Contemporary postcolonial Caribbean literature, encompassing the late twentieth century, is indelibly marked by the vicissitudes of displacement, which precipitate an acute sense of dislocation, and existential estrangement. This pervasive malaise engenders a profound anxiety surrounding identity and cultural affinity, compelling writers to interrogate the elusive phenomenology of belonging amid diasporic fragmentation. Consequently, the motif of "home" - with its attendant desires, nostalgic reminiscences and mythic idealizations - emerges as a recurrent leitmotif, permeating the literary corpus and reflecting a broader ontological quest for rootedness in an unmoored world. This study critically examines the trope of return in Caryl Phillips's seminal novella A State of Independence (1986), contending that repatriation from metropolitan exile proffers not cathartic fulfillment but an exacerbated liminality. Protagonists remain inexorably suspended between bifurcated domains, heterogeneous linguistic registers and irreconcilable cultural epistemes, their homecoming devolving into a spectral interstice. Employing a deconstructive hermeneutic, the analysis dismantles the architecture of diasporic Caribbean subjectivity, elucidating its inherent fissures through a nuanced reading of Phillips's narrative against the backdrop of the archipelago's postcolonial condition. Far from migration itself, it is the return that epitomizes the perennial homelessness of both protagonist and peripatetic author, thereby subverting teleological narratives of return and reterritorialization.
This paper analyzes legislative cohesion in the Chilean Constitutional Convention (2021-2022), a one-off deliberative body composed of both party members and independents. With data from 4,669 roll call votes and applying Rice and Unity indices, we examine how party composition, member resignations and time influenced cohesion across party delegations. We find that cohesion declined over time, but initial delegations with more party members and higher resignation rates exhibited greater internal unity throughout the process. In contrast, by the end of the process, delegations with more party members were less cohesive, suggesting that independents, despite lacking formal structures, maintained stable voting blocs. These findings challenge assumptions about the disruptive role of independents and highlight the fluid nature of group dynamics in temporary legislatures. Our study contributes to the literature on legislative behavior by demonstrating how institutional design and political alignment shape cohesion in non-traditional lawmaking bodies, offering broader insights for comparative analyses of constitutional conventions.
This article examines the globalization of emancipatory horizons that shaped the activism of various actors throughout the 1960s and 1970s by analyzing the trajectory of the Frente Revolucionario Indoamericano Popular (FRIP) and its main ideologues and leaders. Founded in 1961 in the Argentine city of Santiago del Estero, the organization later joined forces with Palabra Obrera (PO), a Trotskyist group based in Buenos Aires, to form the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT). Throughout the article, we argue that analyzing these experiences allows us to reflect, from a rarely explored perspective, on how certain South American social actors forged material and symbolic connections that gave their activism a transnational character. In this sense, we investigate how local, national and global dimensions were articulated in shaping these initiatives, highlighting the challenges involved in building political and intellectual ties among individuals engaged in different emancipatory projects. Likewise, we observe the profound transformations undergone by the worldview and militant practices of these actors as they became increasingly involved in the networks of mobility and dialogue that characterized the so-called Global Sixties.
In this article, I provide further creative and critical contexts for Nadia Salgado's notion of corporeal consciousness. Exploring the body-place trope, I ask what orientations of corporeal consciousness emerge from queer Hispanic Caribbean writing in its interanimation with topos-politics. I argue that queer Caribbean writing presents a critically generative engagement with the land-body trope, an intervention enriched by its peculiar historical positionality, for the queer body is more likely to suffer alienation from the Caribbean topos on account of sex, as well as multiple layers of othering akin to the type initially mapped onto the Caribbean lands in the colonial imaginary but creatively and variously reimagined by queer Caribbean writers. I demonstrate this by close-reading works by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Emanuel Xavier, Rane Arroyo, Reinaldo Arenas and Achy Obejas, synthesizing four orientations of the body-topos trope. The significance of this intervention is that it offers tentative coherence to the mesh of thoughts on embodiment and place in Hispanic Caribbean discourse, and documents the value, texture and legacies of a queer meditation on the trope. By mesh of thoughts, I mean the various interlocking individual interventions that the selected texts are making regarding the question of place and body.
The global rise in precarious work (PW) - characterized by uncertain and risky labor conditions - has garnered increasing academic attention due to its numerous negative social consequences. In Latin America, quantitative studies have identified key socio-demographic and job-related factors that influence the likelihood of experiencing PW. These studies often emphasize job-related characteristics - particularly company size - because of their stronger individual effects. However, the cumulative effect of socio-demographic factors has been largely overlooked, despite its relevance to conducting a more comprehensive assessment of the influence of socio-demographic factors in explaining the vulnerability to PW. This study addresses that gap by examining the cumulative effect of socio-demographic characteristics on the likelihood of PW in Peru. Using data from the 2020 Peruvian National Household Survey (n = 39,977 workers), I modeled the effects of both socio-demographic and job-related predictors on PW index (PWI) scores through a generalized ordered logistic regression. Then, I estimate risk profiles based on the model. Results show that workers with a high-risk socio-demographic profile - rural women from ethnic minorities who are either young or older adults - are 36% more likely to have the highest PWI score than the most common worker profile: urban creole men aged 25-65. This gap emerges despite profiles sharing similar job and educational characteristics. These findings underscore the importance of considering the cumulative impact of socio-demographic disadvantages in shaping vulnerability to PW. They also highlight the need for policies that address PW through an intersectional approach to reduce structural social inequalities.
