Latin American Perspectives

Part 2 of our interview with Felipe Antunes de Oliveira on his recent book Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina: A Critique of Market and State Utopias (2024).

In this timely and theoretically rigorous work, Antunes de Oliveira examines why the two largest countries in South America fail to materialize the development they continually promise to achieve. Instead of approaching the topic from a policy-failure perspective, he focuses on what public debates reveal about "development" itself. Building on this, Antunes de Oliveira offers a theoretical and empirical critique of neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist ideas surrounding cycles of structural reform in Brazil and Argentina, drawing on dependency theory to propose an alternative political economic framework for analyzing development challenges.

Felipe Antunes de Oliveira is a senior lecturer in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London and a coordinating editor at Latin American Perspectives. Outside the academy, he has served as a diplomat for the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as General Coordinator of International Financial Affairs at the Brazilian Ministry of Finance in 2024, and, since December 2024, as an Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund.

Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina is available for purchase through the University of Pittsburgh Press: https://upittpress.org/books/9780822948100/

For more information about Latin American Perspectives, our podcasts, and guests, please contact [email protected]

In this special two-part edition of Editors' Choice, Felipe Antunes de Oliveira, joins us to discuss his recent book Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina: A Critique of Market and State Utopias (2024).

In this timely and theoretically rigorous work, Antunes de Oliveira examines why the two largest countries in South America fail to materialize the development they continually promise to achieve. Instead of approaching the topic from a policy-failure perspective, he focuses on what public debates reveal about "development" itself. Building on this, Antunes de Oliveira offers a theoretical and empirical critique of neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist ideas surrounding cycles of structural reform in Brazil and Argentina, drawing on dependency theory to propose an alternative political economic framework for analyzing development challenges.

Felipe Antunes de Oliveira is a senior lecturer in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London and a coordinating editor at Latin American Perspectives. Outside the academy, he has served as a diplomat for the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as General Coordinator of International Financial Affairs at the Brazilian Ministry of Finance in 2024, and, since December 2024, as an Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund.

Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina is available for purchase through the University of Pittsburgh Press: https://upittpress.org/books/9780822948100/

For more information about Latin American Perspectives, our podcasts, and guests, please contact [email protected]

En este episodio, conversamos con Javier Campo, editor de Una historia del cine documental argentino: Tomo 1 (1896–1989) y Tomo 2 (1990-2024), publicados por Prometeo Editorial. La charla recorre la evolución del cine documental argentino desde la era del cine mudo hasta los años de la dictadura y la transición democrática, mostrando cómo distintos realizadores han utilizado el documental para abordar temas de memoria, resistencia y activismo.

Javier Campo reflexiona sobre el proceso de investigación y edición detrás de este ambicioso proyecto histórico, y sobre el papel fundamental que el cine documental ha desempeñado en la vida política y cultural de la Argentina. También analizamos la relevancia de este género para comprender las luchas más amplias en América Latina en torno a la historia, la representación y la política de la imagen.

Javier Campo es investigador del CONICET especializado en el cine documental argentino. Es autor de Revolución y Democracia: El cine documental argentino del exilio y Jorge Prelorán: Cineasta de las culturas populares argentinas, y editor de A Trail of Fire for Political Cinema: The Hour of the Furnaces Fifty Years Later. Actualmente es presidente de la Asociación Argentina de Estudios de Cine y Audiovisual (AsAECA).

Encuentra Una historia del cine documental argentino: Tomo 1 (1896–1989) y Tomo 2 (1990-2024) en Prometeo Editorial.

Anthropologist Sarah England and Political Scientist Alfonso Gonzales Toribio join the pod to discuss their new issue of LAP "Latin Americans Seeking Asylum in North America," as well as the history of US immigration policy and the current crisis of immigration enforcement and deportations in the United States.

Sarah England is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Soka University of America and the author of Afro-Central Americans in New York City: Garifuna Tales of Transnational Movement through Racialized Space (2006) and Writing Terror on the Bodies of Women: Media Coverage of Violence against Women in Guatemala (2018). She has served as an expert witness in asylum cases since 2012.

Alfonso Gonzales Toribio is Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is the Director and Founder of the Latino and American Studies Research Center, Ronald H. Chilcote Endowed Chair in Latino and Latin American Studies, and has been long serving community organizer, immigrant rights advocate, and expert witness in asylum cases.

Access their issue here: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/52/2

For additional information about contacting the journal, podcast host, or guests, please contact [email protected]

An excerpt from a political education session among LAP editors, featuring remarks by Sandra Levinson, executive director and co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Cuban Studies, and the founder and curator of the Cuban Art Space gallery in Brooklyn, New York. In her talk, Sandra offers her reflections on the contemporary state of Cuban art, culture and politics—drawing on decades of experience engaging with artists, intellectuals, and activists on the island.

Journalist and music historian Juan Data joins us to discuss his 2023 book, Hip-Hop vs. Argentina (Felipe Ibánez Editor)—an in-depth exploration of the evolution of hip-hop culture in Argentina.

