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Background: Hypertension, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, overweight, obesity, and tobacco (smoking, chewing, and vaping), together with a pro-inflammatory and procoagulant state, are the main risk factors related to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Objective and methods: A group of experts from the Americas, based on their clinical expertise in cardiology, cardiovascular prevention, and cardiometabolic (CM) diseases, joined together to develop these practical recommendations for the optimal evaluation and treatment of residual CM risk factors in Latin America, using a modified Delphi methodology (details in electronic TSI) to generate a comprehensive CM risk reduction guideline, and through personalized medicine and patient-centered decision, considering the cost-benefit ratio The process was well defined to avoid conflicts of interest that could bias the discussion and recommendations. Results: Residual risk reduction should consider therapeutic options adapted to specific patient needs, based on five treatment objectives: triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, inflammation, impaired glucose metabolism, high blood pressure, and prothrombotic status. Comprehensive control of all CM risk factors should be a priority to deal with this important public health problem and prevent premature deaths. The recommendations in this paper address the evidence-based treatment of CM risk and are intended for clinical application in Latin American countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a change in international politics since the 2008 financial crisis, thanks to a greater spread of economic resources and military capabilities. For many, it is a radical transformation that could spell the end of US hegemony in Latin America. This paper examines the proposition, beginning with a review of the concept of hegemony, which rather than being viewed as a structural characteristic is conceived of here as a "nuanced hegemony", in other words a network of asymmetric and hierarchical relations. We can observe not just one transformation then, but the emergence of a hemispheric context that could be described as "differentiated hegemony". The United States still occupies a central position, but its foreign policy is marked by subregional fragmentation and the externalisation of electoral priorities. The paper explores the effects at subregional level, focusing on the opportunities and challenges it presents to Latin American countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses Latin America's role in an international system in flux, with high levels of uncertainty and transformations that signal a shift in the geoeconomic and geopolitical landscape across the world. Against this backdrop, the paper examines the challenges (both old and new) the region must face, focusing on the impact of global changes on regional dynamics and the capacity of the different countries to find answers both to the international situation and old and new internal problems. In addition, as an introductory paper to this monograph entitled "Geopolitics from Latin America: a change of cycle and multipolarity", it identifies the fulcrums of these changes, their impact, the main actors involved and the processes underway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper discusses the stages of health system resilience (HSR) and the factors underlying differences in HSR during the covid-19 pandemic, especially the vaccination challenge. We studied the relationship between vaccination strategies and macro-context backgrounds in 21 Latin American countries. Our objective was to capture the impact of those aspects in the SR and identify potential improvements for future crises and for vaccination programs in general. Methods: The study uses mixed-methods research to provide insights into how the countries' backgrounds and vaccination strategies impact the HSR. Particularly, we used explanatory sequential mixed methods, which entails a quantitative-qualitative two-phase sequence. The quantitative phase was conducted using cluster and variance analysis, in which the HSR was measured using as a proxy the covid-19 vaccination outcomes in three cut-offs of reaching 25%, 50%, and 75% of population coverage. This approach allows us to discriminate covid-19 vaccination progress by stages and contrast it to the qualitative stage, in which we performed a country-case analysis of the background conditions and the changes in vaccination strategies that occurred during the corresponding dates. Results: The paper provides a rich comparative case analysis of countries, classifying them by early, prompt, and delayed performers. The results show that differences in vaccination performance are due to flexibility in adapting strategies, cooperation, and the ability to design multilevel solutions that consider the needs of various actors in the health ecosystem. These differences vary depending on the vaccination stage, which suggests the importance of acknowledging learning, diffusion, and feedback processes at the regional level. Conclusions: We identified the importance of societal well-being as an ideal country antecedent for high and sustained levels of performance in covid-19 vaccination. Whereas in other countries where the set-up and beginning phases were rough, the value of the operational decisions and the learning on the move regarding their own and their peers' trajectories were crucial and were reflected in performance improvement. A contribution of this study is that the above-mentioned analysis was done using vaccination coverage cut-off points that allow a performance view that takes into consideration the stages of the vaccination progress and the learning process that goes with it. As well as framing this into the HSR shock cycles that allow to differentiate the stages of resilience on which countries must act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Integration in health and care can improve quality and outcomes, but it is challenged by expansion of medical knowledge, social pressures on patient needs, and demands to deliver critical information. In Latin American and in other lower and middle-income countries integrated care remains in development. This paper examined the available literature on integrated care to understand how Latin American countries identify and measure integration, and what factors influence success. Methods: This integrative literature review included systematic searches in Global Health, PubMed, SciELO and BVSPsi databases for articles on integrated care in Spanish, Portuguese, and English in the period from January of 1999 to December 2020. The articles were screened for selection and assessed independently by five reviewers that used the inclusion criteria of papers about integration in health care systems. The sample excluded articles that did not deal with the integration of health care, which addressed issues related to public health campaigns, programs to control endemics and epidemics, reports on the experience of implementing health services, health promotion guidelines, food safety, oral health, and books evaluation. Results: 24 articles were included: qualitative (75%), quantitative (12,5%), and mixed-method research (4%) published between 2000 and 2017. All studies were undertaken in Brazil, and two of them were also conducted in Latin American countries. In 15 articles there was an interchangeable use between concepts of integration of services and integrated care, while nine studies did not define integration. Barriers to integration included absence of shared understanding of knowledge among members of interprofessional teams, lack of clarity on professional roles, missing consensus on a definition and measurement of integrated care, power struggles between professionals, poor institutional support, insufficient team preparation and training and unequal valuation of professions by society. Conclusion: Several types of integration and factors contributing to the success of implementation of integrated care in various contexts in Brazil were identified. The