The idea of the serious game as a metaphor and as an actuality comes up in constantly in border surveillance. This article looks at two contrasting examples of interactive performances that we are asked (asked?) to take seriously (?): the US border–related reenactment pieces Pulpo and Oracle by Mexico City–based artist Yoshua Okón, and the “Caminata nocturna” created by the indigenous collaborators in the EcoAlberto tourism park. These case studies provide useful instances in which we can think about how technology and transculturation intervene in border spaces, and how those spaces are mediated by an uneasy flip between seriousness and vacilón, where gravity and levity are somewhat incongruously and overtly intertwined.

How does the presence of a large group of remittance recipients in the electorate affect the way political parties in Latin America plan their vote-buying operations during electoral campaigns? Existing research claims that remittances bolster the political autonomy of recipients, allowing them to escape clientelistic networks and making them less attractive targets from the point of view of party machines. Although in the long run remittances may undermine the effectiveness of clientelistic inducements, parties still have strong incentives to distribute gifts and favors among these voters. Cross-national survey evidence and an original list experiment fielded in the aftermath of El Salvador’s 2014 presidential race support the view that remittances alter key attitudes and patterns of political behavior among recipients in ways that are relevant for the electoral strategies of party machines. In particular, remittance recipients are appealing targets for clientelistic exchanges due to the uncertainty of their turnout propensity and their distributive preferences.

Under new democratic regimes, civil society organizations (CSOs) alter their political strategies to better engage public officials and citizens as well as to influence broader political debates. In Brazil, between 1990 and 2010, CSOs gained access to a broad participatory architecture as well as a reconfigured state, inducing CSOs to employ a wider range of strategies. This article uses a political network approach to illuminate variation in CSOs’ political strategies across four policy arenas and show how the role of the state, the broader configuration of civil society, the interests of elected officials, and the rules of participatory institutions interact to produce this variation. Data for this article’s analysis come from a survey of three hundred CSO leaders in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. The survey identified the strategies they employed to promote policy change and direct resource allocation in the arenas of participatory budgeting, health care, social services, and housing. Sociographs generated from survey results reveal a distinct clustering within each policy arena of the strategies employed by CSOs, providing further support to the usefulness of the analytical framework.

This article contends that previous research has failed to consider resources that are systematically collected by way of informal taxation and channeled to support the provision of public services. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the markets for stolen auto parts and counterfeit clothing in Greater Buenos Aires, this article describes how state agencies informally tax these economies, and “follows the money” extracted. While a portion of these resources does end up in private pockets, the article shows that a greater share of the resources are directed toward enhancing state performance: welfare programs, everyday police duties, and political activities. An analysis of informal state financing schemes helps us to understand a state’s true capacities and its structural transformation over time.

This article examines how the labor conditions of nurses in Nicaragua have evolved through twenty-five years of health care policy and regime transition, focusing on the period since the return to power in 2007 of the Frente Sandinista de la Liberación Nacional (FSLN). I ask whether the deterioration in nurses’ work-related well-being that were imposed by neoliberal health care restructuring have been redressed by the FSLN. I connect findings from interviews and focus groups with over fifty nurses to long-standing patterns in the gendering of care work, as well as the Sandinista track record in exploiting these patterns. Also relevant is the FSLN’s mutual antagonism with feminist movements and its incremental but pronounced turn toward a regressive stance on gender equality. Finally, a steady drift toward authoritarianism by the FSLN government constrains the capacity for nurses to collectively assert their interests as workers and professionals.

Sumak kawsay, a vision of good living originating in the thought of indigenous intellectuals, has attracted many commentators since its incorporation into Ecuador’s 2008 constitution. But it remains unclear in much of the secondary literature how the discourse of sumak kawsay and its Spanish derivative buen vivir relate to the day-to-day experiences of indigenous people. We address this lack of clarity through a three-part exploration of Kichwa perspectives on the good life. First, we describe how day-to-day discussions are more likely to revolve around the actually existing life of struggle. Then we analyze an artistic genre that illustrates how decolonized indigenous lives might look. Finally, we examine how the decolonial political philosophy of sumak kawsay has emerged out of concerted collective efforts to overcome the life of struggle. We consider how these three instances of discourse relate to a long Andean history of looking to the past for an alternative to the hardships of the present, and conclude with a call to take indigenous perspectives more fully into account when concepts such as sumak kawsay are invoked by nonindigenous actors.

