Neoliberal Economic System Research Articles

“환영할만한” 은퇴이주자의 탄생: 필리핀, 말레이시아, 태국의 비자정책을 중심으로

This study explores how the idea of “welcomed” retiree migrants has been shaped in developing economies in Southeast Asia by analyzing the retirement migration visa programs of selected countries in the region, namely the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. Furthermore, by examining how Korean visa applicants take advantage of each program, this article unpacks how such visa programs are promoted and consumed in the sending countries. Thus, this research has two aims: first, to reveal the processes of how the state actors in the selected Southeast Asian countries established a specific mobility regime that widely opened their borders to foreign retirees, and second, to demonstrate how the visa applicants - Koreans - created unexpected outcomes under this mobility regime. By situating a mobility regime created by the developing states in Southeast Asia within the neoliberal global economic system, this study explores the ways in which the developing countries reconfigured their national territory to welcome foreign retirees. Although the countries in Southeast Asia facilitated the transnational relocation of foreign retirees from Euro-America and Japan, the promotion of retirement migration programs actually led to an increase in Asian migrants (except Japanese), particularly Koreans. By examining how Korean visa applicants and the migration agencies creatively re-interpret the values and purposes of the visas, I reveal how people disrupt the prearranged social relations the state actors set out to manage.

Reclaiming the role of labour environmentalism in Just Transitions

From its inception in the North American labour movement all the way to its inclusion in the Paris Agreement and current level of global proliferation, the concept of Just Transition has reached the pinnacle of global policy debates. Drawing on contributions to the Just Transition Research Collaborative (JTRC) project and a recently published volume1, we highlight the importance of historicising and rooting the Just Transition concept in the frontline communities and unions that are most directly affected and that initially imagined it. This, we believe, is key to ensuring that Just Transition is not simply a fashionable catchword but a concept that actually contributes to a socially just low-carbon transition. Just Transition: The Making and Globalisation of a Contested Concept The Origins of Just Transition: While the term ‘just transition’ was first used in 1995, it was part of an explicit strategy by unions and environmental justice activists in the USA and Canada that can be traced to the late 1980s. Drawing upon the US federal Superfund policy to clean up polluted sites, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union suggested a Superfund for Workers in chemicals, weapons, and other toxic industries. The strategy of the union envisioned a robust green industrial policy, strong occupational, health and environmental rights and standards, alongside universal health care and the formation of an independent labour party. During the 1990s, US and Canadian unions promoted the strategy in collaboration with the environmental justice and elements of the environmental movement and in the context of systematic discussions between unions and environmentalists2. Just Transition fell off the US and Canadian union and environmentalist agenda after 2001. The Globalisation of Just Transition: The concept survived, however, because global union organisations, in collaboration with a number of national unions, including in the UK, Spain, Australia and South Africa, globalised the concept from the late 1990s onwards (Rosemberg 2020). The Spanish Comisiones Obreras and the associated Sustainlabour and ITUC, played a critical role in the diffusion of labour environmentalism globally, mainstreaming the Just Transition concept within international climate and environmental debates and processes3. During the Great Recession, when proposals for green jobs and green growth became more popular nationally and amongst intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), these unions sought to ensure that Just Transition remained on the agenda. Just Transitions Everywhere: More recently, the uptake of Just Transition has accelerated. Global climate activists started seeing its value and some transferred it back to their national movements. The ILO adopted its Just Transition guidelines in 2015. The ITUC established the Just Transition Centre (JTC) in 2016 and has pursued close collaboration between labour and sympathetic business (Moussu 2020). Other IGOs are also engaging the concept, as are various philanthropic and civil society organisations. Just Transition policies have been adopted by countries, such as Canada and Spain, by subnational units, such as Colorado and Scotland and by cities, such as Longmont, Colorado, and Jackson, Mississippi (Akuno 2020). C40, the global network of megacities has expressed its commitment to Just Transition. The growing number of references to Just Transition has increased the range of understandings of what it should mean, from more conventional and mainstream corporate social responsibility proposals to more transformative ideas that confront the current neoliberal economic system. A necessary step, therefore, is to identify and reflect on the various meanings and operationalisations of Just Transitions. Unions and Just Transitions Today Despite its union origins, Just Transition remains a contested concept within the world of labour. Some unions, particularly in extraction and construction, oppose Just Transition, due to both concerns over the implications of a transition and ideological reasons. Other unions have engaged the strategy but emphasised the social aspects over the urgency of a green transition. There are good reasons for that when states, business and environmentalists focus on urgency without justice. Overall, Just Transition is high on the agenda of the world of labour and there are many instances of unions debating and promoting Just Transition. These include the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, various British and US unions and union related initiatives, the Alberta Federation of Labour in Canada, South African trade unions, Australian unions (Snell 2020) and others. But while some unions from the Global South...

