Monthly Archives: October 2017

Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

I was super interested by how Dawson views the American intervention in Latin American as not fully a military one, but an often welcomed cultural component. I personally remember watching El Gaucho Goofy and really thinking it was funny because it certainly did reinforce the stereotypes that already are present in many porteños’ (people born in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires) minds, aside from the fact that its a genuinely funny and cute film if one does not watch it with a critical eye.

This week’s topic really begs the question of how much influence is too much influence when speaking in the context of ‘from a world power to a non-world power.’ I think that this topic is relevant today, especially in relation to social media, TV, and fashion. I do understand the point of view of wanting to keep a Latin American country (or a country in any part of the world) ‘untouched’ or ‘authentic’, especially when addressing issues like tourism or new infrastructure projects like resorts and hotels (not saying I think this way but I understand why someone would. However, I really think that Dorfman and Matterlart give a bit too much power to Donald Duck’s cartoons or any sort of cultural media.

Much like Dawson states, the cartoons and films were widely accepted by Latin American audiences and although I do understand Dorfman’s point of view, to have someone who has grown up and studied in the USA tell Latin Americans that they should critique Disney cartoons seems odd to me. I think the specific passage we were given is a quite surfaced-based, pointing out the well known fact that Disney has a racist past (and sometimes present). Although I do agree with many of his arguments in a number of his works, especially those pertaining to human rights and the transition to democracy by many nations, I have always been ‘bothered’ (for the lack of a better word) that he is an individual that was born into a privileged Argentine family, received all the academic benefits of studying in North America, yet goes back ‘home’ to preach about his ‘findings’ while living in the cultural imperialist USA. Is it not more important to critique the American producer of this material (ie. Disney or its American audience) than to put this responsibility on solely Latin American audiences? America is definitely a cultural imperialist, but who are we as academics to tell people what they should consume and how?

Week 8: Signs of Crisis in a Gilded Age

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I apologize for my lateness.

This week I was very struck by how humans constantly try to make sense of what is happening to us. The export boom in Latin America was so huge and so impacting in people’s everyday lives that the effects of it could not be ignored, and thus had to be rationalized. The global influence of other nations also struck me, as many of the Latin American revolutionary unrests came from what seen to be the success of the Russian Revolution and the economic influence of the United States upon Latin America.

The constant disappointment of unfulfilled promises in the political sphere that trickles down to people’s lives can often really fire people up to want to change current processes and revolt. I think one of the largest ‘problems’ per se, in almost all revolutions are that either there are too many sides that are fighting at the same time about different things, or there are not enough sides that fully represent what individuals may want and have a VERY narrow political agenda.

I very much enjoyed Dawson’s conclusion that no one really ‘wins’ a revolution because either some are more represented than before or not at all. That in itself sounds so very disappointing when you’re often risking your life or your job to fight for something you believe in, because like he said, no one chooses to take up arms willy nilly, but a lot of thought and effort goes into it.

Revolutions come out of necessity, but I wonder if better organization would lead to the ‘success’ of a revolution. How do you get recently-arrived immigrants to understand your fight? How do you get indigenous peoples that are constantly marginalized to want to revolt (without the racist connotations we came across this week?) If the leaders of revolutions are romanticized because they die young, do people really revolt without any deeper political agenda? How do we measure the ‘success’ of a revolution anyway?

Week 7 – The Export Boom as Modernity

Week 6- Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics

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Hello!

This week I was so intrigued by the comparison between Latin American citizenship and rights discussion versus Canadian citizenship and rights discussion. Although I am originally from Argentina, my academic knowledge of this subject is much more centered in the Canadian indigenous perspective due to the direction my academics have taken me.

One of the things that were mentioned in the lecture video, which I so agree with is the fact that rights must be first agreed upon (by all parties). The brackets are important, because as Professor Beasley- Murray mentions, Caucasian males are often propelled to the forefront of historical events or processes without acknowledgement of the marginalized communities that are physically at the front.

