In many Latin American countries, indigenous populations have recently exhibited rapid growth. Many scholars recognize that this indigenous population resurgence is due to a combination of demographic processes, such as births, deaths, and migration, as well as changing racial-ethnic identities. However, there is little quantitative data verifying the relative importance of these two types of processes for indigenous population growth. We seek to fill this gap by quantifying the relative contribution of both mechanisms in Brazil's indigenous population resurgence. Our findings indicate that during the 1990s, race-ethnic reclassification was more important than demographic processes. This varied regionally, in that identity change was most important in northeastern and southeastern Brazil. These findings bear implications regarding indigenous movements, identity politics, and prospective indigenous population growth in Brazil and elsewhere.

El artículo que presentamos proviene de una investigación sobre trayectorias laborales ascendentes de inmigrantes peruanos en Chile y problematiza las condiciones en que se lleva a cabo su ingreso al mercado del trabajo. Tras las trayectorias laborales que aparecen “exitosas”, se aprecian problemáticas profundas que estos hombres y mujeres viven sin mayores alternativas y que incorporan en sus existencias como habitus. Organizando una mirada sociológica que ingrese en la conformidad económica que los/las caracteriza, descubrimos que permanecen en un “lugar aparte” que contiene elementos jurídicos, históricos, políticos e identitarios, que configuran una inserción parcial a la sociedad chilena a pesar de los esfuerzos realizados. La principal razón que obstaculiza este proceso es el racismo cotidiano que mella sus vidas y que afecta sus relaciones laborales y su posición social. El lugar aparte es un terreno frágil donde organizan sus existencias en torno a una búsqueda de aceptación jamás lograda.

Although it is widely acknowledged that Althusser's writings had a lasting impact in Latin America, the French philosopher's reception in the region has been underresearched. The present article investigates the impact of Althusserianism on the cultural politics of the Argentine New Left during the late 1960s and early 1970s. First, I survey the intellectual trajectory of Juan Carlos Portantiero, a New Left intellectual, scholar, and political activist whose writings left a mark on the Argentine historiography of Peronism. Second, I turn to Los Libros (1969–1976), a journal of cultural criticism run by a 1960 cohort of internationally renowned Argentine intellectuals. I analyze the group's Althusser-inspired intervention into contemporaneous debates on the meaning of Peronism and the link between aesthetics and politics. I close by registering the productive influence of Althusserianism on Argentine intellectual production after the country's transition to democracy in 1983.

Job-market discrimination research in the United States and Europe measures discrimination by a majority against racial minorities, discrimination that stems from historical patterns of inequality and privilege. Chilean researchers have applied these models to study class-based discrimination, finding some evidence to support its existence. Their innovative methods make race as well as class visible, and contradictions in their work show racial differences among Chileans. This research note highlights the interesting research from a new generation of labor economists who have simultaneously pushed the sanctioned limits of social debate and reaffirmed dominant explanations of inequality. Critical race theory is useful for making sense of the contradictions in their work and, it is argued, can improve the quality of Chilean social science research so as to reach a more accurate and self-reflective understanding of the sources and effects of inequality in Chile.

Este texto aborda, a partir da estruturação efuncionamento de canais institucionais, a cooperação e influência norte-americana sobre o Exército Brasileiro na década de 1940 e início de 1950. Estes canais foram as comissões militares mistas que funcionaram em Washington e no Rio de Janeiro a partir de 1942, os programas de visita e treinamento de militares brasileiros nos EUA e os programas de assistência norte-americana às instituições de ensino militar no Brasil. Tais programas, somados às transferências de material bélico, resultaram numa forte influência organizacional, doutrinária e política norteamericana sobre as Forças Armadas brasileiras, particularmente sobre o exército. Tal influência, contudo, também gerou resistências, adaptações e tensões no corpo de oficiais.

This article evaluates postelector al conflicts in Mexico’s Oaxaca state before and after the state government legally recognized usos y costumbres—local leader selection via traditional practices (rather than parties and secret ballots). Assessing usos y costumbres within the normative debate between multiculturalists and pluralists on incorporation of ethnic minorities, the article compares the level of postelectoral conflict in usos y costumbres and non-usos y costumbres municipalities. It argues that since such conflicts have increased in Oaxaca over the last decade while simultaneously diminishing dramatically in Mexico’s other 31 states, the cause is probably unique to Oaxaca. Conflict may be at least partially attributed to perverse implementation incentives created by the law’s provocation of conflicts requiring mediation (rather than judicial verdicts). While further research is needed to test normative claims that usos y costumbres increase governing institutions’ credibility and foster positive group identities, the article concludes that while the customary practices “experiment” has failed at least by one criterion, it may warrant reconsideration if customary elections can be viewed as a set of evolving, instrumental processes, rather than as fixed, static, and essentialist conditions.