This article explores oral histories about the foundation of the Mosetén Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM) in Bolivia. In so doing it aims to add nuance to scholarship on Bolivian social movements from 1990 to 2010 by focusing on connections and continuities between indigenous organizations and the systems of political association that predate them. Efforts to organize Mosetén communities were spurred at least in part by indigenous desire to establish order within their communities and to resolve local problems. They adopted strategies associated with models of social organization that were already familiar to them, particularly the Franciscan missions and agrarian unions, and adapted them to meet their needs. This process involved ongoing interactions between Mosetén yearnings, a particular political and historical context, and the creative capacities of Mosetén leaders.

Los manuales de conducta surgieron durante el siglo XIX cubano como un instrumento de la élite criolla en ascenso, para imponerse como modelo de un sujeto nacional imaginado en construcción. Estos textos, también llamados de “urbanidad y buenas maneras” fueron importantes símbolos de las aspiraciones de la élite criolla, en tanto tecnologías para la conformación de un tipo de cuerpo —burgués, blanco, heterosexual, cubano— moldeado para habitar las nuevas configuraciones espaciales urbanas que trajeron consigo las tendencias modernizadoras de inicios de siglo. El presente artículo examina las formas sinérgicas en que los manuales de conducta, y su ideología motora, la urbanidad, se desarrollaron en estrecha relación con otra importante tecnología de gobierno y diferenciación de cuerpos en el espacio: el ornato. Bajo la premisa de adecentar, las políticas de ornato tenían como objetivo transformar La Habana en una elegante capital, colonial y moderna a la vez, concebida como una imagen limpia de referencias sensoriales a cuerpos negros y femeninos marginales. Al examinar las conexiones discursivas entre el ornato y la urbanidad se evidencian las formas en que la respetabilidad moderna burguesa se negociaba, no sólo en un plano simbólico sino también a través de la regulación de las sensaciones y emociones.

This article is an effort to update a discussion of Argentina’s international financial relations during the late 1970s that is lagging behind recent scholarly developments on the cases of Mexico and Chile. It focuses on the early restoration of Argentine credit standing with multilateral financial institutions, as well as their loans and technical assistance, achieved by Minister Martínez de Hoz and his team during their early years in office. So far this stage had not elicited detailed analyses of its differences with the controversial and better-known monetary balance of payments approach adopted in December 1978 to finally curb inflation, and which gave international private bankers a leading role in the financing of Argentina’s foreign exchange needs.

This study uses the hedonic wage method to estimate the value of statistical life (VSL) in Chile and then extrapolates this value to different Latin American countries. The data are obtained from the National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional, CASEN 2013), which includes information on socioeconomic and labor variables at the individual level. Records of fatal and nonfatal occupational risk in each economic sector are obtained from the Superintendency of Social Security (Superintendencia de Seguridad Social). The results of the best hedonic wage estimate for the Chilean case (which corrects for endogeneity and selection bias) show that the VSL is US$3.7 million, with a confidence interval of 95 percent ranging between US$3.4 million and US$4.0 million. A meta-analysis that relates the VSL to GDP per capita is conducted to extrapolate the findings to other Latin American countries, with average values ranging from US$0.01 million for Haiti to US$5.2 million for Puerto Rico.

Este ensaio resenha os seguintes filmes:

Justiça/Justice. Dir. Maria Augusta Ramos. Prod. Jan de Ruiter, Luis Vidal, Niek Koppen, and Renée Van Der Grinten. Brazil/Netherlands, 2004, 107’. DVD. Film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUWZHNWcj7U.

Juízo/Behave. Dir. Maria Augusta Ramos. Prod. Diler Trinidade. Brazil, 2007. 90’. DVD. Film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UymNRVuilnA.

Morro dos Prazeres/Hill of Pleasures. Dir. Maria Augusta Ramos. Prod. Eduardo Ades and Daniela Santos in association with Imagem-Tempo. Brazil/Netherlands, 2013, 90’. DVD. Film is available by contacting the distributor at atendimento@bretzfilmes.com.br.

O Processo/The Trial. Dir. Maria Augusta Ramos. Prod. Leonardo Mecchi. Brazil, 2018, 100’. Not yet released in DVD. Contact the distributor at http://www.vitrinefilmes.com.br/site/.

This essay reviews the following works:

Unlocking the Doors to the Worlds of Guaman Poma and His Nueva corónica. Edited by Rolena Adorno and Ivan Boserup. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2015. Pp. 483. $78.00 paperback. ISBN: 9788763542708.

Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Native Archive and the Circulation of Knowledge in Colonial Mexico. By Amber Brian. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 187. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826520975.

Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and His Legacy. Edited by Galen Brokaw and Jongsoo Lee. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Pp. vi + 306. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816500727.

