A History of the Aviation Industry in Latin America: Nationalism, Developmentalism and Neoliberalism in Chile, by Diego Barría Traverso. Routledge, 2024
Since its inception in 1965, the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (ERLACS) has sought to advance global academic knowledge of Latin America and the Caribbean. To commemorate the 60th anniversary of ERLACS, the Editorial Board decided to organise a special issue on “Understanding Latin America and the Caribbean: Current and Upcoming Developments”. We are very pleased with the critical and creative ideas and timely proposals presented in the nine explorations of this special issue (ERLACS issue 120, 2025). Hopefully, this collection will inspire new debates and lines of research and result in innovative articles in the coming issues of ERLACS.
This exploration analyses the evolving nature of oligarchy in Latin America amid technological change and global wealth concentration. While traditional family-based elites rooted in land, commodities, and protected industries continue to dominate, a new tech-based elite has emerged through fintech, e-commerce, and digital platforms. These actors differ from old oligarchs in origin, global mobility, and dependence on digital infrastructure, yet increasingly intersect with established elites through investment alliances and shared economic interests. The exploration argues that their power lies less in direct political intervention and more in infrastructural control over data and digital services, reinforcing new forms of dependency and state capture. Although the tech elite introduces innovation and entrepreneurial dynamism, its limited commitment to taxation, redistribution, and democratic accountability suggests continuity in wealth defence strategies. Rather than transforming power structures, Latin America faces a reconfigured oligarchy with uncertain implications for democracy and development.
Sex and Love in Porfirian Mexico City: A Social History of Working-Class Courtship, by Michael Matthews, University of Florida Press, 2025
The study of the relations of domination exercised over Indigenous peoples, as well as their responses to these strategies, has been a classic theme of Latin American studies. In this article, I want to explore the possibilities this theme offers by tracing the historical interweaving of two vectors that have helped shape the meanings and signifiers of Indigenous collective identities. These are the modernity-development tandem (modernity understood as a trans-secular process and development as its contemporary derivative), and ethnicity as a political platform that forms a significant component of the strategies of the subaltern sectors.
