Blog

By Andrew R. Smolski, Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University and member of the Latin American Perspectives editorial collective.  — May 18, 2020   On May 3rd, 2020, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) published “Algunas lecciones de la pandemia COVID-19”. In this brief document, the President of Mexico makes clear that neoliberal policies, such as privatization and austerity for public universities, have led to a crisis in public health exacerbated by the pandemic. AMLO has consistently pointed to four decades of neoliberalization as creating many of the ills Mexico confronts, from a majority of the population employed in the informal sector to almost a majority of the country living in poverty. And he is not wrong. For instance, in public health neoliberalization has had a major negative impact. Since the late 1990s, Mexican public health institutions, like the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), have seen market reforms that reduced the amount and quality of care. This is the case, even while healthcare expenditures increased in Mexico since 2000. So, you have reductions in care with increasing costs and poorer outcomes. In 2006, a year before the drug war began in earnest, life [...]

By Alfonso Gonzales Toribio, Associate Professor and Director of Latin American Studies at the University of California Riverside.  – May 17, 2020 The death of 57-year-old Salvadoran national and ICE detainee Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejía was preventable and tragic. As a diabetic with an amputated foot, he was especially at risk of being infected with COVID-19 and was on a list to be potentially released from the Otay Mesa Detention Center near San Diego—with at least 140 confirmed cases, it is the epicenter of COVID-19 infections among ICE detainees. His untimely death underscores the humanitarian crisis before the migration control apparatus, and points to a deeper crisis of civilization. Will we be a society governed by constitutional and human rights, compassion, and fairness, or by a cruel desire to punish those deemed unworthy of living? Escobar Mejía was tragically the first to die, but he won’t be the last unless migrants are released quickly from detention centers. As of May 9, ICE has tested just 1,804 detainees nationwide for COVID-19, 965 of whom have been positive. A group of scientists with a forthcoming article in the Journal of Urban Health estimates that under the best circumstances, over 70% of ICE’s 27,908 detainees will become infected [...]

May 16, 2020 Latin American Perspectives would like to invite its readers, editors, and authors to submit short reflections and or photographs to our blog about how communities in Latin America and Latinx communities in the US are confronting the COVID-19 crisis. Blog posts should run between 200 to 1000 words and can be in English, Spanish or Portuguese.Please send your submissions to lap.outreach@gmail.com, subject line “COVID-19 Blog”While social distancing and quarantine protocols are necessary to stem the spread of the virus, we are witnessing ways in which these measures can also reinforce economic and social inequalities and hurt working-class families across the Americas. LAP has a rich history of questioning the empty promises of social mobility and progress that often go hand-in-hand with neoliberalism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, and globalization, and we feel the need to be on alert as military forces take on more predominant roles and as governments threaten to institutionalize draconian austerity measures.The COVID-19 virus exposes the weaknesses of the capitalist market to provide health care, food security, safety and education to millions of Latinx in a crisis. It also puts women in dangerous situations when asked to remain at home with potential abusers. Colombia has [...]

By Monserrat Sepúlveda, Santiago, Chile | May 6th, 2020 This coronavirus pandemic seems to be showing all of us just how vulnerable people are. Here at home in Chile, I think about one person in particular: Anita. She works as a housekeeper and there is so much about her I wish you knew. We could have a 6-hour zoom chat just to talk about her extraordinary life and it wouldn’t be enough. But there are three things ,in particular, you should definitely know about Anita. The first thing is that Anita will continue talking to you even if you are gone from the room. I’ve tested it many times. Some weeks ago, Anita was talking to me about the price of sugar in her neighborhood store. I left the room for at least fifteen minutes and when I came back, lo and behold, she was still talking as if I had never left. The second thing you should know is that she’s 75 years old so if she tells you she wants to watch her novela, you better run and buy her a TV. Mind you, she won’t like it if it’s a flat modern TV, no sire. You will need to [...]

By Alfonso Gonzales Toribio | May 5, 2020 Director of the Latin American Studies Program and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside The battle over Trump’s immigration policies in the middle of the pandemic is reaching a boiling point. At the core of all of his polices is a desire to accumulate wealth at all costs and a blatant disregard for human life that endangers a basic sense of right and wrong needed for a civilized world to function. The President is forcing tens of thousands of meatpacking workers, many of them immigrants whom he ordered immigration raids on last August, back to the factory lines despite massive plant closures and at least 20 deaths and as many as 5,000 infections of meat workers nationwide according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. This was the logic used by, Carl J. Nichols, a Federal District Judge, appointed by Trump, to reject a request made by the National Lawyers Guild, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Immigration Justice Campaign on behalf of detained clients asking for a suspension of all immigration court proceedings, including those involving children, during the pandemic. Advocates filled the suit citing due process and public health [...]

