B Gustafson
Biographic Data
| ID | 53207 |
|---|---|
| NAME | B Gustafson |
| GIVEN NAMES | B |
| FAMILY NAME | Gustafson |
| SIGNATURE | GUSTAFSON B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5396-694X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 76 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 34 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Listening Under the Shadow
A conversation with Michael Fox on building an immersive podcast about U.S. intervention in Latin America and audio storytelling as a form of time travel.Lights flicker alongside photographs of the
The Fierce Activism of Deborah Poole
NACLA is saddened to report the death of Deborah Poole, a long-time Naclista and editorial committee member, a scholar of Peru and Mexico, and a committed and passionate voice for progressive chang
The Small Matter of Suing Chevron
Indigenous Activists' Cautious Optimism and Unwavering Demands for Colombia
As Colombia's first leftist national government got underway in August 2022, Indigenous communities in the southwestern Cauca department's sugarcane-growing regions sent the administration a clear
Indigenous and Popular Struggle for Realist Utopias in Bolivia and Ecuador
This essay reviews the following works: The Sovereign Street: Making Revolution in Urban Bolivia. By Carwil Bjork-James. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020. Pp. 304. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816540150. Social Movements and Radical Populism in the Andes: Ecuador and Bolivia in Comparative Perspective . By Jennifer N. Collins. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021. Pp. 299. $120.00 hardcover. ISBN 978-1-4985-7233-0. La izquierda latinoamerica…
Linda Farthing y Thomas Becker. Coup
Bolivia’s Double Pandemic
The November 2019 ouster of President Evo Morales, followed by the interim government’s harsh crackdown on his supporters, plunged Bolivia into a political crisis just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived with devastating effect. The interim government’s haphazard response was marred by corruption scandals over procurement of medical supplies. After several delays, a general election was finally held in October 2019. Luis Arce, the presidential candi…
The Political Economy of Gas, Soy and Lithium in Morales's Bolivia
Bolivia has accomplished some of its goals since Evo Morales was elected president in 2006. It has made advances in expanding inclusion for indigenous peoples and reducing levels of poverty. They have expanded services and infrastructure for the poor and prioritized long-abandoned rural areas. Middle class has grown by more than 10% and both government and the economy have tripled in size. Yet Bolivia remains deeply embedded in extractivist econo…
Violence against People, Violence against Nature
The environmental history of Latin America, like its political history, is one of conquest and domination. Over the years, NACLA has been committed to covering Indigenous struggles over land and na
Extractivism
Guaraní aquí. Jopara allá
What do Paraguayans speak? What labels are used to talk about these languages? What might this imply for linguistic policy? Hedy Penner argues that these queries are hard to answer when you are wor
Beyond the City
Urban designer and architect Felipe Correa offers a provocative analysis of historical processes rarely examined through a single lens: resource extractivism and city building. The author begins by considering the vision of infrastructural integration known as the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America, which is shifting the region's historical North-South axis of extraction to an East-West orientation. Tied to…
Fossil Fuels and Toxic Landscapes
The New Energy Imperialism in the Caribbean
“Grenada ... that tiny little island; it isn't nutmeg that's at stake in the Caribbean and Central America. It is United States’ National Security.” So spoke Ronald Reagan in March of 1983. In Octobe
In Houston After the Storm, la lucha sigue
Well, the other story now that the storm is gone and past, the really sad thing is a lot of the folks who live here, just by default, assume the risks. They think it's part of living here in Housto
Revolutionary Oil? Offshore Drilling in Cuba
In Cuba, a country long dependent on oil imports, could offshore drilling represent a form of energetic sovereignty? Former President Obama's opening of trade with Cuba in 2015 presented possibilit
Oppressed no more? Indigenous language regimentation in plurinational Bolivia
Indigenous language regimentation in Bolivia is traced through historical legal documents and contemporary transformations. While state language policy is often fragmented and improvisational, non-state linguistic activist networks have taken an increasingly significant role in shaping state policy. Under the government of Evo Morales, explicit state measures to preserve and develop Indigenous languages are discussed as incipient shifts toward a …
Revolutionary Extraction
