Latin American Identities After 1980 takes an interdisciplinary
approach to Latin American social and cultural identities. With broad
regional coverage, and an emphasis on Canadian perspectives, it focuses
on Latin American contact with other cultures and nations. Its sound
scholarship combines evidence-based case studies with the Latin American
tradition of the essay, particularly in areas where the discourse of the
establishment does not match political, social, and cultural realities
and where it is difficult to uncover the purposely covert.
This study of the cultural and social Latin America begins with an
interpretation of the new Pax Americana, designed in the 1980s by the
North in agreement with the Southern elites. As the agreement ties the
hands of national governments and establishes new regional and global
strategies, a pan-Latin American identity is emphasized over individual
national identities. The multi-faceted impacts and effects of
globalization in Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Chile,
Argentina, and the Caribbean are examined, with an emphasis on social
change, the transnationalization and commodification of Latin American
and Caribbean arts and the adaptation of cultural identities in a
globalized context as understood by Latin American authors writing from
transnational perspectives.
