Latin America in the 1980s: a Decade of Transformation
Jeremy Adelman
This seminar takes a historical look at the origins of contemporary Latin America by examining the transformations of the 1980s. It was a decade of transitions to democracy, emergence of new political actors, and norms of representation after years of authoritarian rule. It was also a decade of extreme violence and civil unrest connected to underlying social and economic upheavals, notably in El Salvador, Peru, and Colombia. Often called “the lost decade” because of the deep effects of the debt crisis, it restructured the region’s relationship to the world market. Readings will look in particular at the economic, political, and social changes of the decade that laid the grounds for the present.
Remembering in the 1980s
Required:
- Greg Grandin, “The Instruction of Great Catastrophe: Truth Commissions, National History, and State Formation in Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala,” American Historical Review, 110:1 (February 2005), pp. 46-67
- Emilio Crenzel, "The Narrative of the Disappearances in Argentina: The Nunca Más Report," Bulletin of Latin American Research 32:1 (2013), pp. 174-92
- Kate Doyle, “The Atrocity Files: Deciphering the Archives of Guatemala’s Dirty War” Harper’s Magazine, (Dec 2007), p. 52-65.
- Louis Bickford, "The Archival Imperative: Human Rights and Historical Memory in Latin America's Southern Cone," Human Rights Quarterly 21:4 (1999), pp. 1097-1122
Extra:
- Kirsten Weld, Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (Duke University Press, 2014), chpt 2
- Roberta Villalón. “The Resurgence of Collective Memory, Truth, and Justice Mobilizations in Latin America,” Latin American Perspectives, 42:3 (2015), p. 3-19
- James Brennan, Argentina’s Missing Bones. Revisiting the History of the Dirty War (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), chpts 6-7
- J. Stites Mor, Human rights and transnational solidarity in Cold War Latin America (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), pp. 48-73
The shadow of debt
Required:
- Osvaldo Sunkel, “The Unbearable Lightness of Neoliberalism,” in Charles Wood & Bryan Roberts (eds), Rethinking Development in Latin America (Penn State UP, 2004)
- Jeffry Frieden, Debt, Development, and Democracy: Modern Political Economy and Latin America, 1965-1985 (1991), chpt 6
Extra:
- Peter Winn (ed.), Victims of the Chilean Miracle Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1972-2002 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), chpts by Heidi Tinsman (women agricultural workers) & Klubock (forestry and environment)
- Carlos Diaz Alejandro, "Latin American Debt: I Don't Think We Are in Kansas Anymore", Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2 (1984), pp. 335-389
- Melissa Teixeira, Cristian Capotescu & Oscar Sanchez, “Austerity without Neoliberals: Reappraising the Sinuous History of a Powerful State Technology,” Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics, 3:2 (2022), pp. 379-420
Citizenships
Required:
- Sonia Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movements in Transition Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), chpts 1 & 9
- Bryan McCann, Hard Times in the Marvelous City: from Dictatorship to democracy in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Duke University Press, 2014), chpts 4-5
- Elizabeth Leeds, “Cocaine and Parallel Polities in the Brazilian Urban Periphery: Constraints on Local-Level Democratization”, Latin American Research Review, 31:3 (1996), pp. 47-83
- Javier Auyero, Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), Intro & chpt 2