We examine the extent to which social networks among indigenous peoples in Mexico have a significant effect on a variety of human capital investment and economic activities, such as school attendance and work among teenage boys and girls, and migration, welfare participation, employment status, occupation, and sector of employment among adult males and females. Using data from the 10 percent population sample of the 2000 Population and Housing Census of Mexico and the empirical strategy that Bertrand, Luttmer, and Mullainathan (2000) propose, which allows us to take into account the role of municipality and language group fixed effects, we confirm empirically that social network effects play an important role in the economic decisions of indigenous people, especially in rural areas. Our analysis also provides evidence that better access to basic services such as water and electricity increases the size and strength of network effects in rural areas.

Latin American politics has taken a left turn in the past decade, with an increasing number of chief executives hailing from left-of-center parties. We investigate the political and socioeconomic factors explaining political ideology of the chief executive in a sample of one hundred elections taking place between 1975 and 2007 in eighteen Latin American countries. We find that the commodity booms in agricultural, mining, and oil are positively and significantly related to the probability that a country will have a chief executive from a left-of-center political party. However, for oil exports, we observe that this effect holds only for Venezuela. We also show that past political discrimination and government crises are positively and significantly associated with a move to more left-wing chief executives. Openness to trade and having a president from the right in the previous presidential term negatively affects the probability of having a more liberal president, although the effect of trade openness disappears when the incumbent president is a conservative. We also find that when a government crisis occurs during a term with a president from the right, the probability of having a president from the left in the following term increases significantly.

As reflexões sobre música popular com frequência enfatizam os casos de experiência musical voluntários, motivados por adesões identitárias, afetivas e simbólicas que os indivíduos e grupos sociais realizam com as músicas que gostam. Mas nem sempre é assim. Este texto tem como objetivo discutir as situações nas quais a experiência musical compulsória gera incomodo nos ouvintes, irritando e intimidando aqueles que não compartilham do prazer de ouvir determinado repertório. O exemplo debatido aqui é o caso do funk, gênero musical brasileiro com histórica vinculação com o contexto das periferias, morros e favelas e que volta a surgir como tema privilegiado na mídia a partir de seu uso nos fenômenos dos rolezinhos, causando incômodo e rechaço. Pensar sobre o incômodo do popular-funkeiro-periférico significa reprocessar ideias sobre a desigualdade social, num contexto de grandes transformações sociais, políticas e comportamentais no Brasil e no mundo.

Usando como fuente una muestra de sumarios realizados a maestros de escuela en el período 1946–1955 este trabajo describe y analiza el impacto de la emergencia del peronismo en el campo escolar. El artículo explora el uso de la práctica de la denuncia en ese contexto y muestra que la llegada del peronismo puso en jaque la integración de la comunidad escolar. El nivel de conflicto contradice la imagen que el gobierno había construido sobre los maestros al hacerlos responsables de una campaña simbólica que buscaba generar consenso en torno de la figura de Perón y del nuevo régimen. La discusión centrada en el campo escolar sirve para exponer algunas hipótesis generales sobre el peronismo. A través de ésta se muestra cómo los ciudadanos participaron, aunque de una forma heterodoxa, en la construcción de la hegemonía peronista y cómo el peronismo generó al mismo tiempo solidaridades y tensiones nuevas aún dentro del mismo grupo social y/o profesional.

Some deem the Bolsa Família program (BF) in Brazil to be a quintessentially clientelistic tool, thought to have produced colossal sociodemographic transformations in the base of support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, particularly in the 2006 election. An earlier article (Bohn 2011) maintained that significant changes in Lula's electoral base took place prior to his reelection; other social policies, such as the Benefício de Prestação Continuada, contributed significantly to the changes in Lula's camp; and, most important, that the link between the receipt of social benefits and vote is less straightforward than those who view Bolsa Família as a clientelistic program assume it to be. This work addresses some of the criticisms that the article received and reinforces the need for further research that uses individual-based data to disentangle the complexity of the electoral behavior of the poor in highly unequal societies.

El presente artículo reflexiona sobre una de las maneras a través de las cuales la sociedad boliviana contemporánea ha intentado resolver el brusco vaciamiento de la concepción de lo nacional en la era neoliberal. El artículo argumenta que la hoja de coca ha sido uno de los elementos más importantes en llenar este vacío. Su poder simbólico ha hecho posible bajo determinadas circunstancias (políticas, sociales y culturales) pasar de ser un elemento clave de representación local a otro nacional. Asimismo, la hoja de coca contiene la siempre problemática relación entre lo local y la política global de su erradicación. Precisamente, uno de los aspectos que contribuye al fortalecimiento de la hoja de coca como símbolo en determinado momento es la lucha de los productores de coca en contra de tales políticas. Como marco de referencia de la argumentación se utiliza la noción de sistema-mundo de Immanuel Wallerstein, la idea de globalización de Thomas Barnett y la concepción de representación de Ernesto Laclau.