nation-state | Exploring Latin America

Latinx lives matter – week 11

Posted by jacob fischer-schmidt in Week 11

A new world order emerges from the atrocities of World War Two. One dominated by nation states, with inviolable sovereignty (ideas of “humanitarian intervention” will wait until the 90s, with the end of the Cold War), and decorated with a humanist ambition embodied by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the newly established United Nations in 1948. Latin Americans would, however, not feel the protection of this declaration. Nation-states would wage violence against the people in their territories, untouchable in terms of the legalized legitimation of state violence….read more

A new dealer, same game? – week 9

The twentieth century brought a new international culture, a new dynamic to which Latin American nations and peoples would have to adjust to and engage in. In the stead of traditional European domination, a new ‘exchange’ emerged with the United States of America – one that would be contrasted with the old imperialist European hegemony. The USA described itself as anti-imperial, and insisted on a new kind of relationship with the ‘outside world’ for Latin America. However, as we have seen this week, this professed divergence between European and USA…read more