Sonia E Alvarez

During the last decade, Latin American social movements have brought about a profound transformation in the nature and practice of protest and collective action. This book surveys the full spectrum of movements in Latin America today-from peasant and squatter movements to women's and gay movements, as well as environmental and civic movements - exa

Investigating the complex interrelations between culture and politics in a wide range of social movements in Latin America, this book focuses on the cultural politics enacted by social movements as they struggle for new visions and practices of citizenship, democracy, social relations, and development. The volume explores the potential of these cul

This book argues the relationship between culture and politics can be productively explored by delving into the nature of the cultural politics enacted by Latin American social movements and by examining the potential of this cultural politics for fostering social change.

This book, paying attention to the axes of identity, strategy, and democracy, grew out of the authors' shared and growing interest in contemporary social movements and the vast theoretical literature on these movements produced during the 1980s, particularly in Latin America and Western Europe.

Brazil has the tragic distinction of having endured the longest military-authoritarian regime in South America. Yet the country is distinctive for another reason: in the 1970s and 1980s it witnessed the emergence and development of perhaps the largest, most diverse, most radical, and most successful women's movement in contemporary Latin America. This book tells the compelling story of the rise of progressive women's movements amidst the climate of political repression and economic crisis enveloping Brazil in the 1970s, and it devotes particular attention to the gender politics of the final stages of regime transition in the 1980s. Situating Brazil in a comparative theoretical framework, the author analyzes the relationship between nonrevolutionary political change and changes in women's consciousness and mobilization. Her engaging analysis of the potentialities for promoting social justice and transforming relations of inequality for women and men in Latin America and elsewhere in the Third World makes this book essential reading for all students and teachers of Latin American politics, comparative social movements and public policy, and women's studies and feminist political theory.