Latin American Culture Research Articles

La integración Corío – Acre: enlace entre militares y civiles sobre los temas de seguridad y defensa de Brasil y Perú

The national security and defense policies of Peru and Brazil are documents structured based on the main objectives considered for the maintenance of the sovereignty of these countries that are: neighbors in South America, have in common the Amazon rainforest, Latin American culture,and the coincidence of political and social problems. Security and defense issues are few explored by the Powers of the State and by society, but the defense policies of both countries describe the need for the involvement of the entire nation for the promotion of national development and, consequently, maintenance of sovereignty. Thus, through qualitative research, with a descriptive method and data analysis,we verified the restricted dissemination of these policies, resulting in the need to increase these issues in the society of Brazil and Peru. Therefore, the objective of this study is to present the relationship of an integration initiative between Brazil and Peru, through the Corío–Acre axis, with security and defense policies, motivating society to be interested in defense issues

From the observatory in India: Julio Cortázar´s Kaleidoscopic Gaze

This article investigates two texts that the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar produced in relation to his experience and trips to India: Prose of the observatory (1972) and the text Turismo aconsejable [Advisable tourism] included in Último round (1969). Both texts contain photographs, which generate a kaleidoscopic gaze characterized by cultural distance and closeness, as well as aesthetic experience. The hypothesis is that a kind of observatory is generated from which the writer observes, perceives and interprets the sensitivity of Latin American and Indian cultures in dialogue. The objective of this study is to identify the Cortazarian kaleidoscopic gaze that permanently generates both an approach and a distance, through the reading of these hybrid texts whose photographs and words produce a playful and experimental space.

Editorial Commentary

Editorial| October 01 2022 Editorial Commentary: Advocating for a Pedagogy of Humanity Charlene Villaseñor Black, Charlene Villaseñor Black Charlene Villaseñor Black is professor of art history and Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Los Angeles [cvblack@humnet.ucla.edu]. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Emily A. Engel Emily A. Engel Emily A. Engel is an independent scholar of Latin American visual culture and an environmental advocate [lalvcassoced@ucpress.edu]. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (2022) 4 (4): 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2022.4.4.3 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Charlene Villaseñor Black, Emily A. Engel; Editorial Commentary: Advocating for a Pedagogy of Humanity. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1 October 2022; 4 (4): 3–8. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2022.4.4.3 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentLatin American and Latinx Visual Culture Search Over the past three years, many of us developed a more humane approach to teaching as we watched our students struggle with Covid-19 at the same time that political unrest shook the world. Across the United States, Latin America, and indeed around the globe, class- and race-based uprisings occurred as the pandemic wreaked havoc. Activists tore down racist monuments in former imperial centers; citizens protested the rise of fascism in Brazil, the United States, and other places; we gathered to demand our governments address global climate crisis. Students and educators of all levels and ranks united in these struggles to confront the escalation of systemic oppression around the world. Finally, folks were joining together to address colonialism’s legacies. Our students were doubly traumatized, first by the global pandemic and secondly by political unrest. While many BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students welcomed these political changes after centuries of... You do not currently have access to this content.

Caregiver burden of patients with advanced cancer in Mexico.

181 Background: Caregivers of patients with advanced cancer often face significant physical, social, and emotional distress. In many Latin American cultures, family plays a particularly important role in the decision-making process of patients with cancer, and relatives often assume the role of unpaid caregivers. However, there is limited research about the burden associated with cancer unpaid caregiving among patients living in Latin America. We aimed to describe the profile of caregivers and to identify patient-related factors associated with caregiver burden in a third-level cancer center in Mexico City. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers included in a multidisciplinary patient navigator-led supportive care program in Mexico City ( Te Acompañamos). At the time of enrollment in the program, caregivers completed a short version of the Zarit Burden scale and patients completed a series of screening questionnaires including assessments of quality of life (FACT-G), depression (PHQ-9), and anxiety (GAD-7). Life expectancy was calculated using the palliative performance scale (PPS). We used descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multivariate logistic regression analyses to understand which patient factors were associated with higher caregiver burden. Results: A total of 321 patients with advanced cancer (58% women; average age 63.3 +/- 14 years; 32.7 with hepatopancreatobiliary tumors) and 321 caregivers (67.1% women; 44% were the patient’s son/daughter; 29% were their spouses) were included. Sixty-four caregivers (20%) had a high caregiver burden (score > 16 in the Zarit scale). Caregiver burden was more common among the patients’ spouses (24.1 %) followed by brothers/sisters (23.6%). On univariate analysis, moderate/severe levels of depression (p = 0.001), moderate/severe levels of anxiety (p = 0.02), and lower PPS scores (p = 0.002) were associated with a high caregiver´s burden. Multivariate analysis showed that only PPS < 180 days was associated with increased odds of having caregiver burden (2.0; 95% CI 1.8-3.7); p = 0.02). Conclusions: A significant proportion of unpaid caregivers of Mexican patients with advanced cancer report high levels of caregiver burden, and the odds of having caregiver burden are increased when the patient has a calculated life expectancy of <6 months. These results suggest targets for future supportive care interventions to improve caregiver wellbeing in Latin American and Hispanic populations.

