This article is the first of its kind to offer a quantitative estimation of the evolution of Latin American agricultural production and productivity between 1950 and 2008. It also uncovers the extent to which the increases in production were due to increases in factors of production or to efficiency gains. Our findings reveal that efficiency gains made a rather modest contribution to the substantial increase in production, although their role became increasingly large over time and were highly significant between 1994 and 2008. Capital was the most important productive factor in explaining increases in output.

On March 14, 2008, Granma started publication of a new section entitled Cartas a la dirección, which printed letters to the editor containing complaints, criticisms, and suggestions. The section rapidly grew in popularity and became the most closely read portion of the Friday paper. This essay engages with three related questions that have theoretical relevance beyond the specific case of Cuba. First, why would the flagship newspaper in a communist regime solicit citizen letters? Second, why would some of these letters be printed? And third, why would news media seek out responses to the letters and comment on unsatisfactory responses? This essay argues that in Cuba, as in other communist regimes, published complaint letters have two functions: the simple printing of select letters facilitates the collective letting off of steam, whereas the publication of responses to the letters by the authorities that were responsible for the infractions outlined in the initial complaint allows the regime to demonstrate that it takes popular input seriously. Therefore, Cartas a la dirección serves as a nonelectoral mechanism of accountability.

Although a large number of democracies have extended political rights to expatriates, relatively little is known about the depths of transnational political engagement. How attentive are expatriates to politics in the country of origin? When expatriates judge leaders “back home,” are their evaluations based on the same ideological considerations as those of citizens in the country of origin? Drawing from original surveys conducted during presidential elections in Mexico (2006) and Colombia (2010), in which both emigrants and citizens within the country were sampled, this study addresses these questions. The results indicate that for each nationality group, living abroad is not associated with a drop in political attentiveness, and time abroad does not in and of itself depress attention to politics from a distance. Moreover, emigrants and individuals in the country of origin do not vary in the extent to which ideological preferences are used to judge presidents, which is a key marker of political sophistication. These results suggest that in the context of Mexican and Colombian politics, living abroad does not markedly diminish the potential for effective democratic engagement.

This essay reviews the following works:

María Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo: Challenging Visions in Modern Mexican Art. By Nancy Deffebach. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 225. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780292772427.

Cosmopolitanism in Mexican Visual Culture. By María Fernández. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. Pp. x + 438. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780292745353.

The Mobility of Modernism: Art and Criticism in 1920s Latin America. By Harper Montgomery. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. xi + 319. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477312544.

At the Crossroads: Diego Rivera and His Patrons at MoMA, Rockefeller Center, and the Palace of Fine Arts. By Catha Paquette. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. xix + 324. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477311004.

Urayoán Noel’s poetry has garnered much attention for its promotion of hemispheric politics and poetics, along with its interrogation of technology’s structural and narrative interventions into diasporic cultures. This article investigates the role of sound in the Puerto Rican poet’s articulation of contemporary struggles against overwhelming hypertechnology. The analysis focuses on three poems: “Lino: Employee of the Month,” from Kool Logic/La lógica kool (2005); “babel o city (el gran concurso),” from Hi-density Politics (2010); and the live-recorded version of “Boringkén,” from Boringkén (2008). Drawing on Aldama’s (2013) concept of poetic estrangement and Dowdy’s (2013) analysis of Latinx poetic critiques of neoliberalism, this article examines how exclusionary soundscapes are built through repressive understandings of sonic modernity, and how countersounds attempt to decolonize those spaces. Noel’s poetry shows how creative voices and the reappropriation of sound technologies can help position the diasporic subject and subvert dominant sonic structures.

This essay reviews the following works:

Slum Health: From the Cell to the Street. Edited by Jason Corburn and Lee Riley. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. Pp. xvii, 315. $34.95, paperback. ISBN: 9780520281073.

