Politics, culture and networks: social capital in Latin America

Description
Latin America is a continent where the political - lo politico - pervades every aspect of society. This has led social scientists to focus their attention over the last decades on social and political movements. As a consequence, there has been a tendency to underestimate the associational character of many social movements and to ignore social organizations, which do not directly aim at resource mobilization or political objectives. This course aims at understanding and analysing these elements in Latin America. This will imply two exercises. First, we will try to understand the character of different types of networks. Secondly, we will discuss to what extent we can look to social and political movements in a different way. To do so, we will critically look at the concept of social capital and discuss to what extent it can help us to answer the questions above.
The course will connect with different literatures and academic debates. Its theoretical basis will be a critical reading of the literature on social capital (De Tocqueville, Bourdieu, Coleman, Fukuyama, ECLAC). It will be discussed whether these perspectives help us to understand political and non-political networks in Latin America. We will also look at the perspectives that consider Latin America a region with a specific social and political culture. It is commonplace to depict Latin America as a continent characterized by patriarchal authoritarianism, social and political exclusion and capitalist individualism. However, historically the continent has hosted a great variety of organizations and networks that fostered social cohesion and tried to solve existing social and economic problems. Sometimes these networks were class based, as for instance in all kinds of union activities. In other instances, they transcended class differences, for example in voluntary associations, cultural or religious networks or networks based on geography or ethnicity. In present-day Latin America, these social networks continue to exist, but have often taken new forms, taking the form of NGO's, religious communities or social movements. Cultural networks have often acquired new social meanings in today's globalized Latin America exist today, such as brass bands, capoeira or hip hop groups.

Form of instruction and assessment
In a limited number of introductory classes background information and possible analytical frameworks will be discussed on the basis of required reading. Each week two students have to prepare the discussion of the literature. They should sign up to discuss the readings during one of these weeks. In the rest of the course students will focus on their own specific topic. They will present the results of this study in an oral presentation and a written paper. The students are expected to participate actively during the seminars.
The minimum number of students for this course will be ten. Students should register for this course before 17 December 2009.