Formación y evaluación docente bajo el alero del neoliberalismo: el caso chileno

En las últimas décadas, en Chile, las políticas educativas han estado vinculadas al sistema económico neoliberal, por lo que las racionalidades gerenciales han permeado las dinámicas y relaciones que tienen lugar en las escuelas. De igual manera, la formación de los docentes se ha desarrollado bajo una lógica racionalista que le atribuye roles que no contemplan todas aquellas dimensiones o aspectos necesarios para su desempeño en el aula. Estas situaciones han afectado las dinámicas e interacciones que ocurren en las escuelas y han ocasionado una desprofesionalización de los docentes. Este artículo tiene como objetivo reflexionar sobre las tensiones que se evidencian en el sistema educativo chileno y en la formación docente bajo el alero del neoliberalismo. Para ello, se selecciona y analiza información de revistas científicas y libros que consideran las contradicciones de la educación bajo los postulados posfordistas y su relación con la formación y la evaluación docente, considerada esta última como principal mecanismo de ascenso en el desarrollo profesional docente. Las conclusiones de este análisis develan la relevancia que tiene la educación como ente emancipador, y la importancia de los aspectos socioemocionales y del paradigma del profesor en la construcción de las reformas educativas, en especial de aquellas directamente vinculadas a los docentes.

Religions, poverty reduction and global development institutions

Religious traditions have always played a central role in supporting those experiencing poverty, through service delivery as well as the provision of spiritual resources that provide mechanisms for resilience at both the individual and community level. However, the fact that religions can be seen to support social structures and practices that contribute towards inequality and conflict, also underscores a role for religious traditions in creating conditions of poverty. While the Western-led modern global development institutions that have emerged since the Second World War have tended to be secular in nature, over the past decade or so there has been an apparent ‘turn to religion’ by these global development institutions, as well as in academic development studies. This reflects the realization that modernization and secularization do not necessarily go together, and that religious values and faith actors are important determinants in the drive to reduce poverty, as well as in structures and practices that underpin it. This paper traces three phases of engagement between religions and global development institutions. In phase one, the ‘pre-secular’ or the ‘integrated phase’ seen during the colonial era, religion and poverty reduction were intimately entwined, with the contemporary global development project being a legacy of this. The second phase is the ‘secular’ or the ‘fragmented’ phase, and relates to the era of the global development industry, which is founded on the normative secularist position that modernization will and indeed should lead to secularization. The third phase is characterized by the ‘turn to religion’ from the early 2000s. Drawing the three phases together and reflecting on the nature of the dynamics within the third phase, the ‘turn to religion’, this paper is underpinned by two main questions. First, what does this mean for the apparent processes of secularization? Is this evidence that they are being reversed and that we are witnessing the emergence of the ‘desecularization of development’ or of a ‘post-secular development praxis’? Second, to what extent are FBOs working in development to be defined as neo-liberalism’s ‘little platoons’—shaped by and instrumentalized to the service of secular neo-liberal social, political and economic systems, or do we need to develop a more sophisticated account that can contribute towards better policy and practice around poverty reduction?

향수는 질병이야!: 린 노티지의 Sweat에 나타난 신자유주의와 21세기 미국의 지형도

This paper aims at researching political/economic geography of 21SUPst/SUP century America through the lens of post Black aesthetics in the play of African American playwright Lynn Nottage. In her recent play Sweat, Nottage portrays the crisis of community in Reading, Pennsylvania, a town which represents blue collar workers in the Rust Belt area and encounters serious unemployment issues due to the neo-liberal economic system in the age of globalization. Sweat foregrounds and focuses its microcosmic lens on both a public space and a private space, a ‘bar’, where the factory workers of Olstead Steel in Reading share their lives. Nottage explores the crisis of deconstruction set in motion by serious conflicts in that Olstead community that had previously been characterized as a town of sustained social harmony and stability in terms of sex, race and class due to the flexible employment found within a market economic system. She also depicts the stratification of the community, explores a newly defined ‘neo-liberalism racism’ and integrates all as the conglomerate result of a trap of uncertainty created by a market economy.BR Contemporaneously, Nottage suggests cosmopolitanism as an alternative macro-narrative to overcome the crisis and negative effects from neo-liberalism, and she also reclaims the bar as an origin from which energy can provide gaiety and conviviality beyond the barrier of gender, race and class. Thus, Nottage tries to show us the reclaiming and redemption of what was lost in a past America by citizens’ attempts to seize on the opportunity to redefine the future via the recovery of the Reading community. Nottage, who won the 2SUPnd/SUP Pulitzer Prize in Drama,was privileged with the opportunity to stage Sweat on Broadway theater, thereby showing the intertextuality of politics and stage, surpassing any racial categorization.

