Youth, Culture, and Politics in Latin America:

This issue of Latin American Perspectives will consider the social position of youth in relation to cultural, national and historical processes that are critical to coming of age in Latin America. Articles will consider past and present experiences of young women and men, including their political activism, cultural production, and everyday lives in areas of Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Latin American countries have historically been and continue to be "young societies," with a substantial proportion of their populations under the age of thirty. Youth movements have played critical roles in the shaping of modern history in the region. Often, youth involvement in political and cultural movements has had profound influences on the tenor and demands of such movements. Yet, despite clear examples in which age has been a defining point of reference for particular cultural and political agendas, setting aside age as a social characteristic that is, studying youth, with all of its historical and cultural contingencies, as youth who are in and of themselves social actors is rarely a prominent characteristic of scholarly investigation in Latin America.

The relationship of youth to family, community, and nation in Latin America needs to be addressed more adequately in ethnographic and historical research. For example, research might examine cases in which young men and women are in the vanguard of social and familial change as they support or oppose changes in educational and social policy. Similarly, more work might consider youth who are engaged in cultural preservation in confrontation with modernizing states that attempt to alter or eliminate indigenous and/or rural practices. In order to understand debates that are emerging in Latin America it is necessary to deepen our understanding of youth as active agents in society.

As Latin American nations have transformed economically and socially, so have the attitudes of families, social and political institutions, and youth themselves about what it means to be young adults. This is often apparent in popular culture, whether in music, TV, film, or other venues that appeal to and often appropriate youth culture as emblematic of societies in transition. When examining debates about youth one discovers that the debates are also about economic and political policies, cultural meanings and practices, and language and other semiotic markers of identities. As representatives-both symbolic and real-of the future of their nations, young men and women are implicated in these debates in specific and important ways.

Possible topics to be addressed:

Youth Movements, including student movements

Youth involvement in social movements labor, feminist, gay/lesbian, environmental, indigenous, ethnic, religious, cultural

Youth and globalization, transnationalism, and/or modernization

Child and youth workers and organizing

Issues of indigenous societies and racial difference

Subculture, class and consumption

Popular culture, including music, TV, and film

Delinquency and crime, including gang activity

Gender and family relations

Sexual attitudes and practices

Health, including reproductive rights issues

Cultural identity and/or cultural preservation

The state, civil society, and NGOs

This issue is being coordinated by Jon Wolseth and Florence Babb. For more information about the issue, please contact Jon Wolseth (jwolseth@gmail.com) or Florence Babb (fbabb@wst.ufl.edu).

Manuscripts should be no longer than 25 pages of double-spaced text in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If possible, submit two copies along with a cover sheet and basic biographical information. With these items, we also require that the manuscript be sent on a CD-R, by e-mail, or on a floppy disk if the other formats are not available. The LAP style guide is available on request or online.

Please send any manuscript submissions to:
Managing Editor, Latin American Perspectives¸ P.O. Box 5703, Riverside, California 92517-5703