This essay reviews the following works:

Contemporary U.S.-Latin American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21st Century? Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez and Rafael Fernández de Castro. 2nd revised edition. New York: Routledge, 2016. Pp. xiv + 309. $49.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781138786325.

Beyond the Eagle’s Shadow: New Histories of Latin America’s Cold War. Edited by Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Mark Atwood Lawrence, and Julio E. Moreno. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013. Pp. viii + 341. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826353689.

The Third Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations since 1889. By Mark T. Gilderhus, David C. LaFevor, and Michael J. LaRosa. 2nd revised edition. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Pp. xiii + 303. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781442257160.

Latin America Confronts the United States: Asymmetry and Influence. By Tom Long. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 260. $29.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781107547056.

Cooperation and Hegemony in US-Latin American Relations: Revisiting the Western Hemisphere Idea. Edited by Juan Pablo Scarfi and Andrew R. Tillman. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. ix + 260. $119.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137510730.

Latin America in International Politics: Challenging US Hegemony. By Joseph S. Tulchin. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2016. Pp. vii + 235. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781626374485.

Este artículo analiza las representaciones centradas en la víctima del conflicto armado interno peruano que propone el documental Tempestad en los Andes (2014), de Mikael Wiström. A partir de este objeto cultural, se examinan las limitaciones y posibilidades que presenta la memoria victimista en el posconflicto peruano. El análisis parte de los significados contrapuestos que el filme articula para Augusta La Torre (líder de Sendero Luminoso) y Claudio Gonzales (estudiante universitario desaparecido). Por un lado, se reflexiona sobre el posicionamiento reconciliador que esta película sostiene en torno a la búsqueda de una víctima neutral merecedora de compasión, la reconstitución de un supuesto mundo andino devastado por la guerra y el énfasis identificatorio con el sufrimiento padecido. Esta interpretación del pasado reciente fuerza una reconciliación (un perdón normalizante) que no permite comprender las complejidades surgidas y, por el contrario, las sutura en vías de alcanzar una cura y unificación del cuerpo social fragmentado con la guerra. Sin embargo, por otro lado, también se analizan las posibilidades de reconocimiento, esas renegociaciones y apropiaciones que suceden desde los márgenes de este proyecto audiovisual: una reivindicación, breve pero real, que intenta reparar el olvido.

Este artículo explora la representación del amulpüllün, o ritual funerario mapuche, en el poemario Reducciones del autor mapuche-huilliche Jaime Huenún. Examina varios poemas en los que el sujeto lírico, asumiendo el papel de orador del amulpüllün, realiza una invocación ritual a los espíritus de mapuche muertos para asegurar su transición al más allá. También analiza cuatro collages creados a partir de fotografías y documentos archivados en el Museo de La Plata en Argentina, en tanto constituyen un canal alternativo de enunciación de los rituales funerarios. Estos poemas y collages recuperan las historias de las personas representadas en ellos, simbólicamente integrándolas a la memoria histórica de sus sociedades por medio de la estrategia literaria del amulpüllün. Además, los textos establecen paralelos entre las historias de las personas, denunciando como estas, de diferentes modos, fueron atravesadas por la violencia, la exclusión y el olvido.

As both a focus and locus of vibrant scholarly work, the field of Bolivian studies burst onto the international scene, carving a distinctive niche for itself within the larger fields of Andean and Latin American studies over the past twenty-five years. Bolivia went from being the hemisphere’s “least studied” country, according to a 1984 LASA Forum survey, to becoming a beacon of intercultural dialogue, vanguard scholarship, and postcolonial debate. This essay traces Bolivian studies’ coming of age. Plotting the field’s developments and dialogues across history, anthropology, and ethnohistory, it argues that a dual process of academic decentering and epistemic reinvention unfolded in Bolivia at the height of its indigenous and popular mobilizations during the 1990s and early 2000s. The article closes by identifying five thematic clusters of recent research and briefly reflects on the place of Bolivian scholarship in the wider purview of Andean studies.