State building in post-conflict zones: lessons from Palestine and Kosovo

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the state-building attempts in post conflict zones. The neoliberal economic system has dominated the key international organizations such that the latter have designed their approaches for state building based on it. The framework of these approaches focuses on minimal state interventions in the economy and free markets by being as a “one size fits all”. However, several prominent financial institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund that have implemented some of these approaches in various regions resulted in limited success.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is comparing two cases of state building before statehood and sovereignty, and this comparison comes in socioeconomic practices of international players and local governments.FindingsThis model has been carried out in Palestine and Kosovo but failed in meeting the expected demands of independence and prosperity. Instead, it resulted in more failures in the markets and caused a decline in the macro and micro economic indicators.Originality/valueThe key reasons for such failures, specifically in Palestine and Kosovo, are believed to be related to the top-down approach of policy-making, the lack of independence and sovereignty and the absence of popular and local participation in policies and plans. In such context, this approach has to be further revised to create a more inclusive participatory and representative model.

Ubuntu and the modern society

The incompatibility school of thought maintains that ubuntu is incompatible with modern society’s politico-juridical order and neoliberal economic system that promotes individualism and unequal distribution of wealth in the context of economic marginalisation and severe impoverishment of the black African majority. Furthermore, the postcolonial state tends to undermine the common good of society. The pro-ubuntu camp maintains that ubuntu is relevant as a normative ethical concept and as the underlying moral framework of reconciliatory politics of South Africa’s rainbow nation. I will show that the limitation of ubuntu due to its application in the framework of liberal constitutional democracy and neoliberal “global institutional order” that serve the interests of global capital and at the same time undermine the economic interests of impoverished black Africans requires ubuntu normative ethical theory to establish an understanding of a rearrangement of the “global institutional order” in a way which fits ubuntu. This work is novel as I appropriate Metz’s understanding of ubuntu as a normative ethical theory to show the importance and the nature of the realignment of the “global institutional order” to ubuntu in a way which promotes the common good of the global community of human beings.

Can Education for Sustainable Development Change Entrepreneurship Education to Deliver a Sustainable Future?

Abstract An objective of the European Union’s Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan is to address high levels of youth unemployment in Europe by promoting entrepreneurship. Implementing entrepreneurship education in schools, colleges and universities is one of three strategic interventions proposed by the Action Plan. Sustainable entrepreneurship is a recognised branch of the wider field of entrepreneurship and the literature on sustainable entrepreneurship sees it as a means of addressing some of the sustainability challenges of the 21st century. This article compares the pedagogical approaches and the competences of ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) with those of entrepreneurship education to identify how ESD might influence entrepreneurship education in order to develop entrepreneurs that contribute to a sustainable future. This comparison is placed in the context of the broader debate on the need to transform the dominant neo-liberal economic systems as part of the precondition for achieving a more sustainable future.

Integrated Health Care Systems and Indigenous Medicine: Reflections from the Sub-Sahara African Region

Indigenous or traditional medicine has, since the 1970s, been widely regarded as a resource likely to contribute to strengthening the health care systems in low income countries. This paper examines the state of traditional medicine using evidence from three case studies in Central Kenya. While the cases are too few to represent the broad diversity of cultures and related healing systems in the Sub-Sahara African Region, the way they seem to refute the main assumptions in the integration discourse is important, also because studies from other countries in the region report perspectives, similar to the case studies in Kenya. It is often argued that people continue to use traditional medicine because it is affordable, available and culturally familiar. Its integration into the health care system would therefore promote cultural familiarity. The case studies however point to the loss of essential cultural elements central to traditional medicine in this particular area while users travel long distances to reach the healers. In addition, there are significant paradigm differences that may present obstacles to integration of the two systems. More problematic however is that integration is, as in many development interventions, a top-down policy which is rarely based on contextual realities and conditions. Instead, integration is often defined and dominated by biomedical professionals and health planners who may be unfamiliar or even hostile to some aspects of traditional medicine. Furthermore, integration efforts have tended to embrace selected components mostly herbal medicine. This has led to isolating herbal medicine from spiritualism, which may in turn affect the holistic perspective of traditional medicine. While familiarity and relevance may explain the continued use of traditional medicine, its services may not be as readily available, accessible or even affordable as is often asserted. Globalisation set in motion through colonization and ensuing modernization processes, including urbanization, education, religion and a neo-liberal economic system, have introduced a social order creating physical as well as social distances between users of traditional medicine and the healers.

