Studies of the Brazilian Landless Movement, particularly the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Landless Rural Workers' Movement), note two periods of collective action: the time when tactics such as land occupations are deployed to acquire land (luta pela terra) and subsequent mobilizations to develop territory (luta na terra). The latter period, which includes fostering educational opportunities and coordinating economic production, features prolonged interaction with government authorities. Instead of demobilizing during institutionalization, this study argues, postoccupation practices are as contentious as seizing territory. This is apparent in the movement's efforts to influence public policies that lead to the creation of schools where a contentious, movement-centered identity develops. Documenting the movement's efforts in education provides a way to understand how the current moment in rural contention in Brazil—called by some the time to acumular forças (accumulate forces)—remains collective and political instead of indicating movement decline.

In many Latin American countries, social policy preferences among economically vulnerable citizens seem largely unpolarized. However, current studies rarely confront citizens with realistic policy options and often lack the required detail to capture the heterogeneity of economic vulnerability. Drawing on the dualization debate, we expect individuals facing different degrees of vulnerability to show distinct social policy preferences. Using original survey data from Mexico and a conjoint experiment, our findings reveal a complex divide, where the most economically vulnerable are least supportive of public solutions. Sharing the home with a formal labor market participant does not seem to mitigate social policy skepticism among the vulnerable. In contrast, magnified vulnerability via household composition reduces support for welfare policy expansion. Social policy preferences become much less distinct when policy design alternatives are introduced, suggesting reduced expectations about the state’s role and a lack of clarity about the tangible benefits of social policy reform.

Alberdi fue el más grande y sutil ironista de la literatura argentina. Sus críticos lo han estudiado como político, internacionalista y sociólogo. Ninguno advirtió la inmensa ironía que lo distingue entre sus compatriotas. La ironía, esa burla fina, disimulada, tan difícil de alcanzar cuando no se posee un talento especial, sólo se encuentra, en la literatura argentina, en escritores muy posteriores y, salvo raras excepiones, no logra la espontaneidad, la gracia y la hondura que fluyen del espíritu de Alberdi. Esta ironía es propia de los hombres solitarios, a menudo tristes, que contemplan el mundo con desdén porque descubren sus debilidades, sus ridiculeces, y, por tanto, terminan por despreciarlo.

Recent events have once again focussed attention upon the Republic of Bolivia and the efforts of its governing party, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, to grapple with the realities of a chaotic economy and a changing social and political order.

Yet, studies of the development of the Bolivian social revolution have not kept pace with Bolivia's increased prominence in news reports, perhaps because of the inavailability and widely-scattered nature of source materials. Bolivian source materials cannot be considered in a vacuum, however, and a brief survey of recent Bolivian history is in order here.

In recent years the problem of the external indebtedness of non-oil-exporting countries has gained significant weight in public discussion. With the quadrupling of oil prices since the end of 1973, a rapid increase in the borrowing of LDCs has occurred. The standard of living in these countries is extremely low to begin with; any further room for downward adjustment to offset higher cost of oil imports through a slowing down of economy is simply an unacceptable possibility. Moreover, any further economic restraint on the already slower pace of development would be politically unpopular for the leaders in developing countries. Consequently, many LDCs have resorted to increasing external borrowings to pay for the oil bill, as well as to maintain a minimum rate of economic growth. The total external public debt of these countries is now estimated at around $200 billion (U.S. Senate, 1977: 51). This paper examines the debt servicing experience of Brazil. Lately, Brazil has been the center of attention because it owes some $25-$30 billion to foreign creditors. Its debt servicing burden for 1977 would be approximately $5.3 billion, or 40% of an estimated $12 billion in export earnings.

In the historiography of the philosophy of Mexican history and culture one of the begging questions has been the genesis of Samuel Ramos' book El perfil del hombre y la cultura en México (1934). Did this work, which shifted Mexican problems from a physical base to a psychological plane (Villegas, 1960: 135-136), spring full-blown or was it a reflection of attitudes shared by other intellectuals who defined a movement in the history of ideas? Ramos is usually credited as the initiator of national self-analysis (Diccionario Porrúa, 1971, 1723), and indeed he helped perpetuate the myth of his seminal role in the philosophical and characterological study of the Mexican (Ramos, 1943: 153). Moreover, Ramos stated that his work was the first to treat the “psychology of the Mexican” (see Castro, 1951: 36), yet this very theme was anticipated by Antonio Caso in 1925 (1925a).

Since his death in 1949, the prestige of the eminent Mexican painter José Clemente Orozco has continued to grow as his artistic stature becomes more measurable. For this reason, if for no other, the early formative years of his career when the stylistic foundations of maturity were laid demand now more than ever careful scrutiny and evaluation. Among the early works of this artist none, in our opinion, is of greater interest and few are of higher quality than a collection of water colors known to students of Orozco as the House of Tears. In spite of their importance, however, these pictures have received only casual treatment from most writers. This essay embodies the earnest hope that our analysis of certain problems involved in the sources and style of House of Tears may at least kindle broader interest in the series as a whole.

Perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most complicated, of the many activities relating to Brazilian iron ore development are those associated with the Rio Doce Valley. This valley, which lies about 225 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, is a natural corridor from the sea to the rich Itabira ore fields in the state of Minas Gerais. Its value as a possible outlet for Itabira ore was noted as early as the first quarter of the nineteenth century by such figures as Cámara Bittencourt, Intendente General of the Diamantina district and Baron Wiihelm von Eschwege, a minerologist employed by the Portuguese government.

As nações americanas, provenientes de origens européias diversas cujas diferentes culturas e tradições imprimiram marcas profundas nos seus respectivos destinos no nôvo mundo não deixaram entretanto de sofrer experiências comuns que, por sua vez, conferiram certas analogias às sociedades que, no hemisfério, se formaram. Negá-lo tornaria impossível á compreensão da história dos povos americanos que têm mesmo consistido, em linhas gerais, num conflito mais ou menos intenso entre o passado europeu e a experiência americana.

Uns, como os colonos anglo-americanos, regeitando, ao se deslo carem para o Nôvo Mundo, certas formas institucionais da Europa, embora retendo outras, entregaram-se mais confiantes e mais livres ao nôvo destino. Já os latino-americanos, pelas condições em que se processou a colonização, permaneceram mais atados às suas origens européias. E quanto mais fortes foram êsses laços, mais dramática foi a gestação das novas sociedades, como no caso hispano-americano.

The urban labor force in the capital of Guatemala holds a potential strength out of proportion to its numbers. The power of the urban labor force stems from the fact that (1) though a minority of the total population of the republic, it forms a numerical majority in Guatemala City where national decisions are made; (2) it is a compact group which can be more readily and efficiently organized than the sprawling agrarian labor force; and (3) once organized, it is an available and effective political force. Party dialectic aside, these factors are sufficient to make urban labor an attractive instrument for international Communist propaganda and infiltration.

For the leaders and people of every new state of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, independence has brought about a dramatic awakening with respect to the conceptualization of their position in world affairs. The loosening of ties with the metropolis, which had been the primary aim of the struggle for independence, suddenly appears in a double perspective. On the one hand, it contains the threat of distintegration of the established social and economic order and, on the other hand, it opens prospects for new bonds and opportunities. After decades or centuries of predominantly bilateral relationships between colony and metropolis, historical links are confronted with the pressures resulting from geographic proximity .The diversification of foreign contacts is a phenomenon of the very recent past. The leaders and inhabitants of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Niger, Trinidad and Venezuela, or Guyana and Brazil are only now realizing the full impact of their relationship as neighbours.

With an area of 83,000 square miles and a population of 600,000, British Guiana is one of the smallest countries on the South American continent. Its political importance is out of all proportion to its size or economic performance for the single reason that the People's Progressive Party (PPP), which won a clear majority in the Legislative Assembly elections of 1961, is completely dominated by a group of Communists.

British Guiana is still a colony under a governor who is a British civil servant nominated by the Colonial Office in London and who controls law and order, defense, and external affairs—the effective levers of command. The local government can thus be said to be in office but not in power, its range of action being extremely limited.

The ways in which societies change and adjust to change are determined largely by cultural and historical factors, by long-standing customs and traditions. Cultural values differ widely from one society to another; each solves its problems according to its own values, and value systems, though they may work well for one society, cannot be expected to work as well for another. This is true even of colonies that become independent nations, although the characteristic stamp of the common mother country remains visible. What is unique in the case of Spanish America is the inability of the new nations to shed this stamp, despite determined efforts to do so. To understand the process of change of any country or group of related countries such as those of Spanish America, it is necessary to examine the major cultural characteristics and values, and to consider social and political action in relation to these, rather than to any external standard.

As of 1997, the United States faces an unprecedented degree of security, stability, and economic prosperity in its relations with Latin America. Never before have US strategic interests in Latin America been as well-protected or have its prospects seemed, at least on the surface, so promising. Yet while the US strategic interests are in better shape — militarily, politically, and economically — this decade than at any time since the end of the Second World War, some problems remain. Over the long run, there is also the risk that old problems, which today seem to have ebbed away, will return. Thus, the positive tone of any contemporary assessment must be tempered with an awareness of remaining areas of concern as well as of possible future crises.

The Canadian involvement in Caribbean America—and by this I automatically include the Hispanic Caribbean, French, and Dutchspeaking places, as well as the English-speaking Commonwealth Caribbean—has followed two traditional streams.

The first is Canada's private sector involvement—substantial Canadian commitments in some countries like Jamaica, Guyana, and the Dominican Republic, typically concentrated in extractive industries and banking. The second is with the public sector, in Commonwealth Caribbean islands, but with a mix of Canadian private/public roles in some important cases.

More diffusely spread, the public sector side includes capital grants and loans made through governments or international banks to develop new private industry, as well as for genuine public sector and social development schemes. The latter would include government-to-government aid, for example, assistance to the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica or the University of Guyana, teacher training programs, CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) community work, the missionary role of the various Canadian churches, chiefly the Roman Catholic.