This article analyzes several patterns of antisemitism in twentieth-century Latin America. It identifies historical moments when carriers of social and political ideas projected negative images of Jews, sometimes pushing anti-Jewish policies and at times leading violent actions against Jews. Thus, antisemitism served to mobilize in defense of national identity; as a reaction to Jewish peddlers perceived as a threat to national economies; as a basis for the generalized rejection of “undesirable refugees” during World War II and the Holocaust; and as a Cold War phenomenon, along with anticommunism and neo-Nazism. Like other forms of xenophobia, antisemitism was grounded in prejudice and the demonization of a supposed enemy rather than being based on verified evidence. Analysis suggests that antisemitism has been deeply rooted in Latin America and has manifested over time with changing historical and social constellations. At the same time, while Judeophobic prejudices and actions have been intimidating and have at times precluded the legal immigration of Jews, antisemitism has rarely become dominant or led to systemic social discrimination, massive expulsion, or mass genocide, unlike in Europe.

Criminal violence in Latin American cities is increasing. Meanwhile, with urbanization, greater numbers of people are moving to cities and into the crossfire. What self-protection strategies do residents adopt to keep safe in violent cities? Drawing on qualitative data from Medellín, Colombia, and Monterrey, Mexico, we document the strategies residents use to stay safe. We synthesize insights from studies of civil war, criminal governance, and urban violence to construct an analytical framework to systematically catalog and name these strategies. We posit that the type of violence residents face—indiscriminate or targeted—influences the strategies they pursue. Responding to either the indiscriminate or targeted form, residents employ survival strategies to avoid, withstand, or confront violence. Our research underscores the centrality of agency for residents’ “staying power” amid urban violence.

Latin American historical research in France is limited, although interest is increasing. The evidence of this is readily apparent. For instance, the proposed book, Guide des sources de l'histoire de l'Amérique Latine conservées en France is still in draft and more than ten years behind schedule. An examination of articles on Latin America in French journals indicates the limited use of sources available in France. The National Archives receives only a few requests for archival searches, its files indicating only three such requests on the topic South America (Amérique du Sud). These include inqueries for materials on commerce between France and Latin America in the first half of the nineteenth century, sources for steamship packet-boats to America in the nineteenth century, and Anglo-French diplomatic relations with Latin America, 1836–48. There were no search requests for Brazil or Argentina, but six for Mexico. Yet archival sources of information about Latin America in France are abundant and provide materials not available elsewhere. This is particularly true for material on the former French colonies and on Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.

In the Last Decade Scholars Have Undertaken a Reappraisal of Brazil's colonial experience conjunctly with Portugal's pioneering endeavors in imperial expansion and persistent occupation. Sequentially these dual facets have encouraged an appreciation of research materials in Portugal for the study of Brazilian history. Portugal's vast archives, excellent museums, and numerous libraries are abundant in historical manuscripts and printed works as are the various town halls, monasteries, private homes, and Misericordias, most of which remain insufficiently utilized by foreign scholars. Increased fellowship funds and more cosmopolitan academic attitudes have facilitated accessibility to geographically widespread collections, the benefits of which are immeasurable.

So-called development projects in rural Mexico are heavily contested. Changes in institutional design have had little effect in mediating the exclusivity of the political decision-making processes defining such projects. Why, and how, has the Mexican state been able to maintain a developmentalist agenda, despite growing pressures to incorporate participatory development institutions and consult Indigenous peoples about development projects? This article introduces the geographic concept of scale and the concept of the state’s heterogeneous selectivities into debates on participation to study the politics of development projects. It analyzes the potential and existing obstacles to political participation for Indigenous networks and activists in the corresponding planning processes across institutional scales, examining protest against wind energy development in the state of Oaxaca and the project of “rural cities” in the state of Chiapas. Rather than two separate cases for comparison, both examples represent different planning processes involving the same heterogeneous state and the same promise of progress.

“Artists are originators who reflect their native land if they know how to understand the joys and sorrows in the soul of its people; if they interpret them in line, color, stone or clay, in music or by word. If they feel and comprehend its landscape. If they eternalize it.”