Assessing the Role of South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from IBSA Countries

“Things are going wrong not because of market failures. The problem is much deeper than that. Mainstream free-market theory suffers from a conceptualization failure, a failure to capture the essence of what it is to be human.” (Yunus, 2007) Unequal distribution of wealth and failure of institutions, state and market as a whole have forced the scholars and thinkers all over the globe to search for an alternative form of economy (Zahra et al., 2008) which will be free from distortion, exploitation and restrictions (Elson, 2000). Instead of globalization, which has failed, the world is in the quest for ‘fair globalization’ to address the real grass root level needs of the society. In achieving the ideal form of social economy there is the necessity to stand together with the spirit of cooperation and solidarity in order to ensure the inclusive sustainable growth and creation of decent world of work for all (Levaggi, 2016). The very concept of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) rests on the idea of amalgam of ‘Solidarity Economy’ and ‘Social Economy’. Lewis (2007) defines ‘Social Economy’ as the third system of the economy (which exists in the form of organizations such as NGOs, SHGs, Cooperative Societies, etc.) which is supporting the first system of the economy, i.e. the private profit making organizations and the second system of the economy that is the Government or State or public organizations. The organizations under the third system are different from that of the first and second system of the economy in prioritizing the social objectives or goals for sustainable inclusive development on top over the traditional and outmoded objective of either profit maximization or value maximization. On the other hand ‘Solidarity Economy’ is a pluralistic concept unlike other past social movements which aims at changing the focus from the narrow objective of profit or wealth maximization under the neoliberal capitalist economic system to the ‘people’ and ‘planet’ only (Lewis and Swinney, 2007). Thus the underlying objective of ‘Solidarity Economy’ is to question the Triple Bottom Line Model and seeks to establish Double Bottom-line Model by only considering ‘people’ and ‘planet’ and eliminating ‘profit’ from the structure. Naturally SSE is a dependable, credible and alternative form of economic systems which puts ‘people’ and ‘planet’ at the first place unlike in a neoliberal capitalist economic systems.

Britain and Europe on the geopolitical roller-coaster

This article analyses the geopolitical significance of Brexit. It argues that, together with Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States, it represents the historical moment when the twin crises that emerged in 2008 – the re-emergence of Russia as a geopolitical challenger to the United States and the financial crash that exposed the fragility of the neoliberal economic system – effectively fused. The article explores the double imperial constitution of the European Union, Britain’s peculiar positioning within global power structures, and the combined impact of the crash, the Great Recession of 2008–2009, and the policy reaction of seeking to recharge neoliberalism through austerity as creating the conditions for the Brexit vote. Now elites in Britain, the rest of the European Union, and the US must grapple with the direct circuit that has been established between domestic socio-political tensions and geopolitical antagonisms.

The conspiratorial style in lay economic thinking.

This study investigates patterns of lay perception of economics, and in particular the place of conspiratorial thinking regarding the economic domain. We devised four types of accounts in the economic domain, over a range of questions regarding different aspects of the economy: the classical neo-liberal economic view (which we labeled Econ101), and the Conspiracy view (the destructive outcomes of economy are due to small and powerful groups who are manipulating the markets), to which we added the Government malfunction view (failures in the economy are due to the authorities), and the Bad Invisible Hand view (the invisible hand may go wrong, and the equilibrium reached by its doings may be undesirable). The last two views are the ones most strongly endorsed by our respondents, in the US, Israel and Switzerland. The pattern of inter-correlations between the four accounts, and that between each and the psycho-social variables we examined, exhibits two clusters, Econ101 vs. the other three views of economy. This corresponds to a general opposition between people who trust the neoliberal economic system, and those opposed to it. What sets economic conspiratorial thinking apart are its links with other conspirational beliefs and with paranormal beliefs.

