LATI 50 INTRODUCTION TO LATIN AMERICA RACE, CLASS, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE (part 1)
CLASS STRUCTURE Upper Class: Urban (industrialists, bankers) Rural (landowners) Middle Class: Urban (merchants, lawyers, etc.) Rural (small farmers) Popular/Lower Class: Urban (workers) Rural (peasants, campesinos) National Institutions: State (including military) Church External Sector: Economic (investors, merchants) Political (foreign governments)
CENTRAL THEMES Structures of social domination and control Exclusion, oppression, cooptation (and liberation?) Focus: class, race, and gender Reference: Chronicles of a Death Foretold
SHADINGS BY RACE Race as a social construct Indigenous peoples: exploitation and discrimination African-origin peoples and slavery Myths of miscegenation: Mestizaje and the “cosmic race” (raza cósmica) Mulattos and Brazilian “escape hatch”
THE CONTEXT OF BOLIVIA War of the Pacific ( ) 80 % indigenous Mining (silver, tin) and agriculture Chaco War ( ) = incorporation Revolution of 1952 = mobilization Populist military rule (1970s-80s) Coca leaf and campesinos 60 % indigenous Evo Morales (2005-)