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To illuminate the complex cultural foundations of state formation in modern Mexico, Compromised Positions explains how and why female prostitution became politicized in the context of revolutionary social reform between 1910 and 1940. Focusing on the public debates over legalized sexual commerce and the spread of sexually transmitted disease in the first half of the twentieth century, Katherine Bliss argues that political change was compromised time and again by reformers' own antiquated ideas about gender and class, by prostitutes' outrage over official attempts to undermine their livelihood, and by clients' unwillingness to forgo visiting brothels despite revolutionary campaigns to promote...
This book reinvigorates the debate on the Mexican Revolution, exploring what this pivotal event meant to women. The contributors offer a fresh look at women's participation in their homes and workplaces and through politics and community activism. Drawing on a variety of perspectives, the volume illuminates the ways women variously accepted, contested, used, and manipulated the revolutionary project. Recovering narratives that have been virtually written out of the historical record, this book brings us a rich and complex array of women's experiences in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era in Mexico.
Given Guatemala’s record of human rights abuses, its legal system has often been portrayed as illegitimate and anemic. I Ask for Justice challenges that perception by demonstrating that even though the legal system was not always just, rural Guatemalans considered it a legitimate arbiter of their grievances and an important tool for advancing their agendas. As both a mirror and an instrument of the state, the judicial system simultaneously illuminates the limits of state rule and the state’s ability to co-opt Guatemalans by hearing their voices in court. Against the backdrop of two of Latin America’s most oppressive regimes—the dictatorships of Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898–1920) an...
Integrates gender and sexuality into the main currents of historical interpretation concerning Latin America.
Challenging traditional approaches to medical history, Disease in the History of Modern Latin America advances understandings of disease as a social and cultural construction in Latin America. This innovative collection provides a vivid look at the latest research in the cultural history of medicine through insightful essays about how disease—whether it be cholera or aids, leprosy or mental illness—was experienced and managed in different Latin American countries and regions, at different times from the late nineteenth century to the present. Based on the idea that the meanings of sickness—and health—are contestable and subject to controversy, Disease in the History of Modern Latin A...
Positioning consumer culture in Canada within a wider international context, Consuming Modernity explores the roots of modern Western mass culture between 1919 and 1945, when the female worker, student, and homemaker relied on new products to raise their standards of living and separate themselves from oppressive traditional attitudes. Mass-produced consumer products promised to free up women to pursue other interests shaped by marketing campaigns, advertisements, films, and radio shows. Concerns over fashion, personal hygiene, body image, and health reflected these new expectations. This volume is a fascinating look at how the forces of consumerism defined and redefined a generation.
Exploring the links between sexuality, society, and state formation, this is the first history of prostitution and its regulation in Peru. Scholars and students interested in Latin American history, the history of gender and sexuality, and the history of medicine and public health will find Drinot's study engaging and thoroughly researched.
This nuanced book considers the role of religion and religiosity in modern Mexico, breaking new ground with an emphasis on popular religion and its relationship to politics. The contributors highlight the multifaceted role of religion, illuminating the ways that religion and religious devotion have persisted and changed since Mexican independence. They explore such themes as the relationship between church and state, the resurgence of religiosity and religious societies in the post-reform period, the religious values of the liberals of the 1850s, and the ways that popular expressions of religion often trumped formal and universal proscriptions. Focusing on individual stories and vignettes an...
Francis Adams examines the United Nations' efforts to promote sustainable in Latin America. Adams analyzes the development work of various UN institutions and agencies that sponsor economic and social programs in the developing world as well as the UN's various funding initiatives, global conferences, and institutional goals.
Against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Oaxaca City, Kathryn Sloan analyzes rapto trials--cases of abduction and/or seduction of a minor--to gain insight beyond the actual crime and into the reality that testimonies by parents, their children, and witnesses reveal about courtship practices, generational conflict, the negotiation of honor, and the relationship between the state and its working-class citizens in post colonial Mexico. Unlike the colonial era where paternal rule was absolute, Sloan found that the state began to usurp parental authority in the home with the introduction of liberal reform laws. As these laws began to shape the terms of civil marriage, the courtroom played a more significant role in the resolution of familial power struggles and the restoration of family honor in rapto cases. Youths could now exert a measure of independence by asserting their rights to marry whom they wished. In examining these growing rifts between the liberal state and familial order within its lower order citizens, Sloan highlights the role that youths and the working class played in refashioning systems of marriage, honor, sexuality, parental authority, and filial obedience.