The AGAPE Economy: The Church's Call to Action

IntroductionAt a family reunion a grandfather tells a story: A grandchild questions his grandfather about many things, people, and places. To every question comes the answer, am so sorry, I don't know the answer. After about an hour, the grandson said, Grandpa, I hope you don't mind that I keep asking you Of course I don't mind, said the grandfather. How are you going to learn unless you ask questions? May I quote Dom Helder Camara and Archbishop Tutu: I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask [the question] why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. The point is not only having an answer, but making sure we ask the question.In the Gospel of John the history of salvation gets revealed in questions. First, Jesus is described as the Word-the very power and meaning of God. Jesus fulfills God's salvation and is an answer to human needs; Jesus stands as the answer to all questions that human beings have and experience. For God so loved the world that God answered the world by giving Jesus to the world (John 3:16).John 1:35-38 frames the entire experience of the Christian journey: What are you looking for? Jesus asks the two disciples who are following him on the road. The Word questions us, we respond, and the Word of God invites us to keep on seeking, keep on questioning, but also to respond with concrete actions.When the church embraces difficult questions the potential exists for meaningful growth. Today, in the midst of tremendous inequalities caused by bad distribution of wealth, the church is seeking answers about Gods economy as an opportunity to respond in concrete actions.We live a crisis in a civilization where words like social inequalities, exclusion, misery, external debt, speculation, and financial instability are used not only by economists or sociologists, but also by politicians who are interested in responding to the needs of the people. These are the terms that are also used in some of our churches these days, as we seek to describe the context in which we are called to do mission.The neoliberal economic system has produced in the so-called third world countries a growing number of impoverished, marginalized, and persecuted people. Christians are recognizing the need to give some sort of response to these victims, to become more active in denouncing the issues that are threatening lives, and also to seek creative and alternative answers. After decades of applying the recipes from the neoliberal economic system, countries in Latin America are now suffering: the middle class is disappearing, external debt is draining their economies, insecurity saps their energy, the capacity to feed the people is in danger, and the growth of poverty is also rising.The social and economic promises that were announced as part of the introduction of the neoliberal economic system were not true: not because they did not deliver development as promised, but because the system was installed without restraints or regulations. When the global market is left to its own devices and desires, it has serious negative consequences, most notably the exclusion and exploitation of the majority of the worlds population. Many people in the global South believe they are harmed by global economic policies. Global trade and investment can serve development goals. The problem remains of unfair rules designed by affluent governments to advance their own commercial interests, remains often at the expense of farmers, business owners, laborers, and people struggling to overcome poverty in developing countries.As we face this reality of a crisis in a civilization, our faith compels us to seek justice, to witness to the presence of God, and to be part of the lives and struggles of the people made weak and vulnerable by structures and cultures-women, children, people living in poverty in both urban and rural areas, indigenous people, people of African descent, racially oppressed communities, people with disabilities, forced migrant workers, refugees, and religious ethnic minorities. …

A Releitura do Conceito de Soberania e os Países Ibero-Americanos: Uma Análise do Conceito Tradicional de Soberania como Potencial Fator na Reprodução dos Custos Sociais nos Países Ibero-Americanos

O presente artigo parte do pressuposto que se faz necessário um novo conceito de soberania, deixando-se de lado a ideia de poder absoluto nas Nações do mundo, vez que se distancia das crescentes demandas propostas pela sociedade globalizada. Analisando-se o conceito de soberania, a partir da Segunda Guerra Mundial, apresentam-se fortemente, dentro das nações ibero-americanas, os problemas decorrentes deste olhar tradicional.Nessa perspectiva, tomando-se por base o sistema econômico neoliberal, inicialmente estranho à história Ibero-Americana, trabalhou-se com construção desse novo conceito por uma análise econômica do direito, com os fatores paralelamente da eficiência da norma e reprodução dos custos sociais. O significante toma a forma do significado.

THE MEGACITY COMMONS: AN INVESTIGATION OF SÃO PAULO’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE KNOWLEDGE ON THE COMMONS ECONOMY

As the current neoliberal economic system, based on money and competition, is failing, the commons economy appears as a possible new arrangement to occupy its place. Half of humankind live in urban areas, a trend that will increase in the next 15 years – specially the growth of megacities. Brazil has two of them – São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro – where urban commons initiatives are flourishing, despite their lack of connection and visibility. This article explores the need for mapping, integration and creation of a governance structure to support and stimulate the urban commons in megacities, by using São Paulo as a case study. The scale, diversity and challenges offered by this type of environment can enrich and evolve the knowledge on the commons economy.

