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Culture Works addresses and critiques an important dimension of the work of culture, an argument made by enthusiasts of creative economies that culture contributes to the GDP, employment, social cohesion, and other forms of neoliberal development. While culture does make important contributions to national and urban economies, the incentives and benefits of participating in this economy are not distributed equally, due to restructuring that neoliberal policies have wrought from the 1980s on, as well as long-standing social structures, such as racism and classism, that breed inequality. The cultural economy promises to make life better, particularly in cities, but not everyone can take advantage of it for decent jobs. Exposing and challenging the taken-for-granted assumptions around questions of space, value and mobility that are sustained by neoliberal treatments of culture, Culture Works explores some of the hierarchies of cultural workers that these engender, as they play out in a variety of settings, from shopping malls in Puerto Rico and art galleries in New York to tango tourism in Buenos Aires. Noted scholar Arlene Davila brilliantly reveals how similar dynamics of space, value and mobility come to bear in each location, inspiring particular cultural politics that have repercussions that are both geographically specific, but also ultimately global in scope.

Globalization in the United States can seem paradoxical: free trade coincides with fortification of the southern border, while immigration is reimagined as a national-security threat. US politics turn aggressively against Latinx migrants and subjects even as post-NAFTA markets become thoroughly reliant on migrant and racialized workers. But in fact, there is no incongruity here. Rather, anti-immigrant politics reflect a strategy whereby capital uses specialized forms of violence to create a reserve army of the living, laboring dead. Visible Borders, Invisible Economies turns to Latinx literature, photography, and films that render this unseen scheme shockingly vivid. Works such as Valeria Luiselli's Tell Me How It Ends and Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer crystallize the experience of Latinx subjects and migrants subjugated to social death, their political existence erased by disenfranchisement and racist violence while their bodies still toil in behalf of corporate profits. In Kristy L. Ulibarri's telling, art clarifies what power obscures: the national-security state performs anti-immigrant and xenophobic politics that substitute cathartic nationalism for protections from the free market while ensuring maximal corporate profits through the manufacture of disposable migrant labor.

In this paper we compare the economic integration of Latin American immigrants arriving in Israel under the provisions of the Law of Return with selected benchmark groups: Jewish native-born, immigrants from Europe, Ethiopia, Asia and Africa, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and English-speaking countries. Our analysis is based on data of the Labor Force Survey 2011 collected by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Our findings suggest that Latin American immigrants enjoy a relatively advantageous position in the Israeli labor market. They are located in the middle of the ethnic hierarchy and have attained socioeconomic occupational positions of similar status to that of the Israeli native-born, higher than that of immigrants from the FSU, Ethiopia, and Asia and Africa, but relatively lower than that of immigrants from Europe and ESCs (North America, Australia and South Africa). Our analysis also reveals marked gender gaps. Latino women, like all other working women, seem to suffer from structural disadvantages in the Israeli labor market deriving from their concentration in female-dominated occupations, especially in the social services sector. In the conclusion we discuss the findings in light of existing theories. Dans cet article, nous comparons l’intégration des immigrants latino-américains qui sont arrivés en Israël en vertu de la Loi du Retour en utilisant plusieurs groupes de référence : les Juifs natifs, les immigrants de l’Europe, d’Éthiopie, de l’Asie, de l’Afrique, de l’ancienne Union Soviétique et des pays anglophones. Notre analyse est basée sur des données de l’Enquête sur la main-d’œuvre de 2011, réalisée par l’Office central des statistiques d’Israël. Les résultats montrent que les immigrants latino-américains occupent une position relativement avantagée dans le marché du travail. Ils se trouvent au milieu de la hiérarchie ethnique et ils ont atteint des niveaux socioéconomiques et professionnels de statut similaire à celui des Israéliens natifs, plus élevé que celui des immigrants d’Éthiopie, de l’Asie, de l’Afrique et de l’ancienne Union Soviétique, mais relativement plus faible que celui des immigrants de l’Europe et des pays anglophones (Afrique du Sud, Australie, Canada et États-Unis). Notre étude révèle également des différences marquées sur le plan du genre. Les femmes d’origine latino-américaine, comme d’autres femmes immigrantes, semblent subir les effets d’un désavantage structurel dans le marché du travail israélien, notamment en raison de leur concentration dans des secteurs d’occupation à prédominance féminine (particulièrement les services sociaux). En conclusion, les résultats sont interprétés à la lumière de considérations théoriques.

Equality of opportunity is about leveling the playing field so that circumstances such as gender, ethnicity, place of birth, or family background do not influence a person's life chances. Success in life should depend on people's choices, effort and talents, not to their circumstances at birth. 'Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean' introduces new methods for measuring inequality of opportunities and makes an assessment of its evolution in Latin America over a decade. An innovative Human Opportunity Index and other parametric and non-parametric techniques are presented for quantifying inequality based on circumstances exogenous to individual efforts. These methods are applied to gauge inequality of opportunities in access to basic services for children, learning achievement for youth, and income and consumption for adults.

