Paths of Revolution


Book Description

First English-language anthology of one of Latin America’s pre-eminent Marxist writers The Argentine-born writer Adolfo Gilly has directly observed many of Latin America’s most dramatic events, from the Bolivian Revolution of the 1950s and Cuba during the Missile Crisis to the guerrilla wars of Central America and Mexico’s Zapatista uprising. Paths of Revolution presents the first representative selection from across his extensive body of work, collecting close-quarters reportage, sharp political analyses and reflections on art and letters. A living link between the New Left of the 1960s and the Pink Tide of recent decades, Gilly once described the twentieth century as a series of lightning flashes which can illuminate our present-day predicament. The essay form is where he fully comes into his own, covering a truly impressive range of topics and places. This collection draws out the continuities within one of the world’s more vibrant and politically successful left traditions. In the introduction, Tony Wood (author of Russia Without Putin) offer an overall portrait of Gilly’s life and work.




Risking a Somersault in the Air


Book Description

First revised edition of interviews with 14 prominent activists whose writings influenced the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution and help us understand present-day Nicaragua Margaret Randall presents a dynamic collection of personal interviews with Nicaragua's most important writer-revolutionaries who played major roles in the 1979 revolution and the subsequent reconstruction. This revised first edition includes a new preface and additional notes that frame the narrative in high relevance to the present day. The featured writer-activists speak of their work and practical tasks in constructing a new society. Among the writers included are Gioconda Belli, Tomás Borge, Omar Cabezas, Ernesto Cardenal, Vidaluz Menéses, Julio Valle-Castillo, and Daisy Zamora. The work also features 50 evocative photographs from the era by Margaret Randall.




Along the Many Paths of God


Book Description

Latin American theology is associated with liberation, basic Christian communities, primacy of praxis and option for the poor. The present volume shows that Latin American theologians added new themes to the previous ones: religious pluralism, inter-religious dialogue and macro-ecumenism. It is the fruit of a program of the Theological Commission of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) in Latin America, to work out a liberating theology of religions.




Nicaragua: The Imagining of a Nation


Book Description

At the nexus of politics, sociology, development studies, nationalism studies and Latin American studies, this work takes Nicaragua as a case study to engage and advance upon on Benedict Anderson's ideas on the origins and spread of nationalism.




Negotiating Love in Post-revolutionary Nicaragua


Book Description

This book explores the issue of love and its place in the reproduction of gender asymmetry in Nicaragua. The theme is discussed in the context of specific religious and work practices, living arrangements, gender values and norms, and the gender practices and legislation of the Sandinista revolution. The study uses lifeworld phenomenology as its theoretical approach, placing people's own experience center stage. Therefore, a case study of the Esperanza sewing cooperative is presented, built on life stories, interview materials and participant observation with the cooperative women and their husbands. The material and discursive practices and emotional experiences of men and women are examined in this particular socio-cultural setting. How do we account for the highly unequal bargains the women strike with their husbands, accepting large material responsibilities and «time-share» love even if they experience this as emotionally hurtful? The study testifies to women's autonomy in family maintenance and religious practices, an autonomy which seems to falter in the fields of love and sexuality; some of the men and women, however, negotiate subtle changes in gender norms and values.




The Resilience Myth


Book Description

The author of the “must-read” (NPR) Rage Becomes Her presents a powerful manifesto for communal resilience based on in-depth investigations into history, social science, and psychology. We are often urged to rely only on ourselves for strength, mental fortitude, and positivity. But with her distinctive “skill, wit, and sharp insight” (Laura Bates, author of Girl Up), Soraya Chemaly challenges us to adapt our thinking about how we survive in a world of sustained, overlapping crises. It is interdependence and nurturing relationships that truly sustain us, she argues. Based on comprehensive research and eye-opening examples from real-life, The Resilience Myth offers alternative visions of relational hardiness by emphasizing care for others and our environments above all.




Making Routes


Book Description

A rich interdisciplinary study of the diversity and dynamics of the migrations of displaced peoples across the Global South By the end of 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached a record high of 100 million, the highest figure since the Second World War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban political takeover in Afghanistan exacerbated an already protracted global refugee situation, but climate-related events also played a part in forcing millions of people to leave their homes in search of more habitable living areas. Making Routes: Mobility and Politics of Migrant in the Global South provides fresh understandings of mobility flows, transnational linkages, and the politics of migration across the Global South, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Moving away from North–South, East–West binaries and challenging the conception that migratory movements are primarily unidirectional—from South to North—it explores how state policies, migrants’ trajectories, nationalism and discrimination, and art and knowledge production unfold in places as widespread as Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Seventeen academics, activists, and artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and international relations reveal the diverse narratives, migration patterns, forms of agency, and laws that make up the complex reality of South–South migration, offering vital new pathways for research in migration studies today. Contributors: - Chowdhury R. Abrar, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), Dhaka, Bangladesh - David Bolanos, Independent photographer, Costa Rica - Danyel M. Ferrari, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, United States - Leander Kandilige, University of Ghana, Accra - Mélanie V. Léger-Montinard, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Duduzile S. Ndlovu, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa - Evrim Hikmet Öğüt, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey - Sara Sadek, The American University in Cairo, Egypt - Tasneem Siddiqui, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh - Sally Souraya, Independent artist, London United Kingdom - Allison B. Wolf, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia - Kudakwashe Vanyoro, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa - Thomas Yeboah, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana




Myths of Modernity


Book Description

DIVCombines Marxist and postmodern approaches to argue that patriarchy has provided the central organizing principle of Nicaraguan agrarian labor systems./div




Omar Cabezas, Nicaragua, and the Narrative of Liberation


Book Description

Throughout his political and military career, Omar Cabezas fought to transform Nicaragua, to implement the ethics that had led him to participate in the armed struggle against Anastasio Somoza’s regime, and to be active during the 1980s and 1990s as a member of the National Congress. Omar Cabezas, Nicaragua, and the Narrative of Liberation: To the Revolution and Beyond surveys the foundations of liberation discourse as it relates to the work of Omar Cabezas. It examines themes associated with Nicaraguan and Latin American culture and literature, considering key issues of national liberation and identity in the wake of the Sandinista revolution. By contextualizing the research within a continental and national perspective and using concepts such as utopia, orality, and humor to frame the discussion on national liberation , Mantero shows the symbiotic relationship between the work of Cabezas and the reformulation of Nicaraguan identity in the post-revolution.




Nicaragua and the Politics of Utopia


Book Description

The history of modern Nicaragua is populated with leaders promising a new and better day. Inevitably, as Nicaragua and the Politics of Utopia demonstrates, reality casts a shadow and the community must look to the next leader. As an impoverished state, second only to Haiti in the Americas, Nicaragua has been the scene of cyclical attempts and failures at modern development. Author Daniel Chavez investigates the cultural and ideological bases of what he identifies as the three decisive movements of social reinvention in Nicaragua: the regimes of the Somoza family of much of the early to mid-twentieth century; the governments of the Sandinista party; and the present day struggle to adapt to the global market economy. For each era, Chavez reveals the ways Nicaraguan popular culture adapted and interpreted the new political order, shaping, critiquing, or amplifying the regime's message of stability and prosperity for the people. These tactics of interpretation, otherwise known as meaning-making, became all-important for the Nicaraguan people, as they opposed the autocracy of Somocismo, or complemented the Sandinistas, or struggled to find their place in the Neoliberal era. In every case, Chavez shows the reflective nature of cultural production and its pursuit of utopian idealism.