Inca Garcilaso and Contemporary World-Making. Edited by Sara Castro-Klarén and Christina Fernández. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 373. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822963646.

Epics of Empire and Frontier: Alonso de Ercilla and Gaspar de Villagrá as Spanish Colonial Chroniclers. By Celia López-Chávez. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 293. $29.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780806152295.

Annals of Native America: How the Nahuas of Colonial Mexico Kept Their History Alive. By Camilla Townsend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 313. $35.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190628994.

Indigenous Elites and Creole Identity in Colonial Mexico, 1500–1800. By Peter B. Villella New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 337. $120.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107129030.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Lima Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Edited by Carlos Aguirre and Charles Walker. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017, Pp. xv + 272. $26.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822363484.

Perú. 5 tomos. America Latina en la historia contemporánea. Dirigido por Carlos Contreras Carranza. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, 2013–2015.

Tomo 1, Crisis imperial e independencia, 1808–1830. Coordinado por Scarlett O’Phelan Godoy. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2013. Pp. 11–336. ISBN: 9788430607884.

Tomo 2, La construcción nacional, 1830–1880. Coordinado por Carlos Contreras Carranza. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2014. Pp. 2–360. ISBN: 9788439607884.

Tomo 3, La apertura al mundo, 1880–1930. Coordinado por Oscar Gonzales. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2015. Pp. 11–304. ISBN: 9788430607884.

Tomo 4, Mirando hacia dentro, 1839–1960. Coordinado por Marcos Cueto. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2015. Pp. 13–312. ISBN: 9788430607884.

Tomo 5, La búsqueda de la democracia, 1960–2010. Coordinado por Antonio Zapata. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2015. Pp. 13–367. ISBN: 9788430607884.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America. Edited by Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Paul Freston, and Stephen C. Dove New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 830. $250.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780521767330.

Native Evangelism in Central Mexico. By Hugo G. Nutini and Jean F. Nutini Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 197. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780292744127.

New Centers of Global Evangelicalism in Latin America and Africa. By Stephen Offutt. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 192. $80.18 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107078321.

The Roots of Pope Francis’s Social and Political Thought: From Argentina to the Vatican. By Thomas R. Rourke Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Pp. vii + 220. $80.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781442272712.

This essay reviews the following works:

Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change. By Lee J. Alston, Marcus André Melo, Bernardo Mueller, and Carlos Pereira. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 262. $39.50 hardcover. ISBN: 9780691162911.

The Political Construction of Brazil: Society, Economy, and State since Independence. By Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2016. Pp. x + 419. $85.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781626373075.

Making Brazil Work: Checking the President in a Multiparty System. By Marcus André Melo and Carlos Pereira. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Pp. xiii + 212. $100.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137310835.

New Order and Progress: Development and Democracy in Brazil. Edited by Ben Ross Schneider. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 307. $31.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780190462895.

This essay reviews the following works:

Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia. By Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 284. $25.24 paperback. ISBN: 9780822356042.

State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule. Edited by Christopher Krupa and David Nugent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Pp. v + 328. $56.56 hardcover. ISBN: 9780812246940.

Embodied Protests: Emotions and Women’s Health in Bolivia. By María Tapias. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 160. $21.67 paperback. ISBN: 9780252080746.

This essay reviews the following works:

Vida, pasión y muerte del jesuita Rutilio Grande. By Rodolfo Cardenal. San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2016. Pp. 564. $12.00 paperback. ISBN: 9789996110283.

Poets and Prophets of the Resistance: Intellectuals and the Origins of El Salvador’s Civil War. By Joaquín M. Chávez New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 336. $74.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780199315512.

The Salvador Option: The United States in El Salvador, 1977–1992. By Russell Crandall. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 690. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781316500644.

Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice. By Matt Eisenbrandt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 219. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520286801.

El Salvador: Historia contemporánea, 1808–2010. Edited by Carlos Gregorio López Bernal. San Salvador: Editorial Universitaria, 2015. Pp. 424. ISBN: 9789992327869.

A Radical Faith: The Assassination of Sister Maura. By Eileen Markey. New York: Nation Books, 2016. Pp. 1 + 307. $26.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781568585734.

Priest under Fire: Padre David Rodríguez, the Catholic Church, and El Salvador’s Revolutionary Movement. By Peter M. Sánchez Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. xvi + 308. $44.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813061191.

Liberation through Reconciliation: Jon Sobrino’s Christological Spirituality. By O. Ernesto Valiente. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015. Pp. 289. $35.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780823268870.