Drawing on his experiences as an early participant in the scene and his expertise as a music industry journalist, Data traces how hip-hop, once viewed with skepticism, grew into a powerful cultural force among Argentine youth. The book offers a compelling analysis of the social, political, and industry dynamics that fueled this transformation, spotlighting the rise of freestyle battles, trap, and urban music.

Widely regarded as Argentina's first dedicated hip-hop journalist, Data launched the fanzine Moshpit Posse in 1996, produced the documentary El Juego (1999), and served as Latin American correspondent for Hip-Hop Nation (Spain). His work has been featured in numerous publications across the U.S. and Europe. In 2020, he released La Evolución del Flow (Walden Editora), a memoir chronicling his early years covering Argentina's hip-hop scene.

Hip-Hop vs. Argentina is available for purchase through Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hip-Hop-Vs-Argentina-Freestyle-identitaria/dp/B0CMMQLTHV

Los editores colaboradores de LAP, Edgars Martínez Navarrete y Richard Stahler-Sholk, acompañan el podcast para conversar sobre su número doble de LAP: Autonomías indígenas frente al capitalismo contemporáneo, publicado en junio y septiembre de 2024.

Edgars Martínez Navarrete es Doctor en Antropología Social por el Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social. Actualmente es Investigador de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales de la UNAM, y profesor de Antropología Económica en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Iztapalapa y en el CIESAS-CDMX. Investiga temas de antropología política y antropología económica en ámbitos indígenas.

Richard Stahler-Sholk es profesor emérito de Eastern Michigan University.

Accede a los números aquí:

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/51/4

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/51/5

Para más información sobre cómo contactar a la revista, al anfitrión del podcast o a los invitados, por favor escribe a: [email protected]

LAP contributing editors Nemer Narchi, Gustavo Goulart Moreira Moura, and George Leddy join the pod to discuss the May 2024 issue of LAP, "Blue Economies and Ocean Grabbing in Latin America." Themes covered include the intersections of political economy and marine ecology, environmental justice, and different political-economic and policy paths for the well-being of coastal communities.

Nemer E. Narchi is an environmental anthropologist who teaches at the Colegio de Michoacán in México. He has been researching coastal and marine communities since 2000 and currently leads the CoLaboratories of Social Oceanography, a multi-institutional network of coastal scientists bringing social research to the center of coastal science.

Gustavo Goulart Moreira Moura is an oceanologist with a doctorate degree in environmental science. He is a professor in the Department of Oceanography at Federal University of Pará in Brazil. He coordinates the research group of decolonial coastal management and is co-coordinator of the Amazonian Maretorios project.

George Leddy is currently a professor of environmental science, environmental studies, and geography in the Los Angeles Community College District, where he co-directs the Sustainable Environment Institute. He is also Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives.

Access the May 2024 issue of LAP here: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/51/3

For additional information about contacting the journal, podcast host, or guests, please contact [email protected]

LAP contributing editors Daniela García Grandón, Joana Salém Vasconcelos, and Andrew R. Smolski join the pod to discuss the January 2024 issue of LAP, "The Agrarian Question as an Ecological Question." The themes covered include the classic debate over agrarianism and development, the history of land reform in Latin America during the twentieth century, and the significance of centering ecology in the agrarian debate.

Daniela García Grandón is a part-time professor in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa. Joana Salém Vasconcelos is a full-time Visiting Professor at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil, and has a PhD in Economic History from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. Andrew R. Smolski is an Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education at the Pennsylvania State University.

Access the January 2024 issue of LAP here: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/lapa/51/1

For additional information about contacting the journal, podcast host, or guests, please contact [email protected]

Historian Joana Salém Vasconcelos joins us to discuss her book Agrarian History of the Cuban Revolution: Dilemmas of Peripheral Socialism (Brill 2023; Haymarket 2023).

Translated from Portuguese and originally published in Brazil in 2016, this meticulously researched study unpacks the complicated political and economic challenges Cuba has faced since its 1959 revolution, demonstrating why the sugar plantation economic structure in Cuba has persisted. Drawing on diverse historical sources, Salém Vasconcelos narrates in detail the three dimensions of Cuban agrarian transformation during the decisive 1960s – the land tenure system, the crop regime, and the labor regime – and its social and political actors. She explains the paths and detours of Cuban agrarian policies contextualized in a labor-intensive economy that desperately needs to increase productivity and, simultaneously, promised widely to emancipate workers from labor exploitation.

Joana Salém Vasconcelos is a full-time Visiting Professor at Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil, and has a PhD in Economic History from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil.

Agrarian History of the Cuban Revolution: Dilemmas of Peripheral Socialism is available for purchase through Haymarket books and Brill:

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2420-agrarian-history-of-the-cuban-revolution

https://brill.com/display/title/64107?language=en

For more information about Latin American Perspectives, our podcasts and guests, please contact [email protected]