De Raíz Diversa. Revista Especializada en Estudios Latinoamericanos

“Anti-communist member by member”. The reconstruction of the bolivian army and the coup d’état of René Barrientos in 1964

Gonzalo Amozurrutia Nava — 2026-01-09

Abstract: The article explains how the policy that guided the reconstruction of the Bolivian army after the 1952 Revolution explains the military coup that overthrew the regime of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement twelve years later. To do so, the processes of physical, institutional and political reconstruction of the Armed Forces are reviewed and the ideological affinity between the MNR and its military is examined in depth, which explains, in turn, their political differences.

Ethnic social refuge: the role of evangelical christian churches for haitian immigrants in Santiago de Chile (2022-2023)

Mayte Velázquez Santiago — 2026-01-09

Abstract. This article proposes to analyze the churches of Haitian migrants in Santiago de Chile and how they build a Haitian community. Churches are perceived as safe places, places of trust, of support, as shelters in the face of different adversities: discrimination, racism, segregation, aporophobia, among others. The methodology of the work had a qualitative approach, with ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews carried out between 2022 and 2023 in Santiago. In the framework of this research, Haitian churches in Chile are understood as a space of ethnic refuge because they are constituted as a place of containment with their own ethnic cultural characteristics that, in addition, forge parameters of familiarity, solidarity, social support and psychological well-being. One of the key findings of this work lies in conceiving the churches as a mechanism or social collective that aims at the creation of a social agency.

Traditional parterie under the vigilant eye of the state

Sislene Costa da Silva — 2026-01-09

In this paper, I propose to observe how certain neoliberal politics and programmes presented under the discourse of reducing maternal mortality in Mexico have affected traditional midwives in the state of Chiapas and their respective communities. I also present some of the cracks that midwives make to keep their work alive, which is linked to the Mayan sense of the world, encompasses a vision of care that is more communitarian, feminine, not based on economic gain, linked to the territoriality of each village and marked by an ethical sense of responsibility towards life. This discussion is part of a doctoral research on traditional parteria among native peoples in Mexico and the African diaspora in Brazil. Methodologically, I dialogue with works done on the subject, interviews with traditional midwives of the state of Chiapas and ethnography resulting from the monitoring of an organization of traditional doctors of the respective state.

Neoliberalism in Honduras: a brief overview (1980-2015)

Oscar Córdoba Mascali — 2026-01-09

Honduras is a Central American country that throughout its history has struggled —and continues to struggle— to achieve greater independence from external structural powers. Its results have been dissimilar and the narratives and/or documentation of its experiences are scarce, or at least insufficient. Therefore, the contribution of this paper is of two ways: 1) to document some facts of its recent economic history and 2) to explain the changes in its social, political and economic structures induced by neoliberal practices during the 1980 to 2015. With these two aspects of analysis, it will be possible to note how the nation has gone through several regimes: from the liberal to the ‘banana republic’, from the civilian developmentalist state to the civic-military governments until reaching neoliberalism, which generated changes in its economic and social structures.

Postwar authoritarianism. Nayib Bukele, covid-19, and the crisis of the salvadoran state

Hilary Catherine Goodfriend — 2026-01-09

This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador accelerated the notorious authoritarian turn of President Bukele, manifest in the executive power’s militarized and anti-democratic response and the prolonged constitutional crisis it provoked. Drawing on the critique of political economy and critical Latin American thought, my analysis of the context from which Bukele emerged and the events of March 2020 – December 2021 allows me to contend that the crisis provided a scenario for an intensification of the social conflicts and contradictions in the country, which had already endured more than a decade of crisis in its postwar political economy, thus generating the conditions for the president’s 2024 unconstitutional re-election and the perpetual State of Exception installed in the country since March of 2022.

The concept of Territory as a debate from research and resistance

Jorge Sebastián Galvis Parra — 2026-01-09

This article addresses the concept of territory based on debates about its meaning in different research experiences. To do this, it explores the relationship between historical time, memory, space, identity, resistance and autonomy, as elements that structure this debate, taking as reference different research experiences that investigate the configuration of struggles for land and territory by indigenous organizational processes in Colombia and Mexico.

Between exile and writing in the novels of Saúl Ibargoyen and Sandra Lorenzano

Fernanda Palo Prado — 2026-01-09

In this article we will reflect on the relationship between exile and writing, based on an analysis of a group of novels by South American writers exiled in Mexico. We will investigate how, through the experience of exile, writing becomes a kind of homeland for them. The literary corpus analyzed in this work is formed by Sangre en el Sur. El fascismo es uno solo (2007) and Volver...volver (2012), by Uruguayan Saúl Ibargoyen (1930-2019), Saudades (2007) and El día que no fue (2019) by Argentine-Mexican Sandra Lorenzano (1960-), whose essay collection Herida fecunda (2024) will also be analyzed.

Reflexiones sobre la producción de conocimiento en humanidades: por un pensamiento situado, comprometido y propositivo desde Latinoamérica

Mariángela Napoli — 2026-01-09

Based on an historical-argumentative review of the field of Humanities, a reflection is offered on the critical function of knowledge production in this field from the contemporary Latin American academy. The main objective of the article is to propose perspectives that advocate for a critical, situated and committed humanistic thought from and for Latin America. The methodological approach consists of a review and systematization of the literature to identify key concepts, enrich the work with new conceptualizations, and deepen previous approaches to the issue, drawing on contributions from the disciplines of philosophy and the sociology of science. To this purpose, two parallel and intertwined argumentative operations are proposed: the first is a reading of the canon of knowledge production in the Humanities, from its origin in the modern system of knowledge, through the position that this field occupied in the new positivist and professionalist scientific-academic map during the 19th and 20th centuries, to the emergence of post-humanist and post-textualist thought in the context of the phenomena of globalization and the fin-de-siècle climate crisis. The second discursive operation interprets this humanistic canon from Latin America, accounting for its reception as a universalist model of knowledge production in the university academic context. Finally, the Latin Americanist tradition is rescued in order to face the questions arising from the «crisis of the Humanities». The proposal is based on the fact that the history of this tradition faces many current questions in the humanistic field.