In October of 2015, Bolivian President Evo Morales traveled to New York in search of capitalists willing to invest in the country. With gas and mineral prices retreating, the government hoped to at
State Theory and Andean Politics
Reviewed by: State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule eds. by Christopher Krupa and David Nugent Bret Gustafson Christopher Krupa and David Nugent, eds. State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. 336 pp. State Theory and Andean Politics is a welcome contribution to the ethnography of historical and contemporary processes of state formati…
Moving Beyond the Extractivism Debate, Imagining New Social Economies
Extractivism today shapes a new hegemonic order that is sutured to global capitalism. What might a long-term mapping of its social and economic consequences reveal
Amid Gas, Where Is the Revolution
(2013). Amid Gas, Where Is the Revolution? NACLA Report on the Americas: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 61-66
Writing “Maya Country” in Mexico and Guatemala
Writing “Maya Country” in Mexico and Guatemala Bret Gustafson (bio) Indigenous Citizens: Local Liberalism in Early National Oaxaca and Yucatán. By Karen D. Caplan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Pp. vii + 289. $60.00 cloth. Global Maya: Work and Ideology in Rural Guatemala. By Liliana R. Goldín. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009. Pp. x + 242. $50.00 cloth. Escaping the Fire: How an Ixil Mayan Pastor Led His People out of a…
Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia
When States Act Like Movements
Ethnographic approaches to sovereignty have focused on de jure or de facto practices and relations of rule constituted through culturally mediated violence inscribing incorporation or exclusion onto human bodies. Sovereignty as such is historically and territorially variegated, even within nation-state borders, and observable as emergent processes that seek to (re)order authority, territoriality, and sociality within, against, or in complicity wi…
Dilemmas of Modernity
Manipulating Cartographies
Latin American indigenous movements increasingly speak of "plurinationalism" in demands for state transformation. The concept-as yet solidified in legal or territorial orders-exists in tension with disputed meanings of "autonomy," raising questions about indigenous territorial rights, citizenship, and natural resources. Bolivia's new constitution elevates both concepts to official status in the context of struggles over natural gas. Following Dav…
When States Act Like Movements
Ethnographic approaches to sovereignty have focused on de jure or de facto practices and relations of rule constituted through culturally mediated violence inscribing incorporation or exclusion onto human bodies. Sovereignty as such is historically and territorially variegated, even within nation-state borders, and observable as emergent processes that seek to (re)order authority, territoriality, and sociality within, against, or in complicity wi…
New Languages of the State
Spectacles of Autonomy and Crisis
The Political Economy of Gas, Soy and Lithium in Morales's Bolivia
Bolivia has accomplished some of its goals since Evo Morales was elected president in 2006. It has made advances in expanding inclusion for indigenous peoples and reducing levels of poverty. They have expanded services and infrastructure for the poor and prioritized long-abandoned rural areas. Middle class has grown by more than 10% and both government and the economy have tripled in size. Yet Bolivia remains deeply embedded in extractivist econo…
Oppressed no more? Indigenous language regimentation in plurinational Bolivia
Indigenous language regimentation in Bolivia is traced through historical legal documents and contemporary transformations. While state language policy is often fragmented and improvisational, non-state linguistic activist networks have taken an increasingly significant role in shaping state policy. Under the government of Evo Morales, explicit state measures to preserve and develop Indigenous languages are discussed as incipient shifts toward a …
The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata
Book review of The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata. Barbara Ganson. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. xii + 290pp., maps, illustrations, appendices, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8047-3602-2
Commentary on "Campesinos and Originarios …"
Spectacles of Autonomy and Crisis
La caída del neoliberalismo en Bolivia abre espacios tanto para los movimientos sociales progresivos e indígenas como para los nuevos proyectos elitistas. Este artículo examina una expresión del "nuevo urbanismo" en la ciudad y región oriental de Santa Cruz donde un movimiento elitista y "cívico" propone la "autonomía" como respuesta al creciente poder indígena‐popular y nacionalista. Este nuevo urbanismo se expresa mediante una gama de espectácu…
Spectacles of Autonomy and Crisis
By Means Legal and Otherwise