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

Mestizaje, transculturation, anthropophagy, and the lower senses

ABSTRACT Mestizaje, transculturation, and anthropophagy were among the most widespread terms used to refer to Latin American culture during the twentieth century. This article analyses how each of these terms emerges linked to one of the so-called lower senses (touch, smell, and taste). The recognition of a mestizo culture was based on the distinction between tactile and visual experiences; the formulation of the term transculturation emerges from the olfactory and gustatory experiences of sugar and tobacco; and the proposal of the anthropophagous movement emerges from a shared experience of savoring. In this article we propose that the affiliation of these terms with each of the “lower” senses is not a coincidence, but a reaction to the sensory hierarchies that underpin colonialism. Analyzing the senses’ role in these terms’ emergence will allow us to unveil a sensory dimension through which a generation of authors felt and valued a “Latin American culture.”

The Blind Side of Art: Visual Impairment as a Resource in the Work of Mexican Artists

Disability studies is a dynamically developing discipline; however, it usually focuses on the Anglophone world. Scholars representing this field often concentrate on deconstructing popular stereotypes and revealing hidden systemic discrimination. Although more and more initiatives are taken up – such as disability pride – it seems that an affirmative approach to disability remains in the minority. This article is a proposal for going beyond the mentioned schemes. Entering the area of the Latin American culture, I try to verify whether the findings of disability studies can be confirmed there. Proposing the interpretation of dis-ability in terms of resource, I want to broaden the affirmative perspective on disability. This paper aims at a critical reflection on the creative potential of visual impairment used by blind and low-vision Mexican artists in the creative process. Driving upon the research conducted between 2020 and 2022, I argue that they use their visual impairment as a resource in their artistic activity. I distinguish four aspects of the functioning of visual impairment as a resource in artistic work: inspiration, representation, non-ocularcentric imagination, and accessibility.

Perception of the Disclosure of Adverse Events in a Latin American Culture: A National Survey.

Adverse events are common and are responsible for a significant burden in the healthcare setting. Such issues can vary according to the local culture and relevant policies. The current literature on the subject primarily addresses Anglo-Saxon cultures; this study focused on understanding the perception of disclosure in a middle-income country in Latin America. In this descriptive study conducted from June-August, 2021, an online self-administered survey about disclosure practice used a convenience sample of 995 Brazilian healthcare professionals. Based on two different outcomes presented following a hypothetical adverse event (outcome 1: death; outcome 2: no permanent damage), 77.9% of participants fully agree that disclosure should be performed in both scenarios. Although 67.1% claimed that disclosure changes the perception of the institution by those involved, only 8.3% fully agree that there would be a reduction in trust regarding the institution. Despite only 11.5% of participants fully agreeing that disclosure increases the chance of legal action against professionals and institutions, 92.7% fully or partially agree that judicialization was possible in scenario 1, and 72.4% agree it was possible in scenario 2. Of the participants, 64.2% claimed they already faced a "disclosure" situation, and 44.3% fully believe that the person directly involved in the adverse event should participate in the disclosure. In this sample of professionals from a middle-income country in Latin America, the practice of disclosure was considered ethical, and the majority of respondents affirmed that it should always be performed. Nonetheless, this call for transparency collides with participants' perception of a higher risk of legal action when disclosure is performed after a negative outcome situation.