Cities from Scratch: Poverty and Informality in Urban Latin America. Edited by Brodwyn Fischer, Bryan McCann, and Javier Auyero. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. 293. $24.95, paperback. ISBN: 9780822355335.

Owners of the Sidewalk: Security and Survival in the Informal City. By Daniel M. Goldstein Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 334. $26.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822360452.

Housing and Belonging in Latin America. Edited by Christien Klaufus and Arij Ouweneel. CEDLA Latin American Studies, 105. New York: Berghahn, 2015. Pp. xiii, 330. $120 hardcover. ISBN: 9781782387404.

For a Proper Home: Housing Rights in the Margins of Urban Chile, 1960–2010. By Edward Murphy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Pp. ix, 343. $32.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822963110.

El presente artículo analiza cómo una serie de grupos de capitales argentinos —que a fines de la década del 90 estaban por fuera de las cien empresas de mayores ventas— lograron importantes crecimientos de facturación a partir del año 2003. Esto resulta llamativo, teniendo en cuenta que el contexto general estuvo signado, durante buena parte del mismo, por la extranjerización de varios de los grupos de mayor tamaño. Más allá de la alta atención recibida por parte de la prensa, en especial por la vinculación de parte de estos grupos con el gobierno de turno, desde el ámbito académico no existen trabajos que analicen su crecimiento en forma exhaustiva. El objetivo de este artículo es dar cuenta de este fenómeno, identificando y analizando los vectores de crecimiento de los nuevos grupos.

This article reports on the current state of collective migrant organizing for two Indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. Strained relations between migrant organizations and village authorities combine with small active memberships to limit the level and type of fund-raising in support of village development and governance. These findings highlight the difficulties that communities face to maintain effective translocal institutions over time, particularly as first-generation migrants “retire” and a lack of new arrivals hinders organizational renewal.

This essay reviews the following work:

Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution. By Devyn Spence Benson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 297. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469626727.

Revolution within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in Cuba, 1952–1962. By Michelle Chase. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 285. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469625003.

Revolutionary Cuba: A History. By Luis Martínez-Fernández. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014. Pp. xi + 371. $44.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813049953.

The Structure of Cuban History: Meanings and Purpose of the Past. By Louis A. Pérez Jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. $39.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781469606927.

Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression. By Margaret Randall. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 221. $23.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822359623.

What are the factors behind citizen support for the use of extralegal violence in Latin America? The prevailing argument is that, in countries overwhelmed by skyrocketing levels of criminal violence, people endorse the use of extralegal violence as a way to cope with insecurity. Other scholars believe that support for extralegal violence is the result of state withdrawal and failure. Few empirical studies, however, have tested any of these arguments. In this article, using regional data from the 2012 AmericasBarometer, we examine different explanations regarding citizen support for the utilization of extralegal violence in Latin America and the Caribbean. We developed a multi-item scale that gauges support for different forms of extralegal violence across the Americas, and we hypothesize that support for extralegal violence is higher not only in countries with extreme levels of violence but especially in countries in which people distrust the political system. Results indicate that support for extralegal violence is significantly higher in societies characterized by little support for the existing political system.

Years before Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced a “thaw” in US-Cuba relations on December 17, 2014 (17D), Cubans were intensifying ties through the transnational circulation of popular culture. To understand Cuba and its diaspora in the twenty-first century, it is essential that we attend to the transnational networks in place before 17D that continue to shape quotidian life for people on and off the island. I begin in Miami, with the “afterlives” of a comic variety show called Sabadazo—popular on the island during the 1990s—to illustrate how what it means to be Cuban, politically and culturally, has shifted away from the exile generation that arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. I complement this analysis with attention to generational tensions within the diaspora and representations of race and sexuality. I then move to the island to examine el paquete (the package), a terabyte’s worth of mostly foreign media updated and distributed across the island weekly. I contend that the economic and cultural impact of el paquete cannot be fully understood without careful consideration of the role of the Cuban diaspora.