El problema de investigaci & oacute;n es el relativo desconocimiento sobre el rol de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil en Honduras en la discusi & oacute;n sobre las pol & iacute;ticas educativas. El objetivo es analizar las trayectorias, las agendas y las estrategias de incidencia que han desarrollado diversas organizaciones no gubernamentales en la construcci & oacute;n de pol & iacute;ticas educativas. Se opt & oacute; por una metodolog & iacute;a de an & aacute;lisis comparativo entre dos categor & iacute;as: 1) organizaciones tradicionales de incidencia educativa, y 2) actores emergentes, en particular fundaciones privadas y & aacute;reas de responsabilidad social empresarial. La comparaci & oacute;n se centr & oacute; en cuatro dimensiones: caracter & iacute;sticas organizacionales, acciones, relaci & oacute;n con otros actores (gobiernos, sindicatos, sociedad civil) e impacto. Los resultados describen cada dimensi & oacute;n y se muestran las principales diferencias. Por & uacute;ltimo, se discuten las implicaciones de estas diferencias para la defensa del derecho a la educaci & oacute;n, y para comprender mejor las din & aacute;micas de relaci & oacute;n sociedad-estado en la educaci & oacute;n.
Before the military coup of 1964, the United States intervened directly in order to preserve its hegemony and interests in Brazil against the ascendancy of national-reformist tendencies. While the Goulart government was not hostile to the United States, it represented a serious problem for US hegemony due to its position and policies on reform and national development. With a view to ensuring its supremacy, the United States carried out psychological warfare with the aim of undermining the Brazilian government as well as support for it and, eventually, preparing public opinion for regime change.
Cette analyse comparative & eacute;tudie la pr & eacute;sence des femmes & eacute;lues au Br & eacute;sil en 2020 et leur visibilit & eacute; dans les journaux t & eacute;l & eacute;vis & eacute;s, & agrave; partir des th & eacute;ories intersectionnelles et des & eacute;tudes de la communication. En 2020, pour la premi & egrave;re fois dans l'histoire du Br & eacute;sil, des femmes trans et des femmes noires ont & eacute;t & eacute; & eacute;lues conseill & egrave;res municipales dans les capitales des & Eacute;tats, et avec des votes significatifs. L'& eacute;tude cherche & agrave; d & eacute;terminer si cette avanc & eacute;e politique trouve un & eacute;cho dans le traitement journalistique, & agrave; travers l'usage de ces & eacute;lues comme sources d'information. Comment les deux principaux journaux t & eacute;l & eacute;vis & eacute;s br & eacute;siliens (Jornal Nacional et Jornal da Record) ont-ils pr & eacute;sent & eacute; les conseill & egrave;res noires et trans & eacute;lues, alors qu'elles occupent d & eacute;sormais une place incontournable dans les dynamiques sociales ? Les r & eacute;sultats montrent une h & eacute;t & eacute;rog & eacute;n & eacute;it & eacute; dans la politique comme dans le journalisme.
This article examines the intersections between ancestry, territorial rights and resistance in Quilombo Rio Verde, a traditional Afro-Brazilian community located in Guaraque & ccedil;aba, Paran & aacute;, within a critical remnant of the Atlantic Forest. The study investigates how the community navigates prolonged delays in land titling, fragile certification mechanisms, punitive environmental enforcement, and the encroachment of private interests over ancestral territory. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodology, the research combines literature review, document analysis, and fieldwork grounded in the collective subject discourse (CSD) method, which captures shared narratives and symbolic frameworks. Findings reveal that traditional agricultural practices, ecological stewardship, and affective ties to the land function not only as cultural expressions, but also as situated strategies of resistance to institutional neglect and socio-environmental threats. In this context, ancestry emerges not merely as historical memory, but as a relational ontology and political horizon from which alternative forms of governance and intergenerational care unfold. By centering quilombola epistemologies, the article contributes to debates on environmental justice and decolonial conservation. It underscores the urgency of public policies that recognize traditional knowledge systems as dynamic foundations for plural and ecologically resilient futures.
This article examines how Colombian elites reconstructed national identity after the War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902) by redirecting collective memory from recent conflicts toward unifying foundational narratives. Focusing on Rafael Reyes' presidency (1904-1909) and the 1910 centennial, it argues that post-conflict memory making relied on "institutional mediation": organizational frameworks that balanced competing memory claims while channeling diverse energies into shared commemorative goals. Institutions such as the Academia Colombiana de Historia, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and urban improvement societies negotiated between national reconciliation, regional autonomy and popular inclusion through industrial exhibitions, monument dedications and charitable activities. These efforts managed divisions not by erasing alternative narratives but by creating flexible mechanisms for coexistence. Yet regional resistance seen in Cartagena's 1910 boycott and Antioquia's Catholic modernity model revealed the limits of centralized projects, underscoring that forging a cohesive national identity remained an ongoing negotiation rather than a settled elite achievement.
