1. RACE, CLASS, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE
LATI 50
Introduction to Latin America

2. CLASS STRUCTURE Upper Class: Middle Class: Popular/Lower 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)

3. CENTRAL THEMES Structures of social domination and control
Exclusion, oppression, cooptation (and liberation?)
Focus: class, race, and gender
Reference: Chronicles of a Death Foretold

4. 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”

5. THE CONTEXT OF BOLIVIA War of the Pacific (1879-83) 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-)