By Carlos Fausto | April 28, 2020   Professor of Anthropology at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Two weeks ago, Kanari Kuikuro called me from Canarana, a small town in the Brazilian Amazon, where he now lives with his wife and many children. He is originally from the Xingu Indigenous Land, which lies up north and is one of the most culturally rich multiethnic constellation of South America. Kanari was apprehensive. – Pamü (cousin), we’re afraid. We wanted to go back to the village, but now our Land is closed. – Pamü, don’t risk it. You can only go back if you go into quarantine. It’s a serious disease. – I know, pamü, it’s like the measles from the time of my grandfather Agatsipá. When I met Agatsipá he was quite old, but his mind was still keen, his eyes bright. He was a brilliant storyteller, and lived a long life. He survived the multiple outbreaks and epidemics that struck the population of the Upper Xingu during the 20th century. The 1954 measles epidemic is the most remembered to this day. It was brutal and quick, scything through whole families at once, leaving no time to properly [...]

Por Marco A. Gandásegui, Profesor de Sociología de la Universidad de Panamá e investigador asociado del CELA. | April 27, 2020 El coronavirus ha alterado todos los parámetros sobre los cuales descansan los supuestos de la vida que conocemos. Especialmente en lo que se refiere al trabajo, al estudio o al ocio. Cada clase social tiene sus propias particularidades. Los dueños del país (uno por ciento de los panameños) siguen recibiendo informes sobre como suben y bajan sus inversiones. A la vez, presionan a los gobiernos para que aumenten sus subvenciones. Por otro lado, muchos empresarios, profesionales y afines (15 por ciento) siguen trabajando pero desde el encierro de sus casas. No tienen mucha suerte los trabajadores asalariados (35 por ciento) que perdieron sus pagos semanales o quincenales. En algunos casos – muy pocos – reciben un bono u otros pagos en especie. El 50 por ciento de los trabajadores, que son informales, se encuentran en la calle (correteados por la Policía), en cuartos hacinados o en chozas insalubres. El panorama se ve cada vez peor para ese 85 por ciento de la población que se encuentra en la ‘base de la pirámide’ social. A escala mundial, el país [...]

By Iván Sandoval-Cervantes | April 24, 2020 Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology University of Nevada, Las Vegas Although some news sources have highlighted the importance of differentiating between “physical distance” and “social distance”—emphasizing how “social distancing” might imply isolation, which is not good for mental wellbeing (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/physical-distancing-social-distancing-200330143325112.html)—while “physical distancing” still allows us to be “alone, together”. The argument is that even when you cannot take care of someone physically, you can still show that you care about someone remotely. It is, of course, perfectly understandable that experts recommend physical distancing in order to slow down the spread of COVID-19. However, for some people the physical distancing and the restrictions of movement that it entails result in the impossibility of caring, in addition to being able to take care of someone. As we rely more and more on different forms of care to stay alive, and to stay healthy, we risk redefining what forms of care are permissible in a permanent way and without taking into account how different communities continue to see care and respect in physical ways that are seen as movements of contagion. This is particularly true in cultural contexts where the expectation is that care [...]

Social Structure and Distributive Policies under the PT Governments: A Poverty-Reducing Variety of Neoliberalism By Pedro Mendes Loureiro | April 24, 2020 Brazil’s social structure and associated distributive policies during the PT governments did not depart from neoliberalism but rather implemented a poverty-reducing variant of it. Through minimum-wage hikes, conditional cash transfers, legislation driving financial innovation, and the subsidizing of privately provided for-profit services, state power was used to include individuals in ever-expanding formal circuits of commodity production and consumption. Deprivation in multiple dimensions was indeed reduced through these policies, but in the process social mobility came to mean exiting poverty, getting a formal low-skilled job, and accessing credit at lower interest rates to pay for state-subsidized private health and education. A estrutura social do Brasil e as políticas distributivas associadas a ela durante os governos do PT não se afastaram do neoliberalismo, mas sim implementaram uma variante de neoliberalismo redutora da pobreza. Por meio de aumentos do salário mínimo, transferências condicionais de renda, legislação que impulsionava a inovação financeira e o subsídio para serviços privados prestados com fins lucrativos, o poder do Estado foi usado para incluir indivíduos em crescentes circuitos formais de produção e consumo de mercadorias. [...]

By David Miranda,  Fernanda Melchionna, and Sâmia Bomfim Federal Representatives of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) in Brazil | April 23, 2020 While the national health system collapses and the new coronavirus reaches hundreds of thousands of people, Brazil is facing a struggle against more than one pandemic. The most recent and dramatic one is that of COVID-19. But the impact of the virus is exacerbated by epidemics of political authoritarianism, social inequality and violence, including gender violence, that punish the country, as an example of what occurs around the world. Under the command of what is perhaps the worst president in the world, the largest country in Latin America is experiencing a dramatic crisis that puts millions of citizens at risk. It is necessary to take into account the context in which Brazil was affected by the coronavirus. For at least five years, the country has suffered from unbridled economic plunder driven by the ultra-neoliberal adjustment agenda. Although gigantic democratic demonstrations took place in 2013, demanding more rights, the country's demoralized political class acted in a direction contrary to popular aspirations. This approach started under Dilma Rousseff (PT) and reached unimaginable levels under the coup government [...]