Latin American Studies Blog!

This week’s lecture was based of Peru’s Civil War of 1980S. It discusses the failed land reform and the state’s abandonment. Almost 70,000 people had died during Peru’s Civil war all due to internal conflict between the Peruvian Army and guerrilla fighters. Most of the people that had died were just ordinary civilians. This war was actually considered one of the most ‘bloody’ Peruvian wars in history since their colonization by Europe and is considered the second longest war in Latin America- Colombia’s armed conflict war is the first. I found this week’s readings and lecture’s extremely thought-provoking. The first video I had looked at had been done by students explaining briefly what the war had been about: - the introduction of an Agrarian reform which was based on giving authority to the indigenous people. From 1968 general Juan Velasco ruled as president of the revolutionary arm. He served a form of justice to the poor that the indigenous people had been exposed to and r...

This week we have been looking at “power to the people” and certain political leaders that transformed Latin America. Populism having been characterized as having charismatic leaders being able to easily speak to people because of their use of speech. This tactic I have noticed has been around for ages, I remember having studied Julius Caesar and exploring the ways in which he speaks to his people, and he had been able to get the vote of people because of the way he would speak- and this would be by coming down to their level instead of speaking as if he was superior to them. We can see this trait used by many leaders today in the world. Populist on the other hand I discovered contrasts greatly with the ideas expressed above. It is, in fact, negative as they are seen to be going against the views of the majority. Populist leaders will also deny the fact that they are these types of leaders. Peronism is also explained in the video, it incorporates socialist ideals as oppose...

This was an extremely interesting topic to read on. It was basically about the ideas of Roosevelt and how the pictures of Latin America were depicted towards the rest of the world. Such could be cartoons and live action documentary series with Walt’s Disney. These shows described Latin America as beautiful, friendly and lively. Until today I didn’t realise the amount of Latin American influence on television. There had been in shows like Donald Duck and a few others which show and illustrate Latin America’s ideals and the country as a whole. One such instance of Latin American influence in cartoons is when Donald dances to Samba music. Even though this is minor it still shows a lot about the country itself and portrayed how Latin America had been associated with things like dance and music at the time, and even now.   These shows were mostly used to provide propaganda and the interactions between Latin America and USA in order to provide some sense of stability in the eyes of ...