Central America in the New Millennium

Living Transition and Reimagining Democracy

Jennifer L. Burrell, Ellen Moodie

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780857457530
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Most non-Central Americans think of the narrow neck between Mexico and Colombia in terms of dramatic past revolutions and lauded peace agreements, or sensational problems of gang violence and natural disasters. In this volume, the contributors examine regional circumstances within frames of democratization and neoliberalism, as they shape lived experiences of transition. The authors—anthropologists and social scientists from the United States, Europe, and Central America—argue that the process of regions and nations "disappearing" (being erased from geopolitical notice) is integral to upholding a new, post-Cold War world order—and that a new framework for examining political processes must be accessible, socially collaborative, and in dialogue with the lived processes of suffering and struggle engaged by people in Central America and the world in the name of democracy.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Figures, Maps, and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Ethnographic Visions of Millennial Central America
• Part I — Imagining Democracy after the Cold War
• Chapter 1 — Contradiction and Struggle under the Leftist Phoenix: Rural Nicaragua at the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Revolution
• Chapter 2 — The Violence of Cold War Polarities and the Fostering of Hope: The 2009 Elections in Postwar El Salvador
• Chapter 3 — Daring to Hope in the Midst of Despair: The Agrarian Question within the Anti-Coup Resistance Movement in Honduras
• Chapter 4 — "My Heart Says NO": Political Experiences of the Struggle against CAFTA-DR in Costa Rica
• Chapter 5 — Democracy, Disenchantment, and the Future in El Salvador
• Part III — Indigeneity, Race and Human Rights in the (Post) Multicultural Moment
• Chapter 6 — Cuando Nos Internacionalizamos: Human Rights and Other Universals at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
• Chapter 7 — Acknowledging Racism and State Transformation in Postwar Guatemalan Society
• Chapter 8 — Ephemeral Rights and Securitized Lives: Migration, Mareros, and Power in Millennial Guatemala
• Part III — Dominant, Residual, and Emergent Economic Strategies
• Chapter 9 — Honduras's Smallholder Coffee Farmers, the Coffee Crisis, and Neoliberal Policy: Disjunctures in Knowledge and Conundrums for Development
• Chapter 10 — Maya Handicraft Vendors' CAFTA-DR Discourses: "Free Trade Is Not for Everyone in Guatemala"
• Chapter 11 — "Here the Campesino Is Dead": Can Central America's Smallholders Be Saved?
• Chapter 12 — Certifying Sustainable Tourism in Costa Rica: Environmental Governance and Accountability in a Transitional Era
• Chapter 13 — Central America Comes to the "Cradle of Democracy": Immigration and Neoliberalization in Williamsburg, Virginia
• Part IV — A Place on the Map: Surviving on Pasts, Presents, and Futures
• Chapter 14 — Migration, Tourism, and Post-Insurgent Individuality in Northern Morazán, El Salvador
• Chapter 15 — Intimate Encounters: Sex and Power in Nicaraguan Tourism
• Chapter 16 — Notes on Tourism, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Cultural Value in Honduras
• References
• Contributors
• Index