Latin America in Transition

Recent decades have witnessed clear and significant political, economic, and social changes in Latin America. In the late 1970s, political changes began to transform the vast majority of Latin American governments from authoritarian to democratic regimes. Then, a decade of economic stagnation and debt led to a series of structural reforms promoted by international financial institutions (IFIs), including the privatizing and opening up of national economies to increased export trade and multinational investment. Meanwhile, new citizen movements called for greater recognition and respect for cultural and ethnic diversity, women’s rights, and more environmentally sustainable models of development. Numerous academic researchers have tried to understand the meaning of these changes from various disciplinary, political, and ideological perspectives.Anthropologist Sheldon Smith has attempted to understand these transformations through what he calls a “global studies” perspective. His 1995 World in Disorder: An Anthropological and Interdisciplinary Approach to Global Issues (Univ. Press of America) describes this approach, which brings together the local perspectives of anthropology with globalization theories emerging from such disciplines as history, political science, economics, and sociology. In Latin America in Transition, Smith applies this perspective to understanding contemporary changes in Latin America, asking about the origins of the contemporary political cultures of Latin America and their transformations under globalization, as well as considering the challenges posed by globalization to Latin America’s rich ecological resources and cultural diversity.Smith’s major thesis is that the transformation from authoritarian and command-oriented polities and economies to more democratic, entrepreneurial, and trade-oriented ones has played a significant role in shaping current ethno- and ecopolitical movements in the region. He supports this argument with reference to an immense time span of anthropological and historical research, from pre-Colombian societies through contemporary analyses of recent transformations taking place throughout the hemisphere. Specialists may question some of Smith’s assertions and analyses of specific countries, but his book remains one of the few attempts by an anthropologist to look at what might be called “the big picture” in terms of recent political, economic, and sociocultural changes in Latin America.However, the book does raise some issues worthy of more debate and discussion, not only among anthropologists but also among others interested in the transformations of recent decades. One issue concerns the real strength and depth of democratic reform in Latin America: whether democratic regimes in many Latin American countries have been consolidated or face continued threats from various forms of populism and caudillismo. A recent report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Democracy in Latin America: Towards a Citizens’ Democracy (2004), provides data—based upon citizen surveys and consultations with hundreds of political leaders—that electoral regimes and institutions in many countries are being questioned in terms of their capacity to deliver more equitable and just societies, especially under the macroeconomic reforms of the past two decades. The report argues that these democracies face a major challenge in increasing the legitimacy and trust of citizens in political parties and in recognizing and protecting citizen rights. A second challenge the UNDP report terms “social citizenship” rights; that is, improving the human security and socioeconomic welfare of the population, including women, indigenous peoples, and other racial and ethnic groups. While the report does not question the success of democratic regimes compared to the previous authoritarian and military regimes, it does highlight the need for more attention, by both governments and political elites, to strengthening these civil and social rights in order for electoral democracies to be truly effective and successful.A second issue raised by Smith’s book is how the various cultural transformations taking place, especially in terms of the nature and recognition of cultural diversity and ethnic pluralism, result from national as well as global trends and patterns. Some of the most interesting analyses by Latin American anthropologists of the history of ethnic pluralism in their countries—such as Guillermo Bonfil Batalla’s Mexico profundo (Univ. of Texas Press, 1996) and Darcy Ribeiro’s The Brazilian People (Univ. Press of Florida, 2000)—focus on both national and global cultural processes and trends. Both Bonfil Batalla and Ribeiro were pioneers in recognizing the role of international processes, such as capitalist development and globalization, in the political cultures of their countries. They were also astute enough, however, to know that specific national political and intellectual cultures have played similarly important roles in shaping national views of ethnic identity and in inhibiting or promoting their countries’ capacities to deal with cultural diversity and ethnic pluralism in socially inclusive and just manners.Finally, Smith’s book raises a series of questions concerning the role played by the “new global economy” in the promotion of environmentally sustainable development. One of the major aspects of globalization, as Smith points out, is increased communication between developed and developing countries, especially by means of the new information technologies and the spread of mass media. This change, among other things, promotes new societies and economies of mass consumption, including of nonrenewable energy and other resources. Smith notes that it is uncertain whether globalization will lead to more environmentally sustainable forms of development, but he never confronts the critical issue of whether the quest for economic growth and mass consumption is truly compatible with more environmentally sustainable forms of development. In the end, as a number of scientists who have studied issues such as global climate change have argued, this may be the true test of a globalized economy—not only in Latin America but throughout the world

Biology · Diversity (politics) · Geography · Latin Americans · Physics · Political science · Power (physics) · Sociology · Transition (genetics) · Anthropology · Ecology · World Systems and Global Transformations