Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2004
“Constructing the Threat of Insurgency: Inherent Inequalities in the Development of the Guatemalan Counterinsurgent State”
M. Gabriela Torres
York University
Abstract: The counterinsurgent state is the continuing legacy of political violence that afflicted Guatemala for the last thirty years of the 20th century. As the Guatemalan counterinsurgent state entrenched itself into the country’s social fabric, it promoted a highly unequal social, cultural, and economic development that still plagues the country today. The paper explores how economic, gender and ethnic inequalities were heightened by the integration of counterinsurgency violence into the everyday functioning of the Guatemalan state. Focusing on the processes through which the insurgent threat was promoted, the paper analyses the lasting effects of counterinsurgency-fuelled social change in Guatemala.
“Mexico’s Progresa Program (1997-2000): An Example of Neo-Liberal Poverty Alleviation Programs Concerned with Gender, Human Capital Development, Responsibility and Choice”
Lucy Luccisano
Wilfrid Laurier University
Abstract: This paper examines Mexico’s Program for Education, Health and Nutrition (Progresa), as an example of neo-liberal trends influencing poverty alleviation initiatives. The stated goal of the program was to break the intergenerational cycles of poverty. This end was to be achieved by investing in the basic capacities of the poor, particularly poor women and their children. Basic capacities were to be developed through cash transfers for improved nutrition, scholarships for children and preventative health measures. The key concern of this paper, however, is to examine how cash transfers for human capital development are more than instruments of poverty reduction. Rather, cash transfers are also techniques that effect a new way of governing individual conduct. The intended effect of Progresa was a change in the subjectivity of poor women from the passive recipients of aid to empowered market subjects who were now given the freedom to make choices, albeit limited choices. However, subjects could now also be regulated through the choices they make. The Progresa program can be said to represent a government through freedom, which in turn signals a shift from governing through the direct administration of state institutions [read “passive”] to that of governing through the “active” and responsible choices of individuals and their families.
“U. S. Navy versus Vieques, Puerto Rico: Social Justice through Civil Disobedience”
Carmen I. Aponte
SUNY College at Brockport
Abstract: For over 60 years, the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico served as a live munitions target range for the United States Navy. The Navy protected the U. S. Empire’s colonial relationship with Puerto Rico. Within this context, the colonial, racial and oppressive paradigms shield most anti-military movements in Puerto Rico. The tragedy of a civilian killed in Vieques by an errant 500-pound bomb destroyed this protective shield, bringing to light the social, economical, and environmental injustices and atrocities committed by the U. S. Navy. This tragedy increased the public awareness of how people’s lives, beaches, environment and livelihood had been destroyed. Social action by solidarity and civil disobedience proved powerful in the anti-military struggle for achieving justice for the people in Vieques. This paper provides an overview of the people’s struggle against the U. S. Navy. The historic demilitarization of Vieques will commemorate the solidarity of people in their victory for justice and world peace.
“‘Donde Estan Los Huevos?’ Surviving in Times of Economic Hardship: Cuban Mothers, the State, and Making Ends Meet”
Rebecca Burwell
University of Notre Dame
Abstract: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Cuba has experienced difficult economic times. This paper examines the survival strategies that Cuban women have developed for making ends meet. Through working in the dollar economy and using extensive household networks of support, Cuban mothers are able to negotiate the demands of being both caregivers and wage earners. Furthermore, Cuban women’s partnership with the state and the Cuban state’s assistance to its citizens in the form of subsidized child care, education, health care, housing, and food enables households to survive despite difficult economic times, unlike the trends in the privatization in state services, seen elsewhere in Latin America.
“New Rural Poverty: The Tangled Web of Environmental Protection and Economic Aid in Southern Mexico”
Nora Haenn
Arizona State University
Abstract: Scholars, especially those located in Latin America, argue for a new rurality, one that entails changed rural-urban relations and decreasing reliance by rural residents on small-scale farming. Based on an examination of the impacts of three subsidy programs aimed at residents living near Mexico’s Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, I suggest these changes reinforce a continued rural poverty. The programs include a series of “conversation-development” initiatives whose architects hoped would decrease the pressure slash-and-burn farmers placed on area forests. In addition, residents of this area participated in agricultural and school subsidies. I compare the relative impact of all these programs on household incomes and consider both the opportunities for social capital these programs represented and their role in the purported “new rurality.”