This handbook explores the political economy and governance of the Americas, placing particular emphasis on collective and intertwined experiences. Forty-six chapters cover a range of Inter-American key concepts and dynamics. The flow of peoples, goods, resources, knowledge and finances have on the one hand promoted interdependence and integration that cut across borders and link the countries of North and South America (including the Caribbean) together. On the other hand, they have contributed to profound asymmetries between different places. The nature of this transversally related and multiply interconnected hemispheric region can only be captured through a transnational, multidisciplinary and comprehensive approach. This handbook examines the direct and indirect political interventions, geopolitical imaginaries, inequalities, interlinked economic developments and the forms of appropriation of the vast natural resources in the Americas. Expert contributors give a comprehensive overview of the theories, practices and geographies that have shaped the economic dynamics of the region and their impact on both the political and natural landscape. This multidisciplinary approach will be of interest to a broad array of academic scholars and students in history, sociology, geography, economics and political science, as well as cultural, postcolonial, environmental and globalization studies.

An important New Deal program that shaped the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States This book explores the history and impact of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), the most important New Deal agency to operate in Puerto Rico and the largest created for any United States territory. Geoff Burrows demonstrates how the PRRA improved living conditions across the island in the wake of destructive hurricanes and the Great Depression, while at the same time producing a reformed, strengthened, and lasting colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. Using previously untapped archival sources and a wide range of primary and secondary texts, Burrows follows the agency from its founding by President Roosevelt in 1935 to its ending in 1955, situating its public works program in both Puerto Rican and New Deal contexts. The PRRA built the Caribbean's first modern cement plant; implemented widespread rural electrification through the building of seven hydroelectric dams; constructed hurricane-proof houses, schools, and hospitals; and improved transportation and communication across the island. Puerto Rican engineers, planners, and officials took a leading role in these initiatives, which provided them social mobility and transformed the island's economy from agricultural to industrial. The first institutional history and critical examination of the agency, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration engages questions about the New Deal's global reach. It investigates how New Deal agendas refashioned U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico and indirectly contributed to the island's current debt crisis and response to recent natural disasters such as Hurricane María.

Latin America has been one of the critical areas in the study of comparative politics. The region's experiments with installing and deepening democracy and promoting alternative modes of economic development have generated intriguing and enduring empirical puzzles. In turn, Latin America's challenges continue to spawn original and vital work on central questions in comparative politics: about the origins of democracy; about the relationship between state and society; about the nature of citizenship; about the balance between state and market. The richness and diversity of the study of Latin American politics makes it hard to stay abreast of the developments in the many sub-literatures of the field. The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Politics offers an intellectually rigorous overview of the state of the field and a thoughtful guide to the direction of future scholarship. Kingstone and Yashar bring together the leading figures in the study of Latin America to present extensive empirical coverage, new original research, and a cutting-edge examination of the central areas of inquiry in the region.

What leads to national progress? The growing consensus in the social sciences is that neither capital flows, nor the savings rate, nor diffuse values are the key, but that it lies in the quality of a nation's institutions. This book is the first comparative study of how real institutions affect national development. It seeks to examine and deepen this insight through a systematic study of institutions in five Latin American countries and how they differ within and across nations. Postal systems, stock exchanges, public health services and others were included in the sample, all studied with the same methodology. The country chapters present detailed results of this empirical exercise for each individual country. The introductory chapters present the theoretical framework and research methodology for the full study. The summary results of this ambitious study presented in the concluding chapter draw comparisons across countries and discuss what these results mean for national development in Latin America.

Responding to inaccuracies concerning Latino immigrants in the United States as well as an anti-immigrant strain in the American psyche, this collection of essays examines the movement of the Latin American labor force to the central states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. Contributors look at the outside factors that affect migration including corporate agriculture, technology, globalization, and government, as well as factors that have attracted Latin Americans to the Heartland including religion, strong family values, hard work, farming, and cowboy culture. Several essays also point to hostile neoliberal policy reforms that have made it difficult for Latino Americans to find social and economic stability. The varied essays in Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland seek to reveal the many ways in which identities, economies, and geographies are changing as Latin Americans adjust to their new homes, jobs, and communities. Contributors are Linda Allegro, Tisa M. Anders, Scott Carter, Caitlin Didier, Miranda Cady Hallett, Edmund Hamann, Albert Iaroi, Errol D. Jones, Jane Juffer, Laszlo J. Kulcsar, Janelle Reeves, Jennifer F. Reynolds, Sandi Smith-Nonini, and Andrew Grant Wood.