Hank Johnston and Paul Almeida (editors), 2006, Latin
American Social Movements: Globalization, Democratization,
and Transnational Networks (Rowman & Littlefield).
The two current trends of democratization and deepening
economic liberalization have made Latin American countries
a ground for massive defensive mobilization campaigns and
have created new sites of popular struggle. In this edited
volume on Latin American social movements, original
chapters are combined with peer- reviewed articles from
the well-regarded journal Mobilization. Four sections
represent major themes in Latin American social movement
research. An introductory section is followed by one
discussing large-scale collective action by civil society
against economic liberalization policies. The third
section focuses on democratic transition in the context of
neoliberalism. The fourth section examines two important
cases of women's empowerment through protest mobilization,
while the final section includes case studies on the
strategic mobilization of Latin American movements. The
volume includes original chapters on the Madres de Plaza
de Mayo movement in Argentina and the Zapatista movement
in Chiapas, Mexico. Also included in its coverage of the
region's major movements are los piqueteros and
antisweatshop labor organizing. This is the first study to
focus closely on the related issues of neoliberal
globalization, democratization, and the workings of
transnational advocacy networks in Latin America.
Richard Stahler-Sholk, Harry E. Vanden, and Glen David
Kuecker, 2008, Latin American Social Movements in the
Twenty-first Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy
(Rowman & Littlefield).
When elected civilians replaced military authoritarian
regimes in Latin America in the 1980s, democracy seemed at
hand. Yet those nominally democratic regimes implemented
widely unpopular neoliberal policies, opening the
economies to global market forces with devastating impact
on the poor. This clearly written and comprehensive text
examines the uprising of politically and economically
marginalized groups in Latin American societies.
Specialists in a broad range of disciplines interpret the
new wave of social movements, including movements in
Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and
Argentina, the Vía Campesina global peasant network, and
Mesoamerican coalitions against regional free trade
agreements. This volume assembles original research from a
variety of case studies in a student-friendly format.
Section introductions help students contextualize the
essays, highlighting social movement origins, strategies,
and outcomes. Thematic sections address historical
context, political economy, community-building and
consciousness, ethnicity and race, gender, movement
strategies, and transnational organizing, making this book
useful to anyone studying the wide range of social
movements in Latin America.
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Tommaso Vitale
Dipartimento di Sociologia e della Ricerca Sociale
Università di Milano Bicocca
via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, 8
20126 Milano
tel: ++39.02 6448 7477
fax: ++39.02 6448 7561
skype: tomvita
http://homepage.mac.com/tommaso.vitale/