Remedying Africa's Self-propelled Corruption: The Missing Link

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses mechanisms and circumstances that facilitate and mitigate against corruption in African countries. We focus on governance indicators that strongly correlate with corruption and suggest that this phenomenon in Africa results from poor democratic practice enabled by asymmetrical concentration of power in governments and the rise of alliances between elites and corporate interests within neo-liberal economic systems. Countries with low corruption have processes in which citizens engage robustly in public governance and public accountability, suggesting that solutions to corruption can originate from within existing governance practices in Africa. We explore African countries that manage to mitigate corruption by reviewing processes of citizen participation in governance occurring through innovations in contemporary mechanisms of decision-making and reintegration of traditional practices in public governance institutions and processes. We argue that corruption in Africa is not a ‘cultural’ phenomenon, but rather that long-standing cultural practices provide innovations in governance that reduce corruption. This paper concludes that wider citizen engagement in public governance strengthens ‘voice and accountability’, balances power asymmetries in decision-making processes of governments, and promotes ‘socially conscious’ leaderships committed to greater transparency and accountability in government.

The Conspiratorial Style in Lay Economic Thinking

This study examined lay perception of economic thinking. We devised four types of accounts in the economic domain over a range of questions regarding different aspects of the economy: the classical neo-liberal economic view (which we labeled Econ101), the Government malfunction view (the failures of economy are due to the authorities), Conspiracy view (the destructive outcomes of economy are due to small and powerful groups who are manipulating the markets) and the Bad Invisible Hand view (the invisible hand may go wrong and the equilibrium reached by its doings is undesirable). The pattern of inter-correlations between the four accounts, and between each of them and the psycho-social variables we examined, reveals two clusters, Econ101 vs. the other three views of economy, what denotes a general opposition between people that trust the neoliberal economic system, and those who are opposed to it. What sets economic conspiratorial thinking apart are its links with other conspirational beliefs and with paranormal beliefs.

BIOPOLÍTICA EN EL CONTEXTO NEOLIBERAL: PERFILES SOBRE LAS TECNOLOGÍAS DEL BIOPODER

Michel Foucault teorizó sobre una nueva forma de tecnología de poder que llamó biopolítica, cuyo objetivo es incidir, organizar y moldear a la vida humana para los requerimientos de existencia de la modernidad capitalista. En el marco de un sistema económico neoliberal este poder biopolítico se exacerba, convirtiéndose en un poder global, con el fin de mantener aseguradas las condiciones de reproducción del capital, a su vez provoca el riesgo de destruir a la vida.

Huaso Romance as Neoliberal Reform in Sebastián Silva's La nana

Building on the work of recent critics, this essay asserts that the narrative of illness and recovery at the center of Sebastián Silva's film La nana (2009) can be understood as allegorically working through the contradictions between economy and culture in contemporary Chile. Diverging from these critics, however, the essay argues that the film operates its critique by mobilizing the narrative structures that characterized Chilean criollista novels, and in particular the huaso romance narrative. Far from arguing that the film represents a nationalist or folkloric take on contemporary Chile, the essay asserts that Silva reconfigures the huaso romance to construct local solutions to the potential social conflicts generated by Chile's more complete integration into the world economic system. Following this line of argument, the essay asserts that Silva's film, like its criollista antecedents, produces a reformist political project that provides the grounds from which new social bonds can be developed to heal and stabilize the neoliberal economic system. In addition to a close reading of the film, the essay considers the basic characteristics of criollismo by examining Joaquín Edwards Bello's best-selling criollista novel La chica del Crillón (1935) as well as key details in Chilean history, politics, economy and culture.

El Escenario Actual de la Alimentación en México / The Actual Scene of the Feeding in Mexico

The food sovereignty and the food safety in Mexico are affected by multiple factors, mainly the global market. Population is growing and croplands are being increasingly used for biofuel production instead of food production for human consumption. On the other hand the agreements of free trade have not improved the living conditions of the peasants. On the contrary they have generated greater economic inequality and exclusion from participation in the market. In addition, the public policy programs designed to counteract the problems of food supply caused by the market have not included social participation strategies. This paper analyzes the current situation of food in Mexico and their precarious situation mainly associated to the current neoliberal economic system in which power today represents only a big business.