En abril del año 2015 se promulgó la ley que creó el acuerdo de unión civil en Chile. Este artículo investiga las principales ideas discutidas en el debate legislativo y del rol que cumplieron profesores de derecho de familia invitados como expertos al mismo. Proponemos que la participación de estos abogados fue marginal dentro y fuera del Congreso. Como consecuencia, la ley que creó el acuerdo de unión civil presentó serias falencias. En este artículo proponemos considerar las batallas intra-profesionales por el reconocimiento de un saber experto, como un factor clave en la formulación de políticas en materia de género y sexualidad. Y de paso, esperamos abrir un debate desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria que reimagine al derecho de familia desanclado de relaciones diádicas, centradas en la atracción sexual y orientadas a la procreación.

Centrándose en Brasil, este artículo examina los mecanismos coloniales de imposición de la identidad y estética hegemónicas que ocasionaron la invisibilización y silenciamiento de historias y saberes de los grupos colonizados ubicados en situación marginal. Se propone que, como respuesta a este proceso, las identidades marginadas utilizan herramientas insertadas en la estrategia decolonial —desprendimiento y desobediencia— para transgredir la lógica normativa hegemónica en la elaboración de su producción cultural. El texto analiza artistas, obras, acciones y eventos brasileños recientes que, mediante sus poéticas lograron pervertir y concienciar hacia la epistemología impuesta por la colonialidad. Se estudian propuestas transgresoras que se filtraron en las instituciones legitimadas, como las obras de Rosana Paulino, Denilson Baniwa o la exposición Queermuseu, así como otra nacida fuera de los límites institucionales —la pixação— que, debido a su fricción con el modelo social normativo, escapa a cualquier imposición reglamentaria.

The Fundación John Boulton was established in 1950 as a privately funded institution sponsored by the Casas Boulton of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracaibo. For many years, the Fundación functioned in the Villa Espalmador in El Paraíso, but it has recently moved to new quarters in Torre El Chorro, Avenida Universidad, in the center of Caracas. Founded to facilitate research on the history and culture of Venezuela, the Fundación has assembled a strong collection covering the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Moreover, the collection is constantly being augmented by purchases, exchanges, and donations of additional material. The material available in the Fundación is found in the library, in the various archives, and in two museums.

This article analyzes the power of select political actors in the social networks of New Spain (colonial Mexico), from 1700–1755. Examining the participation of these actors in successful political and economic coalitions allows for assessment of the additional (or marginal) contribution of each politician. His or her chance of altering decisions of a coalition is called the power index, delivering a quantification of the idea of power. A second step then examines how the number of communicative links with other actors changes a politician's influence and modifies the power index. A large amount of contacts significantly increases the power of an actor. Drawing on this model, I argue that the viceroy's sway increased somewhat in this period because of his improving social connections. In addition, historians who have pointed out that the Bourbon dynasty reduced the role of the Council of the Indies to that of an appellate court have underestimated the council's lasting informal influence. This interdisciplinary article introduces game theory to Latin American historical scholarship by analyzing a period that scholars have largely neglected.

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.

Electric Santeria: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion. By Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 271. $30.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780231173179.

Embracing Protestantism: Black Identities in the Atlantic World. By John W. Catron. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016. Pp. ix + 299. $74.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813061634.

Black Saint of the Americas: The Life and Afterlife of Martín de Porres. By Celia Cussen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 285. $90.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107034372.

Afro-Cuban Religious Arts: Popular Expressions of Cultural Inheritance in Espiritismo and Santería. By Kristine Juncker. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014. Pp. xi + 169. $74.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813049700.

The Black Christ of Esquipulas: Religion and Identity in Guatemala. By Douglass Sullivan-González. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 199. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780803268432.

The first part of this essay reviews some of the strengths and weaknesses in the current state of social history of Latin American cities. Specifically, it tries to create an awareness that quantitative urban studies need not be, and should not be, limited to aggregate data for sources. Unfortunately, many of the nascent quantitative studies of postindependence Latin American cities achieve their figures through published materials, principally demographic and commercial censuses. However, manuscript census returns, notarial records, judicial assessments, and other primary documentation can also provide the base from which we can observe frequencies both of personal vital records and of popular quotidian behavior; moving, marrying, going to school, buying or selling goods or property, and so on.

This essay reviews the following works:

Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolutions. By Marc Becker. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Pp. viii + 256. $39.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781442265875.

Sandino: Patria y libertad. By Alejandro Bendaña. Managua: Anamá Ediciones, 2016. Pp. v + 472. $49.90 paperback. ISBN: 9789992475485.

Salvador Allende: Revolutionary Democrat. By Victor Figueroa Clark. London: Pluto Press, 2013. Pp. x + 164. $22.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780745333076.

Insurgent Marcos: The Political-Philosophical Formation of the Zapatista Subcommander. By Nick Henck. Raleigh, NC: Editorial A Contra Corriente, 2016. Pp. 311. $19.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781945234033.

Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America: An Oral History. By Dirk Kruijt. London: Zed Books, 2017. Pp. xvi + 287. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781783608027.

Picturing the Proletariat: Artists and Labor in Revolutionary Mexico, 1908–1940. By John Lear. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 366. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477311509.

La esperanza and el delirio: Una historia de la izquierda en América Latina. By Ugo Pipitone. Mexico City: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas; Taurus, 2015. Pp. 551. ISBN: 9786071137678.

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:

Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change. By Lee J. Alston, Marcus André Melo, Bernardo Mueller, and Carlos Pereira. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 262. $39.50 hardcover. ISBN: 9780691162911.

The Political Construction of Brazil: Society, Economy, and State since Independence. By Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2016. Pp. x + 419. $85.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781626373075.

Making Brazil Work: Checking the President in a Multiparty System. By Marcus André Melo and Carlos Pereira. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Pp. xiii + 212. $100.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137310835.

New Order and Progress: Development and Democracy in Brazil. Edited by Ben Ross Schneider. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 307. $31.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780190462895.