This book uniquely analyzes two novels from very different contexts, Guatemala and Sudan, to illustrate that there is a profoundly problematic area within the ‘ethical purchase’ of postcolonial studies. It relates this problem to the ‘magical realism’ label that is applied to various postcolonial fiction. The book demonstrates this problem within postcolonial studies by critiquing the works of some of the foremost postcolonial critics. The study ends by bringing theory down to reality when it asserts that because of the differences between societies and cultures as they stand today, and with postcolonial studies lacking the necessary theoretical apparatus to deal with these differences, cultural contact is bound to elicit violence in one sense or another.

This article explores the emergence of Mother Earth as a new social signification able to align political action of both alter-globalization and environmentalist groups. We show how alternative forums, during the 2009 United Nations (UN) climate summit, established Mother Earth as a unifying concept for the first time on a large scale. We argue that a confluence of different traditions of ecologist thought, the central role assigned to women and indigenous peoples’ knowledge in the implementation of policies addressing climate change and the strong presence of both indigenous peoples’ and women’s topics in shaping the alternative forum programs content determined this phenomenon.

The rise of the so-called 'alt-right', or alternative right, has transformed the political landscape in the United States and challenged established political categories. For at least a generation, the political right has been understood primarily as a defence of the status quo: pro-capitalist, pro-state, pro-science and technology, and anti-environmental. By contrast, the alt-right draws its energy from a critique of the established order, liberal and conservative alike, not from its defence. Thus, it has resurrected older right-wing traditions of the antimodernist, revolutionary, and fascist right which have remained marginal in the North American conservative movement, often articulated in a white nationalist framework. While this milieu is highly diverse and internally divided, much of it is animated by strains of reactionary thought which attack liberal democracy, the state, and the 'mongrelizing', amoral forces of global capitalism. It has adopted positions associated with the political left, for example against war and free trade and for (exclusionary) social protection-ism. Many contemporary researchers of the far right have begun to examine these new political alignments and how they disrupt past understandings (Reid Ross 2017; Lyons 2018). However, these accounts often overlook the extent to which alt-right discourse draws from ecological discourse. Ecology is an increasingly important political vector for the rejection of traditional pro-business conservative positions by the constellation of esoteric, revolutionary, and traditionalist currents that comprise the alt-right. This chapter thus analyses how the alt-right deploys ecological discourse, rediscovering older Nazi themes like organic agriculture and animal rights while articulating novel right-wing interpretations of concepts like biodiversity, decentralism, deep ecology, bioregionalism, anti-capitalism, Indigenism, and anarchism. It will explore the core themes and political actors within the milieu, as well as how ideological cross-pollination has resulted in left-right resonance and, at times, political collaboration. The chapter concludes by discussing the potential political role of alt-right ecology in the present historical conjuncture, drawing on theoretical frameworks developed by Fraser (2017) and Brown (2006).

Since Morales’s election, rural movements have become the new protagonists of Bolivian politics. Previous analyses have emphasised their active role in shaping national politics, often focusing on those organisations as a compact block. However, their relationship is marked by both cooperation and fragmentation. This article provides a narrative of Bolivian socio-political history over the last 60 years, establishing four main phases of identitarian articulations/disarticulations. It demonstrates the high degree of interdependence and fluidity of ethnic and class identities, as well as their interconnections with the broader socio-political context and the national legal and institutional changes.

The regionalist proposals of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), described in the literature as expressions of a “new” Latin American regionalism, have generated some not inconsiderable debate in academic circles (Bonilla and Long, 2010; Hettne, 2005a; Legler, 2013; Sanahuja, 2009; 2012; Serbin et al., 2012; Vivares et al., 2013). A relatively recent discussion focused on the possibility that rather than pursuing an objective of convergence and homogenization, these initiatives (marked by different flaws and institutional limitations) are actually promoting the continent’s fracture and distancing it yet further from objectives of development and equality (Luhnow, 2014; Malamud, 2013; Malamud and Gardini, 2012; The Economist, 2013). This article seeks to reconstruct and re-position this debate. To do so, the conceptual themes, different perspectives and theories that underpin such considerations of Latin American regionalisms need to be identified. Without venturing any claim to universality, the schools and lines of thought on these regionalisms will be considered as interpretations imbued with intentions, normative elements and political dimensions, viewed in other words on the basis of Robert Cox’s assumption that “theory is always for someone and for some purpose”, and that there are “problem-solving” theories with crystallized assumptions, and critical theories which are distinguished by asking how that order came about and promoting social change (Cox, 1996: 207-208).

