The Art of Voice: Culture-based Advocacy and Political Action in Latin America

Abstract

In the wake of the so-called Third Wave of democratization, and amidst its multiple shortcomings, how have different instances of cultural activity in Latin America imagined more robust understandings of citizenship? This is the fundamental question that this dissertation addresses, namely through the assessment and interpretation of three case studies of culture-based advocacy and political action that relate to three paradigmatic problems of Latin American democracies, which one way or another have hindered the realization of substantive citizenship in the region.

The first example is that of Bogotá's experience in dealing -in the mid-1990s- with widespread citizen disaffection and urban violence through a series of artful and creative initiatives that were part of a public policy package known as <italic>cultura ciudadana<italic>. The second is that of the Peruvian transitional justice movement -in the early 2000s-, where cultural activists not only voiced their rejection to Alberto Fujimori's regime, but also played a fundamental role in the subsequent efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to deal with the massive human rights violations that took place between 1980 and 2000. Finally, the third is that of Argentine publishing house Eloísa Cartonera, which emerged in the wake of the 2001 economic turmoil, and which ever since has been engaged in proposing an alternative production and circulation of cultural goods -in opposition to the neoliberal economic policies that were implemented in Argentina throughout the previous decade.

These examples also yield a productive reflection on the relationship between culture and public policy, regarding the latter as one of the former's sites of intervention. As several authors have recently acknowledged, one of the distinguishing traits of contemporary culture is the way in which it has become engaged with or entangled in economic, political, and social agendas. In this sense, it is not hard to imagine culture as serving an instrumental purpose in the attainment of public policy objectives; or conversely, as a site of contestation from which the objections against its interventions in the economic, political, and social spheres can be voiced.