One of the first things that I was taught at UBC Anthropology was the fact that we all view the world through our own culturally constructed lens, whether we are aware of it or not. Thus, I, a Caucasian female who has never lived in a First Nations reserve cannot assume that I understand their struggles no matter how much I think I do. Today, I would never dare to tell a Bands or Nation how I think they should construct their political and social narrative, because I am aware that I am just an outsider working and learning with these communities. However, at the time of independence in many Latin American countries, effect which have continued into the present day, many political leaders who have never even physically gone to the marginalized parts of their perspective countries or fully understand their time-specific struggles, are in charge of constructing laws that are supposed to ‘protect’ them or even to help them ‘develop’ or ‘prosper’. How is this possible?!

In Canada, many Nations are self-governed. They make a lot of decisions within themselves and some groups rarely even ask for government intervention other than some financial aid when needed. These groups also get tax breaks or independent fishing and hunting laws (these are small things that I mention just to make the whole discussion less abstract). However, in Argentina for example, Bands struggle to even get political recognition within the ever-revolving governments, much less do they ever get serious and independent self-government or any other sort of ‘benefit’. I truly do think that a large reason for this is the political and economic instability of so many Latin American countries. Because these countries are constantly trying to rebuild themselves, so many other issues are put before indigenous issues, which continues a never-ending suffocating cycle of minority group neglect and rejection within their own geographical borders.

Although in other countries in Latin America indigenous groups are recognized by their governments, like I mentioned previously, they are often ignored, taken from their land, or their land is taken from them or severely damaged through ‘development projects’….what do you think are immediate things that should be improved?

—Within the discussion of the impacts of trans-Atlantic slavery in Latin America, do you think that there were any benefits ‘imported’ to Latin America? Perhaps in the field of technology or economy?

I am genuinely curious as to what everyone thinks so I appreciate your replies! 🙂

Week 5- Caudillos Versus the Nation State

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This week I was very intriguing because as we can see in the news and other outlets, liberalism continues to struggle to bloom successfully in Latin America. In my opinion, one of the main positives, but disadvantages in the case of Latin America, of liberalism is that it needs a strong sense of ‘self’, as Professor Beasley-Murray mentioned in his video lecture. There needs to be, an often unwritten list of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ to carry out a liberal system that successfully encompasses and acts out liberal ideas.

As we have seen through the course and I’m sure will continue to see, this is something that Latin American countries severely lack. There is not a ‘one size fits all’ version of what liberalism should be, and thus each country, including Britain, the USA, and Canada have had to construct their own picture of what they wanted their country to look like through a liberal lens. This is why colonialism and its ideologies continues to be part of our social and political discussions, because it was often these ideas that became the base for what these countries look like today, since only one narrative is often chosen to appear in the spotlight. Some of the main problems in Latin America unfortunately have been violence and corruption, which have not allowed for this ‘unified’ narrative to ever even begin its conception stage.

When discussing caudillos, I think they are a very smart way of getting one point of view to become adopted by several groups of people. The authoritarian way in which policies that were developed by caudillos do certainly create an idea of one narrative, whether people agree with it or not. That is when the peer pressure can come in. If your neighbours and bosses all believe in one political or military figure that already has control of the territory in which you live, do you really want to go against that? This question is not to be answered through our already established 21st century liberal point of view that an institution like UBC has surely instilled in most of us, but rather try to answer this as a mulatto or black peasant in 19th century Buenos Aires, for example. Much like Professor Beasley-Murray and Dawson discuss, Rosa created a sense of community, even though perhaps fictive, within people that was not easy for liberalism to break.

In “The Slaughterhouse” by Echeverria, a lot of the blame and responsibility is actually put on the people that backed the caudillos, but not necessarily directly on the authoritarian system that was in place. Do you think this was an effective choice by the author? If you had been a supporter of the caudillos system, would you have found this effective, and why?