Struggles for Justice in Latin America

Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South

“…Demands include redistribution, transparency in revenue management and more emphasis on social development. However, as the literature on Latin American post-authoritarian social movements and citizenship rights suggest (Eckstein & Wickham-Crowley, 2003;Wolford, 2010), a new politics based on recognition and representation has emerged in response to the limits of neoliberal citizenship regimes. What has emerged across the region is the liberal variant of democracy that secured individual political and civil rights alongside the acceptance of open markets as models of growth.…”

“…In struggling against state roll-back, deregulation of the economy and reduction in public services, social movements and local communities tended to frame their arguments around different kinds of rights: subsistence rights (Eckstein & Wickham-Crowley, 2003), cultural rights (Postero, 2007), gender rights (Craske & Molyneux, 2002) and social and economic rights (Dagnino, 2007). In the process, citizenship discourses were located in terms of everyday meanings and practices, and citizenship was turned into a way of unpacking the invisible attempts of ordinary people to challenge structures of domination and power relations (through, for example, protests and demonstrations in response to the marketisation of social relations (Paley, 2002;Salazar, 2008)) rather than the set of 'benefits' that classic social welfare states package together as entitlements that sit alongside the notion of responsibilities.…”

Walking the Tightrope

“…However, their ability to adjust to and transform the socioeconomic landscapes in which they operated was and continues to be impacted by more pervasive issues related to mass poverty, armed conflicts, political and economic instability, unemployment and underemployment, and environmental degradation. Concerns with these issues and the growing contradictions between the neoliberal model and the claim to social rights (Eckstein and Wickham-Crowley, 2003) are being addressed in the literature through concepts of the social or solidary economy and of alternative and sustainable development and trade. The idea of the solidary economy is that economic efficiency is measured not entirely by profitability but also in terms of quality of life (Laville and García Jané, 2009: 1).…”

Social Protest against Repression and Violence in Present-day Argentina and Peru

“…The literature often points at the radical or 'uncivil' reactions in society, such as vigilantism and mob justice (Eckstein and Wickham-Crowley 2003). It is therefore particularly noteworthy that the 'new violence', as discussed here for Argentina and Peru, is often met by innovative forms of civil resistance.…”