This topical volume seeks to analyze the intimate but under-studied relationship between the construction of national identity in Latin America, and the violent struggle for political power that has defined Latin American history since independence. The result is an original, fascinating contribution to an increasingly important field of study.

This study frames the social dynamics of Latin American in terms of two types of cultural momentum: foundational momentum and the momentum of global order in contemporary Latin America.

Remaking the Nation presents new ways of thinking about the nation, nationalism and national identities. Drawing links between popular culture and indigenous movements, issues of 'race' and gender, and ideologies of national identity, the authors draw on their work in Latin America to illustrate their retheorisation of the politics of nationalism. This engaging exploration of contemporary politics in a postmodern, post new-world-order uncovers a map of future political organisation, a world of pluri-nations and ethnicised identities in the ever-changing struggle for democracy.

To date, scholars have paid little attention to the role that music played at political rallies and protests, the political activism of right-wing and left-wing musicians, and the emergence of musical performances as sites of verbal and physical confrontations between Allende supporters and the opposition. This book illuminates a largely unexplored facet of the Cold War era in Latin America by examining linkages among music, politics, and the development of extreme political violence. It traces the development of folk-based popular music against the backdrop of Chile's social and political history, explaining how music played a fundamental role in a national conflict that grew out of deep cultural divisions. Through a combination of textual and musical analysis, archival research, and oral histories, Jedrek Mularski demonstrates that Chilean rightists came to embrace a national identity rooted in Chile's central valley and its huaso ("cowboy") traditions, which groups of well-groomed, singing huasos expressed and propagated through música típica. In contrast, leftists came to embrace an identity that drew on musical traditions from Chile's outlying regions and other Latin American countries, which they expressed and propagated through nueva canción. Conflicts over these notions of Chilenidad ("Chileanness") both reflected and contributed to the political polarization of Chilean society, sparking violent confrontations at musical performances and political events during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Mularski offers a powerful example and multifaceted understanding of the fundamental role that music often plays in shaping the contours of political struggles and conflicts throughout the world.This is an important book for Latin American studies, history, musicology/ethnomusicology, and communication.

With ethnic and class-based national movements taking center stage in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, nationalism has proven to be one of the most durable and important movements in Latin America. In understanding the history of these nationalisms, we can understand how Latin America relates to the rest of the world. As Latin America inserts itself into a rapidly globalizing world, understanding the changing nature of national identify and nationalism is key. By tracing the important historical origins of present-day Latin American nationalism, this book gives readers a thorough introduction to the subject. Only by understanding how nationalism came to be such an important social and political force, can we understand its significance today. In turn, understanding Latin American nationalism helps us understand how Latin America shapes, and is shaped by, a rapidly globalizing world.

According to media reports, Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world—a distinction it held throughout the twentieth century. The authors of Violence and Crime in Latin America contend that perceptions and representations of violence and crime directly impact such behaviors, creating profound consequences for the political and social fabric of Latin American nations. Written by distinguished scholars of Latin American history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, the essays in this volume range from Mexico and Argentina to Colombia and Brazil in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing such issues as extralegal violence in Mexico, the myth of indigenous criminality in Guatemala, and governments’ selective blindness to violent crime in Brazil and Jamaica. The authors in this collection examine not only the social construction and political visibility of violence and crime in Latin America, but the justifications for them as well. Analytically and historically, these essays show how Latin American citizens have sanctioned criminal and violent practices and incorporated them into social relations, everyday practices, and institutional settings. At the same time, the authors explore the power struggles that inform distinctions between illegitimate versus legitimate violence. Violence and Crime in Latin America makes a substantive contribution to understanding a key problem facing Latin America today. In its historical depth and ethnographic reach, this original and thought-provoking volume enhances our understanding of crime and violence throughout the Western Hemisphere.

This book examines the struggles that unfolded in Latin America over the memory of the pasts of political violence experienced by the countries of the continent in the second half of the twentieth century: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.