Cover Feature: Versatility of the Amino Group in Hydrazone‐Based Molecular and Supramolecular Systems (Eur. J. Org. Chem. 28/2022)

The Cover Feature highlights the Latin American culture with an emblem that is the accordion and how the versatility of the amino group resembles the musical notes that appropriately combined exhibit multiple dynamics in the hydrazones. Each highlighted hydrazone-based system represents one type of dynamism: conformational (orange), configurational (blue), and constitutional (green). The harmonic box contains the words “amino group” to remark the particularly important role of the N–H group in each of those processes observed in hydrazone-based molecular and supramolecular systems. The authors thank Alejandro Ijaji for the extraordinary design of the cover, following the concept given by the authors. More information can be found in the Review by M. N. Chaur et al.

Contributors

Contributors

Editorial Commentary

Editorial Commentary

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

Daniel Alarcón’s Lost City Radio and the work of translation

The subject of Alarcón’s English language novels is identified without difficulty in publicity materials as deeply Peruvian and yet the marketing also presents him as a ‘World’ writer. I explore how naming where Alarcón’s writing is ‘from’ and where it is going relates to the place of Latin American culture globally. Working with the idea that literature should have a ‘place’, I examine the politics of (self)translation in Alarcón with reference to the period of armed internal conflict in Peru (1980-2000) to argue that an understanding of (self)translation as a process can contribute to our idea of what World Literature is and what national literatures are from a specifically Latin American perspective. In an interplay between foreign and domestic that differs from the more familiar strategies of codeswitching in Latinx writing, Alarcón both enables and resists the translation of other parts of the world onto Peru/Latin America.

Belonging Beyond Borders by Annik Bilodeau

Reviewed by: Belonging Beyond Borders by Annik Bilodeau Maia Fernández Lamarque Bilodeau, Annik. Belonging Beyond Borders. U of Calgary P, 2021. Pp. 254. ISBN 978-77385-159-4. Bilodeau’s recent publication, Belonging Beyond Borders (2021), aligns with the current educational trends in US universities on multiculturalism and globalization, that proposes these aspects of higher education as part of their academic mission and values. [End Page 307] Belonging Beyond Borders’ central theme is cosmopolitanism as an aesthetic in Latin American literature. The book is divided in 3 major parts where Bilodeau discusses the role of transculturation cosmopolitism and globalism in three Latin American authors: Elena Poniatowska, Mario Vargas Llosa and Jorge Volpi. The introduction gives an overview of cosmopolitanism and its two-sided conceptualization as an “imperial connotation” and as a more traditional notion of pluralism. The author embraces the most recent articulation of the term as “rooted cosmopolitanism” in the context of Latin American culture. For Bilodeau, decoloniality and rooted cosmopolitanism are not purely philosophical or theoretical but are, in fact, practices. As shown in the analyses of the works of these three prominent writers, cosmopolitanism is the engagement with your own identity and locality but at the same time the creation of a dialog and links with the world community. Chapter 1 examines Elena Poniatowska’s novel La flor de lis (1988) and the parallelism with Poniatowska’s own biography in the center of conscientious cosmopolitanism. The main character in La flor de lis is also born in Europe as Poniatowska herself and moves to Mexico as an adolescent. The author articulates three main ideas in this chapter: transculturation, acculturation and hybridism in the context of Latin American culture. Bilodeau bases her arguments upon the theoretical ideas of Fernando Ortiz, Octavio Paz and N. García Canclini. Hybridism, for example, is discussed in this chapter as the mixture of cultures and byproduct of colonialism according to Octavio Paz, and the combination of elite and popular cultures, to Canclini. Bilodeau affirms that through these concepts engrained in the history and evolution of Mexico and its relationship with Europe, flor de lis represents “the rejection of cosmopolitanism and the adoption of cultural hybridity” (61). Chapter 2 examines another “cosmopolitan” author, Mario Vargas Llosa. As in chapter 1, Bilodeau recounts and compares Vargas Llosa’s life and ideological transformation to that of his characters. The analysis is made between two central notions: political and aesthetic cosmopolitanism. The analysis of Flora Tristán and grandson artist Paul Gauguin, main characters in El paraíso en la otra esquina (2003), and Roger Casement’s protagonist in El sueño del celta (2010), as two examples of Vargas Llosa’s variations of cosmopolitism, are the axis of the chapter. The author compares Tristán’s cosmopolitanism and her commitment and engagement with other experiences and cultures around the world along with her utopian views as unattainable and chimerical. Gauguin’s cosmopolitanism, argues Bilodeau, is also related to his utopian search for artistic inspiration but falls into his individualistic quest for the unreachable ultimate aesthetic form. At the same time, Gauguin, unlike his grandmother’s altruistic views of humanity, is anti-cosmopolitan when he superposes his own hedonistic sexual pleasures unto others needs and/or health. Both characters fail in their attempt to reach their utopia, asserts Bilodeau. In El sueño del celta, the character contains the ambiguity of being cosmopolitan but also a nationalist. Nationalism and patriotism are two terms that the author asserts are ingrained in this character and in Vargas Llosa himself. In his Nobel Prize Literature speech in 2010, Vargas Llosa made it explicit that the former is negative, abstruse, the root of racism and other social maladies. The latter, patriotism, on the other hand, only enriches our experience as humans. In the third and most extensive chapter, Bilodeau analyzes Mexican author Jorge Volpi’s two novels: El fin de la locura (2003) y No será la tierra (2006) in the context of “global novels.” Again, the author relates Volpi’s personal experiences as a citizen of the world with his approach to literature. Volpi has been criticized for being not “Mexican enough” since his literary universe depicts characters...