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBret GustafsonBret Gustafson teaches anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia (Duke University Press, forthcoming)
Reading Bolivia in the U.S. Press
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBret GustafsonBret Gustafson teaches anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia (Duke University Press, forthcoming). Research assistance: Doc Billingsley and Marly Cardona
The spectacular city
New Languages of the State
Manipulating Cartographies
Latin American indigenous movements increasingly speak of "plurinationalism" in demands for state transformation. The concept-as yet solidified in legal or territorial orders-exists in tension with disputed meanings of "autonomy," raising questions about indigenous territorial rights, citizenship, and natural resources. Bolivia's new constitution elevates both concepts to official status in the context of struggles over natural gas. Following Dav…
When States Act Like Movements
Ethnographic approaches to sovereignty have focused on de jure or de facto practices and relations of rule constituted through culturally mediated violence inscribing incorporation or exclusion onto human bodies. Sovereignty as such is historically and territorially variegated, even within nation-state borders, and observable as emergent processes that seek to (re)order authority, territoriality, and sociality within, against, or in complicity wi…
Dilemmas of Modernity
Writing “Maya Country” in Mexico and Guatemala
Writing “Maya Country” in Mexico and Guatemala Bret Gustafson (bio) Indigenous Citizens: Local Liberalism in Early National Oaxaca and Yucatán. By Karen D. Caplan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Pp. vii + 289. $60.00 cloth. Global Maya: Work and Ideology in Rural Guatemala. By Liliana R. Goldín. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009. Pp. x + 242. $50.00 cloth. Escaping the Fire: How an Ixil Mayan Pastor Led His People out of a…
Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia
Amid Gas, Where Is the Revolution
(2013). Amid Gas, Where Is the Revolution? NACLA Report on the Americas: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 61-66
Moving Beyond the Extractivism Debate, Imagining New Social Economies
Extractivism today shapes a new hegemonic order that is sutured to global capitalism. What might a long-term mapping of its social and economic consequences reveal
Revolutionary Extraction
In October of 2015, Bolivian President Evo Morales traveled to New York in search of capitalists willing to invest in the country. With gas and mineral prices retreating, the government hoped to at
State Theory and Andean Politics
Reviewed by: State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule eds. by Christopher Krupa and David Nugent Bret Gustafson Christopher Krupa and David Nugent, eds. State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. 336 pp. State Theory and Andean Politics is a welcome contribution to the ethnography of historical and contemporary processes of state formati…
Fossil Fuels and Toxic Landscapes
The New Energy Imperialism in the Caribbean
“Grenada ... that tiny little island; it isn't nutmeg that's at stake in the Caribbean and Central America. It is United States’ National Security.” So spoke Ronald Reagan in March of 1983. In Octobe
In Houston After the Storm, la lucha sigue
Well, the other story now that the storm is gone and past, the really sad thing is a lot of the folks who live here, just by default, assume the risks. They think it's part of living here in Housto
Revolutionary Oil? Offshore Drilling in Cuba
In Cuba, a country long dependent on oil imports, could offshore drilling represent a form of energetic sovereignty? Former President Obama's opening of trade with Cuba in 2015 presented possibilit
Oppressed no more? Indigenous language regimentation in plurinational Bolivia
Indigenous language regimentation in Bolivia is traced through historical legal documents and contemporary transformations. While state language policy is often fragmented and improvisational, non-state linguistic activist networks have taken an increasingly significant role in shaping state policy. Under the government of Evo Morales, explicit state measures to preserve and develop Indigenous languages are discussed as incipient shifts toward a …
Violence against People, Violence against Nature
The environmental history of Latin America, like its political history, is one of conquest and domination. Over the years, NACLA has been committed to covering Indigenous struggles over land and na
Extractivism
Guaraní aquí. Jopara allá
What do Paraguayans speak? What labels are used to talk about these languages? What might this imply for linguistic policy? Hedy Penner argues that these queries are hard to answer when you are wor
Political science (23 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Law (13 works) · Politics and Society in Latin America (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Indigenous (9 works) · History (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Ecology (7 works) · Biology (6 works)