Other Side of the Popular

Williams Gareth Williams

Description

Drawing on deconstruction, postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and subaltern studies, The Other Side of the Popular is as much a reflection on the limitations and possibilities for thinking about the politics of Latin American culture as it is a study of the culture itself. Gareth Williams pays particular attention to the close relationship between complex cultural shifts and the development of the neoliberal nation-state. The modern Latin American nation, he argues, was built upon the idea of "the people," a citizenry with common interests transcending demographic and cultural differences. As nations have weakened in relation to the global economy, this moment-of the popular as the basis of nation-building-has passed, causing seismic shifts in the relationships between governments and cultural formations. Williams asserts that these changed relationships necessitate the rethinking of fundamental concepts such as "the popular" and "the nation." He maintains that the perspective of subalternity is vital to this theoretical project because it demands the reimagining of the connections between critical reason and its objects of analysis.Williams develops his argument through studies of events highlighting Latin America's uneasy, and often violent, transition to late capitalism over the past thirty years. He looks at the Chiapas rebellion in Mexico, genocide in El Salvador, the Sendero in Peru, Chile's and Argentina's transitions to democratic governments, and Latin Americans' migration northward. Williams also reads film, photography, and literary works, including Ricardo Piglia's The Absent City and the statements of a young Salvadoran woman, the daughter of ex-guerrilleros, living in South Central Los Angeles.The Other Side of the Popular is an incisive interpretation of Latin American culture and politics over the last few decades as well as a thoughtful meditation on the state of Latin American cultural studies.

Sujets

• Histoire
• América del Sur
• Cultural studies
• South America
• Latin America
• History of the Americas

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822384328
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

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The Other Side of the Popular

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Duke University Press

Durham & London 

©  Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of

America on acid-free paper 

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Plantin Light by

Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data appear on the

last printed page of this book.

In loving memory of Eldred Williams

After so much effort I have lost the train of reason,

of names, and all my stories are unravelling. I bleed, lie a lot.

Now, barely warmed by a glass of wine, I wonder—in what

state of collapse will I have to outlast the harshness of winter?

— ,Sacred Cow

I believe that utopianism lies not in intentions, however

praiseworthy, but in the articulation of language. The utopian

question is a simple one: what possibilities today lie beyond

reality?— ,Mexican Postcards



Acknowledgments Introduction

xi

Closure 1The State of Things Passed: Transculturation as National-Popular Master Language  2Intellectual Populism and the Geopolitical Structure of Knowledge  3Formalities of Consumption and Citizenship in the Age of Cultural Hybridity 

Intermezzo . . . Hear Say Yes 4Hear Say Yes in Piglia:La ciudad ausente,Posthegemony, and the ‘‘Fin-negans’’ of Historicity 

Perhaps 5The Dispersal of the Nation and the Neoliberal Habitus: Tracing Insurrection from Central America to South Central Los Angeles  6OfPishtacosand Eye-Snatchers: Neoliberalism and Neoindigenism in Contemporary Peru  7Operational Whitewash and the Negative Community 

Notes Works Cited Index

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