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Is Costa Rica Different?

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Recent Articles

Sustainability in Nuance

Sustainability in Nuance

I used to imagine the Amazon Rainforest as a big piece of flat land with trees growing on top of it, farmers and ranchers grabbing land while Indigenous people fought off the invaders.

The Inca Emperor’s New Clothes

The Inca Emperor’s New Clothes

Fashion is a relatively modern concept, most often associated with Euro-American histories of dress. However, well before the European invasions of the Americas, Indigenous American societies developed sophisticated approaches to garment making and cultural attention to dress every bit as nuanced as those of societies from the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps the greatest material legacy of this rich costume history survives in the Andes region of South America.

A Review of Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War

A Review of Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War

Violence has always been a fundamental aspect of human life. We have fought to survive, to defend, and to acquire. States are meant to have a monopoly on the use of violence in order to maintain peace and security in their territory and defend their founding ideology. All countries have had this history of political violence and revolution, but few can match the history of violence as it has happened in Colombia.

From Our Current Issue

Spotlight

Perspectives in Times of Change

Check out these reflections on social, economic, cultural and political transformations in Latin America, the Caribbean and Latinx communities in the United States.

fisher man wearing a mask walks by a port with boats and no other people
On Settler Colonialism: From Adam Kirsch to Latin America

On Settler Colonialism: From Adam Kirsch to Latin America

In school, we may have learned that Simón Bolívar proposed expansion into northeastern Colombia in his quest for regional unification. What we may not have learned is that he blithely suggested that “the savages who live there would be civilized and our possessions increased,” using what we call today explicitly settler colonial terms, Indigenous peoples there perceived Colombian intruders as “Spanish” throughout the 19th century, and the return of Catholic missions at the end of the century followed the logic of state-sponsored religious “Hispanicization.”

What Donald Trump's Possible Re-election Could Mean for the Amazon and Its Peoples

What Donald Trump's Possible Re-election Could Mean for the Amazon and Its Peoples

In 2018, just before Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil, I wrote about the dire consequences of his presidency for the rainforest and its Indigenous peoples, which I called “environmental fascism.”As we approach the U.S. election and the potential re-election of Donald Trump, we must recognize that a similar threat is now haunting the United States, threatening to set a perilous global agenda.

The DNC Misses a Beat: A Political History of Migration through Latinx Pop Songs

The DNC Misses a Beat: A Political History of Migration through Latinx Pop Songs

For three short days this past August, Chicago danced ‘til dawn at the Democratic National Convention, where Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were elected as the party’s 2024 Presidential ticket. It was not the first time that the Windy City had hosted the event, yet it was quite novel in one significant way: the music Democrats put front and center during their festivities.

StudEnt Views

Book ReviewS

A Review of The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History

A Review of The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History

One afternoon in 2014, driving along a dirt road that snaked through countryside several hours outside of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, I came across an ancient woman on foot, carrying a load of firewood on her back. I pulled up alongside her and asked her if she wanted a lift. She didn’t seem to comprehend at first, whereupon I explained that was offering her a ride to her destination. She smiled and shook her head. She would carry on walking, she said, but said that if I had some alms—she used that term, limosna, in Spanish—she’d accept them.

A Review of The Brazil Chronicles

A Review of The Brazil Chronicles

In the late 1940s, a young aspiring journalist Stephen G. Bloom was having trouble finding work at any stateside newspaper. After a stint at his college newspaper, the University of California Daily Californian, Bloom worked as a waiter at a Berkeley eatery, got arrested in Canada with his girlfriend for trying to bring pot across the border and got turned down for a reporter’s job by a raft of newspapers. The opportunity came up for a vague promise of a job in the Brazilian English-language language newspaper the Brazil Herald.

A Review of The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis

A Review of The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis

On March 19, 2010, two graduate students at the Tec de Monterrey, Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo, were killed by members of the Mexican Army inside the university campus. To cover up the murder, the Army and Mexican authorities initially claimed the victims were armed sicarios—hitmen— with organized crime connections. An investigation later revealed that Jorge and Javier were engineering students who did not belong to any criminal group and were unarmed when the perpetrators shot them.

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