Theory & Research
How is “progress” understood in this
territory? For whom is it intended? How has Bolivian society,
particularly in Santa Cruz, been transformed in recent decades? Why
speak of authoritarianism? Seeking collective answers to these
questions—and opening the door to new ones—we met in July at a
roundtable during the Congress of the Association of Bolivian Studies
(AEB). This text summarises the reflections that emerged and presents
a set of ongoing research projects.
Theory & Research
The
current crisis is creating political conditions in which states are
losing their ability to manage internal societal contradictions. The consequences of the crisis of
neoliberalism, which has severed social bonds, have evolved into a
broader crisis that is causing modern societies to lose their social
cohesion, and their ability to politically organise to find adequate
responses to the crisis itself.
Theory & Research
Neoliberalism has dismantled the social structures that offered
security and orientation to life. The far right successfully channels
the resulting fears and anxieties towards purist, social Darwinist fantasies. Politics of care stands as a defiant response to that. In
an era defined by uncertainty and precarity, care emerges as
survival, resistance, and imagination. Care is a counter-normative
project: sustaining and (re)generating social life while embracing
contradiction and resisting the demands for purity.
By Firoozeh Farvardin and Gustavo Robles
In PerspectiveThe rise of right-wing discourses in Latin America presents itself as a promise of change, appealing to meritocracy, pragmatism, and economic recovery. Yet behind this language of renewal lies a familiar political logic. In a context of crisis, uncertainty, and generational weariness, these narratives recycle conservative and authoritarian measures while positioning themselves as “real solutions,” gaining particular traction among young people who navigate vulnerability, disillusionment, and the search for stability.
In PerspectiveThe explosive growth of social media self-help culture promises quick solutions to intimate crises, from restoring “feminine energy” to reclaiming “masculine power.” Yet beneath its language of empowerment lies a deeper political logic. As neoliberal societies produce a growing “care deficit,” self-help influencers transform insecurity into a market while promoting survivalist individualism, gender essentialism, and authoritarian fantasies of control that increasingly echo the moral agendas of contemporary far-right politics.
By Ülker Sözen
In PerspectiveThe U.S. military intervention in Venezuela signals a renewed phase of imperial escalation in what is understood as the Western Hemisphere. Framed through the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” it reveals the convergence of geopolitical domination, extractivist interests, and the authoritarian restructuring of U.S. power into a project of imperial fascism.
By Pablo Uc
InterviewIran is going through dramatic times and tectonic shifts. In this interview, Nader Talebi reflects on the Islamic regime and its tensions between a neoliberal state project and a messianic Shia imaginary, and on the waves of uprisings against a regime that enforces gender apartheid and destroys the means of reproduction of life. Against this, Talebi insists on what connects the mobilizations of the last years — a politics of life, cross-ethnic solidarity, and a revolutionary tendency that makes any dictatorship hard to sustain.
Interview
Melina Vázquez and Carolina Spataro explore a new type of right-wing
libertarian feminism, distinct not only from left-wing feminism but
also from classical liberal feminism and right-wing conservatism. Who
are these libertarian feminists and why do they think feminism has
more to do with Javier Milei than with socialism?
InterviewArgentinian feminist intellectual Rita Segato draws connections between the genocide in Gaza and the femicides she studied in Ciudad Juárez, and reflects about the current fascistic shift and how some of her key conceptualizations on coloniality, race, and violence, help us decipher it.
By Börries Nehe
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