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
The Authoritariat: An Interview with Rosana Pinheiro-Machado on Work, Subjectivity and the Far-Right
InterviewAcross the Global South, platform work is transforming the labour market and the political imagination of the working class. In this interview, anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro-Machado discusses her concept of the "authoritariat" — segments of the platformised working class drawn to reactionary populism through a mix of precarity, aspiration and the desire for autonomy. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Brazil, India and the Philippines, she examines how digital entrepreneurship, coach influencers and the collapse of collective identities are reshaping the political subjectivities of our time.
By Ülker Sözen and Gustavo Robles
InterviewBansree AS is a rationalist and content creator whose YouTube channel aims to make non hegemonic intellectual discourses accessible to the general public. In this interview he discusses how digital platforms owned by big technology companies accentuate the visibility of certain narratives while casting other voices to obscurity, reflects on anti-caste politics and the difficulty to build a space for non hegemonic ideas within the public sphere.
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.
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