The majority of people around the world are experiencing oppressive and destructive forces which manifest themselves in starvation, income polarisation, joblessness, stress, violence, and so on. What is the nature of these forces? If we call them "globalisation", can there be good globalisation as well as bad globalisation? Is this a new phenomenon or just a continuation of history as it has always been? This book brings together a wide range of expertise addressing these problems from a world-systems perspective.
Nowadays we are fortunate enough to be experiencing a boom in human rights - an enormous increase of their importance in the international sphere at all levels (political, economic, social, legal and moral). For the first time the condition of the individual as “citizen,” and not just as “subject,” has gained importance. Individuals, and not only states, have now become the subjects of international law, as a result of the boom in humanitarian law and international criminal law. However, although there have been many battles won and goals met concerning human rights, the war against injustice continues and the fight has not ended. It is necessary to stay alert and to avoid a potentially paralyzing self-complacency. This collection focusses on topics that are particularly relevant for the present era. It examines issues such as multiculturalism, globalization, international criminal justice (specifically third and fourth generation rights) and, within this thematic framework, the problems that have come about as a result of the expanding reach of the Internet and of new biomedical advances. In addition, it explores the increasingly urgent challenge of how to respond to international terrorism, in view of worldwide events since September 11, 2001, and its resulting aftermath. Originally published in Spanish, this thought-provoking collection will be of interest to human rights scholars and practitioners alike.
The German-born, Chilean author Norbert Lechner remains one of Latin America’s most prominent and creative social scientists. His work is indebted to the intense debates regarding theories of modernization, developmentalism, and dependence that took place in Latin American intellectual and political circles. These theoretical sources were present as a cognitive horizon in his essential writings, and many of the central concerns that enlivened his oeuvre arose from his intellectual immersion in these deliberations. If the confrontations with the revolutionary discourses of the 1960s informed his vision of the Latin American state, his experience with authoritarianism led him to pose a question that would become central to all his career: What does it mean to do politics, and what does it mean to do democratic politics? This anthology, which includes the first translations into English of three of his most outstanding works can guide our readers, like Ariadne’s thread, through the intellectual output of this great thinker. It should also be said that these writings contain some of the most intellectually stimulating approaches to political sociology written in Latin America. Published between the 1980s and the first decade of the 2000s, the texts cover a span of more than thirty years during which the author developed a very personal vision as he sought to understand politics in a different way.
Against the backdrop of overwhelming discourse scholarship emanating from the Western cosmopolitan centres, this volume offers a development-centred approach to unfamiliar, marginalized or otherwise disadvantaged discourses of the Third World or the Global South. Written by leading researchers based in Asia, Africa and Latin America, respectively, this book reconstructs Eastern paradigms of communication studies on the one hand and explores the discursive problems, complexities, aspirations, and dynamics of the non-Western, subaltern, and developing societies on the other. As methodological principles, the authors i) adopt the cultural-political stance of supporting cultural diversity and harmony at both academic and everyday levels, ii) draw upon Asian, African and Latino scholarship in critical dialogue with the existing mainstream traditions, and iii) make sense of the discourses of Asia, Africa and Latin America from their own local as well as global, historical and intercultural, perspectives. This book will particularly appeal to scholars and students in the fields of discourse studies, communication and cultural studies, and development studies.
In a primary commodities boom spurred on by the rise of China, countries the world over are turning to the extraction of natural resources and the export of primary commodities as an antidote to the global recession. The New Extractivism addresses a fundamental dilemma faced by these governments: to pursue, or not, a development strategy based on resource extraction in the face of immense social and environmental costs, not to mention mass resistance from the people negatively affected by it. With fresh insight and analysis from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, this book looks at the political dynamics of capitalist development in a region where the neoliberal model is collapsing under the weight of a resistance movement lead by peasant farmers and indigenous communities. It calls for us to understand the new extractivism not as a viable development model for the post-neoliberal world, but as the dangerous emergence of a new form of imperialism.
Water is a symbol of life, wisdom, fertility, purity, and death. Water also sustains and nourishes, irrigates our crops, keeps us clean and healthy, and contributes to our energy needs. But a strain has been put on our water resources as increased energy demands combine with the effects of climate change to create a treacherous environment. Individuals and communities around the globe increasingly face droughts, floods, water pollution, water scarcity, and even water wars. We tend to address and solve these concerns through scientific and technological innovations, but social and cultural analyses and solutions are needed as well. In this edited collection, contributors tackle current water issues in the era of climate change using a wide variety of recent literature and film. At its core, this collection demonstrates that water is an immense reservoir of artistic potential and an agent of historical and cultural exchange. Creating familiar and relatable contexts for water dilemmas, authors and directors of contemporary literary texts and films present compelling stories of our relationships to water, water health, ecosystems, and conservation. They also explore how global water problems affect local communities around the world and intersect with social and cultural aspects such as health, citizenship, class, gender, race, and ethnicity. This transformative work highlights the cultural significance of water—the source of life and a powerful symbol in numerous cultures. It also raises awareness about global water debates and crises.
Beyond Dichotomies examines literary texts, cultural production, and concrete local practices within the context of modernity and globalization by focusing on the ways in which some societies confront the complexity of cultures reflected in new forms of knowledge, narratives, and subjectivities. The contributors explore how particular societies negotiate the relations between the global and the local, and use a geographical, comparative perspective combined with an interdisciplinary approach to offer a diversity of views and illuminate the cultural impact of globalization on different societies around the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. These societies face complex questions regarding people's histories, identities, and cultures that embody the ambivalence, contradictions, and anxieties generated by the process of globalization. The contributors provide a compelling conclusion for a rethinking and reconfiguration of cultures and intercultural relations in today's global world in which dichotomized representations coexist with a discourse of globalization.
This cutting-edge volume brings together a diverse roster of scholars to shed light on the reconfiguration of twenty-first century Latin American regionalism. Reflecting on both the multiplicity of regional integration across Latin America (LA) and the theoretically pluralist turn in contemporary scholarship on LA politics and International Relations, this edited volume proposes an ‘integrative pluralist’ methodology to deciphering the complexity of regionalisation projects, from both above and below. The book charts the contemporary evolution of older regionalisation schemes, such as the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), as well as more recent twenty-first century regional innovations, including the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), Pacific Alliance (AP), and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). Complementing this more traditional institutional perspective, the book also charts the underexplored dynamics of regionalism from below, in the context of region-wide networks of political organisation among indigenous and peasant movements. Set against the backdrop of a more critical reading of the historical origins of regionalism, this volume aims to contribute to the ever-growing conversation among scholars within and beyond Latin America on the actors, processes, contradictions, and prospects for regional cooperation. In offering a more holistic perspective on Latin American regionalism from above and below, this volume will be of interest to both newcomers to the field and more seasoned scholars working within/across disciplinary boundaries, from International Relations and International Political Economy to Historical Sociology and Institutionalism. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.