The Last Christmas (La Última Navidad)

The Last Christmas (La Última Navidad)

“Humanizing the Indios” Early Spanish missionaries’ struggles for natives’ dignity: Influences and impact in 16th Century Philippines

“Humanizing the Indios” Early Spanish missionaries’ struggles for natives’ dignity: Influences and impact in 16th Century Philippines

Editorial Commentary

Editorial| April 01 2022 Editorial Commentary: The Politics and Praxis of Peer Review in Art History Publishing: Challenges, Ethics, and Reform Charlene Villaseñor Black, Charlene Villaseñor Black Charlene Villaseñor Black is professor of art history and Chicana/o studies at UCLA. She authored Creating the Cult of St. Joseph: Art and Gender in the Spanish Empire (Princeton UP, 2006) and edited Tradition and Transformation: Chicana/o Art from the 1970s through the 1990s (U of Washington P, 2015). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Anna Indych-López Anna Indych-López Anna Indych-López is professor of Latin American and Latinx art at The Graduate Center and The City College at CUNY. She authored Judith F. Baca (U of Minnesota P, 2018) and Muralism without Walls: Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros in the United States, 1927–1940 (U of Pittsburgh P, 2009). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (2022) 4 (2): 3–9. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2022.4.2.3 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Charlene Villaseñor Black, Anna Indych-López; Editorial Commentary: The Politics and Praxis of Peer Review in Art History Publishing: Challenges, Ethics, and Reform. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1 April 2022; 4 (2): 3–9. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2022.4.2.3 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentLatin American and Latinx Visual Culture Search Peer review, the anonymous evaluation of our research by equals in our field, is fundamental to scholarly publishing. It can help assess the soundness of new research, arguments, critical frameworks, and methodologies. Peer review also forms the foundation of deliberations regarding tenure and promotion for academics in the United States. Thus, peer review represents one of the most critical aspects of one’s career in academia and the future of our field as a whole. This coauthored commentary assesses the politics and praxis of peer review from the point of view of Latin American and Latinx visual culture studies. How have traditional reviewing practices affected our fields in the past, and how can we improve the process of peer review going forward? Looking at this issue from our viewpoint as specialists in Latin American and Latinx art provides a unique and illuminating vista, one that has the potential to have an... You do not currently have access to this content.

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

Corrigendum

Coauthor Tricia Tierney was not included in the original publication of “‘They Are Always There’: Mendieta, Vicuña and the Coming Again of Ghosts,” published in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 3, no. 4 (October 2021). This correction has been made in the published article.

Introduction to an epistemology for analytical psychology in a civilization in transition.

This paper explores the epistemological sources of C.G. Jung's psychology over the course of its historical evolution. It considers whether his model should be seen as a scientific-philosophical, artistic, or an ethical-mystical model, or a combination of these; whether epistemological knowledge can come from getting a 'vision of the whole' or 'grasping the particulars thoroughly' (Jung 1939, para. 1012); as well as exploring the philosophers of science with whom Jung's epistemological model best coheres. The paper calls on the work of Joseph Henderson and his concept of the cultural unconscious, as well as exploring the contribution of Brazilian and Latin American civilization to the evolution of analytical psychology.