Development and Decolonization in Latin America

Julie Cupples

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780367625436
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000529036
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
• Index: Social Sciences

Written in an accessible language, this book is a fully updated and revised edition of Latin American Development, a text that provides a comprehensive introduction to Latin American development in the twenty-first century and is anchored in decolonial theory and other critical approaches.

This new edition has been revised and updated in a way that takes into account recent changes in political leadership, the retreat of the Pink Tide, the Colombian peace accords, new forms of political and territorial mobilization, the intensification of extractivism, murders of environmental defenders, major disasters, and the new contours of feminist and anti-patriarchal struggles. It features new chapters on decolonial theory, Latin America in the world, disastrous development, Afrodescendant struggles, and the Latin American city. The book emphasizes political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions of development and considers key challenges facing the region and the diverse ways in which its people are responding, as well as providing analysis of the ways in which such challenges and responses can be theorized. It explores the region's historical trajectories, the implementation and rejection of the neoliberal model, and the role played by diverse social movements.

It is an indispensable resource for students and university lecturers and professors in development studies, Latin American studies, geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, and cultural studies. In addition, it provides an invaluable introduction to the region for journalists and development practitioners.

Chapter 1Made in conquestThe making of contemporary Latin America

DOI: 10.4324/9781003110453-1

The failure of development

Political protest, rebellion, and cultures of solidarity have been a central feature of life in the region we now call Latin America since the conquest in 1492. In 2019, just a few months before lives the world over were disrupted by the global coronavirus pandemic, Latin America exploded. Across the continent, people turned out onto the streets in their thousands to protest at persistent inequality, socio-economic exclusion, authoritarianism, corruption, extractivism, political violence, racism, and misogyny. While each protest has its own set of historical and geographic specificities, collectively they can be understood as the result of the miserable failure of the development project and at the incomplete status of decolonization. The 2019 struggles revealed the “protagonism created by the collective action of civil society” (Cotto Morales, 2020: 130) and drew attention to structural power in its myriad forms. In February, Haitians mobilized en masse against corruption and austerity measures. In July, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans took to the streets to demand the resignation of the governor Ricardo Rosselló. In October, Indigenous people in Ecuador forced the government of President Lenín Moreno to back down on a set of austerity measures that would have hit the most vulnerable hardest. A week later in Chile, a rise in the price of a Santiago metro ticket escalated into full-blown protests against three decades of inequality and neoliberal policies. These protests, which left 20 dead and thousands injured, included a feminist performance about gender-based violence that went viral (see Chapter 6). Furthermore, they resulted in a referendum in which people voted for a new constitution. In Bolivia, after years of Indigenous empowerment and social progress along with the contradictory promotion of extractivist activities, in November polarizing left-wing president Evo Morales was forced to resign and leave the country after his opponents accused him of electoral fraud. His removal from power in a divided country led to the temporary installation of a Christian fundamentalist government, focused on undermining racial equality initiatives. Morales’ party, the MAS, returned to power in fresh elections held at the end of 2020. Also in November, Colombians took to the streets in large numbers to protest at the economic policies of President Iván Duque and at the failure of the peace process, initiated after peace accords were signed in 2016 to bring an end to a four-decade long violent civil war. The murder of 18-year-old Dilan Cruz shot by the police enraged the protestors (see Figure 1.1). At around the same time, Peruvians protested at the removal of President Martín Vizcarra after he attempted to shut down a congress widely viewed as corrupt. There was ongoing dissatisfaction too in Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, where authoritarian leaders had implemented a range of anti-democratic measures in order to stay in power, including policies that work against the interests of the popular sectors or against environmental protections. In 2018, a popular anti-government rebellion in Nicaragua led in large part by students was quashed by the government of Daniel Ortega and left hundreds dead and many political prisoners. In Brazil, right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro declared war on the environment, Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ+ populations – although not so much on the Covid-19 pandemic – and began to undo decades of social progress achieved under the previous Workers Party governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) and Dilma Rousseff. In the process, huge swathes of the Amazon were left to burn. Venezuela has been mired in economic and political chaos since the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013. His successor, President Nicolás Maduro has remained in power despite widespread food shortages, electricity blackouts, a serious refugee crisis, and the opposition leader Juan Guaidó unilaterally declaring himself interim president.

Many Latin Americans are fighting for peace, but political violence remains widespread. In Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, environmental defenders who oppose destructive hydroelectric dams or mining projects are often criminalized or assassinated with impunity. The murders of Berta Cáceres in Honduras and Marielle Franco in Brazil, killed because they challenged these colonial dynamics, continue to reverberate around the continent (see Chapters 4 and 8). The Mexican “war on drugs” has claimed thousands of lives, as cartel members, local politicians, and corrupt police officers work together.

While many Latin Americans were protesting, others were on the move, trying to escape violence and searching for better economic opportunities. Starting in late 2018, migrant caravans composed of hundreds of would-be migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua formed and began to move together towards the Guatemala–Mexico border and the Mexico–US border (see Figure 1.2)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Glossary
• Chapter 1 Made in conquest: The making of contemporary Latin America
• Chapter 2 A decolonial history of Latin America
• Chapter 3 Coloniality, capitalism, and neoliberalism
• Chapter 4 Extractivism and ontological politics
• Chapter 5 Latin America in the world
• Chapter 6 The coloniality of gender and sexuality
• Chapter 7 Indigenous politics and movements
• Chapter 8 Afrodescendant politics and movements
• Chapter 9 Disastrous development
• Chapter 10 The Latin American city
• Chapter 11 Making the decolonial turn
• A playlist for rebellion and decolonization
• References
• Index