Drawing from a combination of the author’s own research on Portugal’s empire and recent work across a range of disciplines, this essay discusses the growing dialogue between Latin American studies and science and technology studies (STS). It discusses key similarities and differences in the questions, methods, and theoretical frameworks which have guided research in both areas. It focuses particular attention on the divergent ways in which the two interdisciplinary arenas of scholarship have handled objects and materiality. The author argues that despite important differences in orientation, a focus on objects and materiality informed by STS perspectives can broaden the archive available to scholars of colonial Latin America, challenge and extend critical insights of colonial research, and call into question the adequacy of conventional Latin American and Atlantic spatial frameworks.

El 2 de octubre de 2018 marcó la quincuagésima conmemoración de la masacre del aún desconocido número de estudiantes, transeúntes y otros inocentes en la Plaza de las Tres Culturas de Tlatelolco. Como siempre, el programa cultural del Memorial 68 incluyó varias producciones teatrales, pero esta vez llamó la atención el uso casi exclusivo de la farsa como modo de expresión dramática. La farsa tiende a ser burlona, irreverente y alejada de la realidad, lo que lleva a preguntarse por qué tantos dramaturgos han recurrido a este género antiguo y poco respetado para tratar un capítulo tan doloroso y álgido de la historia mexicana. Este estudio se fundamenta en la teoría de la farsa, la tragedia y la risa y en la percepción extendida de la misma historia mexicana como una farsa. Aunque el uso de la farsa como vehículo para una conmemoración tan significante podría sorprender y hasta ofender, el análisis de cinco obras comprueba que la farsa es últimamente la expresión más realista del ciclo absurdo y sin fin de la historia mexicana, la que ha mostrado repetidamente que se puede matar con impunidad tanto a estudiantes como a todos los que se oponen al orden establecido.

Este ensayo reseña los siguientes trabajos:

The Matter of Empire: Metaphysics and Mining in Colonial Peru. By Orlando Bentancor. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 416. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822944607.

Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World. By Allison Margaret Bigelow. Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xvi + 376. $39.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781469654386.

Living in Silverado: Secret Jews in the Silver Mining Towns of Colonial Mexico. By David M. Gitlitz. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 432. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826360793.

Potosí: The Silver City That Changed the World. By Kris Lane. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. Pp. ix + 272. $32.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780520280847.

Urban Indians in a Silver City: Zacatecas, México, 1546–1810. By Dana Velasco Murillo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 308. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780804796118.

Spectacular Wealth: The Festivals of Colonial South American Mining Towns. By Lisa Voigt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 235. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477310977.

Durante el último tercio del siglo XX, la crisis del régimen de hacienda en los Andes septentrionales marcó el inicio de una gran transformación social. En ese proceso, la identidad étnica devino en una poderosa herramienta de reivindicación por el acceso a recursos (y derechos) esenciales de los campesinos-indígenas sometidos al poder de los terratenientes. Tomando el ejemplo de la provincia de Chimborazo, en la sierra central del Ecuador, y tras una revisión de las peculiaridades de ese longevo sistema de dominación, el artículo centra la atención en las formas y alcance de la insurgencia indígena-campesina hasta la consolidación del proceso de reforma agraria, entre las décadas de 1960 y 1980. A continuación, se establecen los vínculos entre el desenlace de la reforma, el fortalecimiento organizativo indígena y la etnitización de sus demandas como recurso estructurante de su relación con el Estado y las agencias de desarrollo, ya en las postrimerías del siglo XX. La intención es aportar reflexiones sobre algunos aspectos de la politización de la etnicidad que, desde un escenario concreto, interpelan a otros fenómenos comparables de la región andina.

The literature on aid allocation shows that many factors influence donors’ decision to provide aid. However, our knowledge about foreign aid allocation is based on traditional foreign aid, from developed to developing countries, and many assumptions of these theories do not hold when applied to southern donors. This article argues that south-south development cooperation (SSDC) can be explained by the strength of development cooperation’s domestic allies and foes. Specifically, it identifies civil society organizations as allies of SSDC and nationalist groups as opponents of SSDC. By using for the first time data on SSDC activities in Latin America, this article shows the predictive strength of a liberal domestic politics approach in comparison to the predictive power of alternative explanations. The results speak to scholars of both traditional foreign aid and south-south development cooperation in highlighting the limits of traditional theories of foreign aid motivations.

This study addresses a void in the literature on public attitudes toward police in Latin America. It integrates three theoretical models of the determinants of citizen satisfaction with police work in Chile: demographic, quality of life in the neighborhood, and experiential. The study tested the integrated model using a novel random sample of 996 individuals living in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago. The results underscore the importance of legitimacy centered on fair treatment, respect for human rights, and the perception that the police represent society. The findings are also significant for the Chilean institutional political process and for the Latin American police reform debate.

In some countries, bicameral discrepancies are solved by the formation of a conference committee. In Chile, conference committees are exclusively and automatically formed when the second chamber rejects a bill passed in the first chamber or when the first chamber rejects the modifications to its original bill made by the second chamber. This article postulates 4 hypotheses for the determinants of conference committee formation. It tests them for the case of Chile’s sequential legislative process (1990–2018) using 2,183 bills that reached the stage where a conference committee could be formed. The 482 conference committees that resulted were more likely to be formed when chambers were controlled by different majorities, when passage required special voting thresholds, when bills were more important for the president, and when the bills had more approved amendments, but they were not more likely if the bill was introduced by legislators rather than the executive.

Pension policy is a highly political issue across Latin America. Since the mid-2000s, several countries have re-reformed their pension systems with a general trend toward more state involvement, yet with significant variation. This article contends that policy legacies and the institutional political setting are key to understanding such variation. Analyzing the cases of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, this article shows that where a weak legacy, characterized by low coverage and savings rates, a weakly organized pension industry, and strong societal groups that oppose the private system, combines with a strong institutional setting, characterized by a government with large support in Congress and where the president concentrates decisionmaking, re-reform outcomes may lead to the outright elimination of the private pillar. Conversely, where a strong legacy combines with a weak institutional setting, re-reform outcomes will tend to maintain the private pillar and expand only the role of the public one.

Most literature on drugs and conflict focuses on how the drug trade affects insurgent behavior, paying little attention to its effect on state behavior in conflict settings. This article begins to address this gap by analyzing the impact of drugs on state violence during the internal conflict in Peru (1980–2000), which, in the 1980s, was the world’s major producer of coca for the international drug trade. Drawing on literature on criminal violence and on drug policy, this study theorizes militarization as the main channel by which drug production affects how state forces treat the civilian population during internal conflicts, though it also explores a second channel associated with corruption. The analysis finds that, all else equal, drug-producing localities saw increased state violence in ways consistent with the militarization channel.

Do labor unions still motivate their members to participate in politics, or have social and economic changes undermined their political importance? This question is important to revisit, as globalization and economic reform have weakened many popular sector organizations in Latin America, reducing some to mere patronage machines. This article examines the case of the teachers’ union in Bogotá, Colombia to assess whether and how labor unions are able to promote the political activation of their members. Employing a multimethod research design that begins with a quantitative analysis of a survey of Colombian teachers, this study finds that union affiliation is associated with higher levels of motivation to vote. It then uses evidence from interviews to show how union advocacy and internal elections for leadership positions shape political behavior, contributing to civic engagement. This research engages with broader debates about democratic quality and political representation in contemporary Latin America.