Description

Latin America is a continent where the political - lo político - pervades every aspect of society. This has led social scientists to focus their attention over the last decades on social and political movements. As a consequence, there has been a tendency to underestimate the associational character of many social movements in which individual members build networks of solidarity and civic engagement. It also led to ignoring social organizations which do not directly aim at resource mobilization or political objectives. This course aims at understanding and analysing these two connected elements in Latin America. This will imply two exercises. First, we will try to understand the character of different types of movements and associations. Secondly, we will discuss to what extent we can look to social and political movements in different ways. To do so, we will critically look at the concept of social capital and discuss to what extent it can help us to answer the questions above.

We will also look at the perspectives that consider Latin America a region with a specific social and political culture. It is commonplace to depict Latin America as a continent characterized by patriarchal authoritarianism, social and political exclusion and capitalist individualism. However, historically the continent has hosted a great variety of organizations and networks that fostered social cohesion and tried to solve existing social and economic problems. Sometimes these networks were class based, as for instance in all kinds of union activities. In other instances, they transcended class differences, for example in voluntary associations, cultural or religious networks or networks based on geography or ethnicity. In present-day Latin America, these social networks continue to exist, but have taken the form of NGO’s, religious communities or social movements. Cultural networks such as brass bands, capoeira or hip hop groups, have often acquired new social meanings in today’s globalized Latin America. The question is whether we can see them as building-blocks for a new, more democratic Latin America. In answering these kinds of questions, we may possibly find new ways of looking at the political reality of Latin America.

Literature

– Alejandro Portes and Patricia Landolt, ‘Social Capital: promise and Pitfalls of its Role in development’, Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (2000); pp. 129-47

– Larry Diamond, ‘Rethinking Civil Society. Towards Democratic Consolidation’, Journal of Democracy 5:3 (July 1994); pp. 4-17

– Maxine Molyneux, ‘Gender and Silences of Social Capital: Lessons from Latin America’, Development and Change 33:2 (2002);
pp. 167-88

– Sian Lazar, El Alto, Rebel City. Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008)

Other literature will be announced later.

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