperatives in Nicaragua. It traces the cooperatives’ adoption of a new, upgraded “Gebhardian” organizational model—incorporating improvements in primary production and export-oriented processing—to the actions of a team of “developmental professionals” employed by foreign aid agencies. Drawing on ideational accounts in political science and sociology, the article then suggests that two explanatory factors set these professionals apart from other comparable actors: their adherence to a social democratic ideology and their base of expert knowledge. It also highlights the prerevolutionary collective experience of targeted rancher communities, which is reminiscent of Hirschman’s conserved “social energy,” as an indispensable background condition for the transformation.

This article examines how the organizational structure of a social movement affects the tactics it is likely to adopt. Hybrid movements gained prominence at the start of the twenty-first century. Like movements of the past, they protested on the streets; but unlike the movements of the past, they also acted like interest groups by lobbying government over policy. Considered through the lens of traditional scholarship, this phenomenon presents a puzzle. Loose networks of activists are thought to be good at contentious politics but incapable of negotiating with government. By contrast, federations of interest groups are seen to be good at insider lobbying but subject to co-optation. This article theorizes the middle ground between social movements and interest groups by proposing a third structure for social movement organizing, the federative coalition, which incorporates some of the advantages of hierarchy while avoiding some of its pitfalls. The article illustrates this argument through a case study of Brazil’s AIDS movement.

This essay reviews the following works:

Vulnerabilidad y violencia en América Latina y el Caribe: Paisaje cultural y diseño urbano. Edited by Markus Gottsbacher and John De Boer. Mexico City: Proyectos Estratégicos Consultoría; Siglo Veintiuno, 2016. Pp. 432. $24.95 paperback. ISBN: 9786070307447.

Violence and Resilience in Latin America Cities. Edited by Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt. London: Zed Books, 2015. Pp. ix + 195. $28.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781780324562.

The Punitive City: Privatized Policing and Protection in Neoliberal Mexico. By Markus-Michael Müller. London: Zed Books, 2016. Pp. vii + 179. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781783606962.

Violence and Crime in Latin America: Representations and Politics. Edited by Gema Santamaría and David Carey Jr. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. Pp. vii + 320. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780806155746.

Votes, Drugs, and Violence: The Political Logic of Criminal Wars in Mexico. By Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xix+ 349. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108795272.

Homicidal Ecologies: Illicit Economies and Complicit States in Latin America. By Deborah J. Yashar New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xvii + 250. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781316629659.

Endangered City: The Politics of Security and Risk in Bogotá. By Austin Zeiderman. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 290. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822361626.

Across Latin America, mestizo nationalism became a common response to postcolonial independence, revolt, and revolution in the twentieth century. These different mixed-race nationalisms have been the subject of continuous debate in Latin American studies. The field of Asian American studies offers a different approach that highlights the political and cultural function of anti-Chinese politics beyond their targeting of racialized Chinese subjects. This article examines the anti-Chinese politics and mestizo nationalisms of Mexico and El Salvador to question if and when popular Orientalist racism aided indigenous and peasant consent to state-sponsored mestizo nationalism. This methodology underscores the historical role that ideological formations of Asia and Asians have contributed to the political and cultural life of race in Latin America even when actual populations remained small or nonexistent. By understanding racial formations in a multiracial context I underscore the notion that anti-Chinese racism is not only important in that it discriminated against Chinese, but also that it served non-Chinese Latin Americans remarkably well and helped build an unstable equilibrium of mestizo hegemony.