The boundaries of what has constituted “Eastern Indonesia” have shifted depending on the historical, cultural, political, or economic context. We review various ways that Eastern Indonesia has been understood, to overview the different ways of delineating and approaching this fascinating part of Indonesia in order to introduce this special issue. The intention of this special issue, however, is not to attempt to clearly define Eastern Indonesia once and for all, but to open up via these various historical and contemporary concerns with Eastern Indonesia, new ways of grappling with this region in the present Post-Suharto era. The current social and political transformations offer a great deal of opportunity to reflect on the way global and national flows of people, money, notions of governance and religious ideas, are so crucial to understanding and making sense of the current dynamics in the region. By focusing our attention on how these global and national influences intersect with the local, we want to bring out how they are appropriated and manipulated by local communities; at the same time they may undermine and transform what is taking place at the local level. Asian Journal of Social Science 39 (2011) 113–130

Revolusi Amerika Selatan secara massif pada awal abad 19, berdampak terhadap terbentuknya negara independen dan proses dekolonisasi oleh Kekaisaran Spanyol dan Portugal. Gaungan unifikasi atas dasar persamaan kultural dan linguistik berusaha diimplementasikan di wilayah ini secara terus-menerus, tetapi nyatanya proses integrasi regional ini selalu menemui kegagalan. Lemahnya proses industrialisasi, terbatasnya konsolidasi kedaulatan, serta banyaknya konflik internal turut serta berkontribusi dalam gagalnya usaha ini. Permasalahan ini terus berlanjut secara periodik hingga pada masa pembentukan regionalisme global pasca PD2. Disaat integrasi regional telah berhasil terbentuk di Afrika dan Eropa semisalnya, Amerika Selatan belum juga berhasil menegakkan suatu institusi regionalisme yang terpadu dan berdaya kompetisi tinggi di pasar dunia. Dari implikasi tersebut, karya ilmiah ini akan mencari interkoneksi antara pengaruh geopolitik kawasan dengan pembentukan institusi domestik untuk menemukan akar permasalahan gagalnya pembentukan regionalisme di Amerika Selatan, faktor historis semenjak dekolonisasi hingga gelombang revolusi sosialis abad 21 didalam dinamika Amerika Selatan akan digunakan sebagai fondasi analisis karya ilmiah ini. Kemudian, paradigma konstruktivis akan digunakan sebagai pengampu, disertai teori dan konsep regionalisme praktis oleh pakar Hubungan Internasional Jeffrey Checkel. -- The massive South American revolution during the Spanish and Portuguese Empires early 19th century affected the formation of an independent state and process of regional decolonization. Unification movement on the basis of cultural and linguistic similarity strives always echoed continuously between each century, however, the so-called regional integration process always deemed as fails and ineffective. The pithless industrialization process, combined with strong sovereignty dilemma that caused limited consolidation as well as much internal conflicts were all contribute to the failure of this motion. The problem were not taking considerable highlight until during the formation of global regionalism post-World War 2. For instance, while regional integration has been successfully formed in Africa and Europe, however, South America has not yet succeeded in establishing an integrated regionalism institution that is effective as well as highly competitive in the global market. From those implications, this paper will solicit for interconnections between regional geopolitical influences and the formation of domestic institutions to seek the root causes of regionalism failure in South America. Time periodization for historical factors since decolonization until the wave of 21st-century socialist revolution (Pink Tide) will be used as the foundation for analyzing the dynamics of South America. Ultimately, this paper would use the constructivist paradigm as a basic principle, accompanied by the theory and concept of practical regionalism by International Relations scholar Jeffrey Checkel.

“Our first modernity in Latin America is indigenous, not a discovery in Paris in the 1870s, something happens there that resists academic, scientific and rational thought.” On the occasion of his recent solo show “Juan Dávila: Imagen Residual/ After Image” at Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile, we spoke to Juan Dávila (Santiago de Chile, 1946) about some of the themes that have articulated his prolific artistic trajectory like the idea of belonging, nationhood, gender, his relationship to the Chilean avant-garde, Latin America, jouissance and painting. The show not only meant the reencounter of Dávila with the Chilean art scene but also the reencounter of the Chilean art scene with painting as never before so many works of Dávila had been exhibited in Chile.