concept of integration reflected the varied local and regional realities including different health settings and levels of health and care, suggesting a need for further clarifications on its objective and components especially in LMIC contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of these interviews is to explore the development of Muslim philanthropy in Brazil as well as the role of dawah and its relation to philanthropy. The interviews deal with specific terms such as zakat, fitra, sadaqah, and waqf to explore how they are interpreted and applied in Latin American contexts. The interviews were conducted with the person in charge of Centro de Divulgação do Islam para América Latina (CDIAL, Center for the Promotion of Islam in Latin America) and the director of affairs at Al-Madina School in São Bernardo, São Paulo, Brazil. This paper also provides some perspective on how the Brazilian government provides facilities for Islamic institutions, the way Muslim nonprofit organizations spend their zakat, and how they manage to help others in Brazilian civil society. Both through interviews and the author's personal involvement, this paper offers multiple first-person accounts of Muslim philanthropy in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America has been usually portrayed as an ill geographical space, with no possibility of healing in order to change its current destiny. It is also frequent to think about the crises and setbacks that accompany its history. This essay studies interventions of Latin American intellectuals and publicists who, between the end of the 19th century and the 1920s, resorted to the image of disease --and other associated medical notions-- to explain the tragic destinies of the region and thus defined a repertoire of ideas that seem to have endured. The paper focuses on two moments because of their importance in the emergence of repertoires of ideas, images and metaphors. On the one hand, the 1898 war between Spain and the United States, and European imperialism as a backdrop; on the other, the Great War and its effects, overlapping with the setting of the Latin-American centennials (1910-24), the Mexican Revolution (1910) and the Reforma Universitaria (University Reform, 1918), which began in Argentina but created a university movement in other Latin American countries. Therefore, as a general argument, theis paper argues that it is feasible to organize a body of texts produced in different Latin American countries between the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th that has formed an interpretative repertoire, which operates as a matrix to characterize the Latin American region and associate its destiny to notions such as disease, condemnation, impossibility and failure. Particularly, the paper highlights how references to illnesses in literal and metaphorical senses show the overlap between notions such as disease-conquest-colonization and diseaseimperialism-European decadence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ties between Latin America and Asia by moving beyond the homogenisation of the two regions through elevating the importance of opposition to a third party, in this case an "imperialist" and developed North. In contrast to normative analyses based on outmoded conceptions of world history, it proposes an intellectual exercise that problematises the interregional bond by placing the emphasis on heterogeneities rather than broad bush approaches that ignore the complex and diverse national and regional realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international system is in a period of transition, marked by a weakening of multilateralism, challenges to the liberal order and the consolidation of new global leaderships. In addition, various cross-border crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, have compounded the effects of these changes at a regional level. Given this context, what room is there for regional cooperation in Latin America? As a tool for regional coordination and integration into international flows and dynamics, regionalism can boast achievements, but challenges remain. In analytical terms, this paper proposes an approach that enables an examination of the combination of interests, ideas and institutions at play on a regional level in Latin America. The central argument is that the changing dynamics of regionalism are a product of the way in which states' interests interact with ideas about the region in a specific institutional environment over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world of growing international competition and rivalry between China and the United States, Latin America and the European Union (EU) are caught in the same thorny dilemma. Positioned between these global giants, both regions are facing a retorn to a Westphalian system of nation-states, which undermines their roles as emerging regional players. In view of these new global challenges in Latin America and the EU, this paper uses a qualitative and comparative approach to explore foreign policy discourses on autonomy in both regions. It examines their goals and priorities and assesses the potential regional and interregional consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The paper provides a comprehensive overview of Latin American mining history, exploring cross-pollination opportunities between mining historians and scholars of the emerging field of the new history of capitalism. The analysis spans from the region’s integration into global markets during the 1500s to the twilight of export-led growth in the early twentieth century. Methodology: The study builds on an overview of both classic and contemporary literature, offering new insights into understanding existing data on mining history within a global context. By incorporating perspectives from geology, ecology, and economics, the article investigates the connections between specific mineral deposits and different paths of capitalistic development across Latin America. Originality: The paper sketches some of the gaps in the analysis of global and local flows of minerals and comments on notable contributions to the broader field of Latin American history. It introduces innovative approaches for the study of output cycles, geological and ecological endowments, technological spillovers, and mining economics. Conclusions: First, the existing literature has predominantly focused on precious metals, with few scholars studying non-precious metals and non-metallic minerals. Second, the narratives surrounding mining history have been primarily centered on silver, overshadowing the significance of bimetallism in understanding the emergence of global capitalism. Thirdly, examining the microeconomic dynamics of mining in the region may present fresh opportunities to explore the impact of mining on sectoral and managerial transformations. Finally, studies of the two-way interaction of capitalism and mining need to include research on the energy and environmental systems that underpinned mineral extraction and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to identify the contributions that internal communication has on the functioning of higher education organizations by analyzing the current state of research on the subject. For this purpose, a systematic review was carried out following the PRISMA methodology. The search for articles in the open databases Redalyc and Dialnet and in the closed databases Ebsco-Academic Search Ultimate, Ebsco-Business Source Complete, Web of Science was based on 328 articles to which four filters were applied, resulting in a fi- nal corpus of 18 articles. The main findings determined that the topic has been developed mostly by authors from Latin America; the research takes into account all educational agents (students, teachers, administrators and managers) and mainly has four approaches: internal communication and its relationship with other elements; from the approach of the inclusion of digital media; as part of organizational functioning and from the training of communication professionals. It is concluded that internal communication is considered an important element for the fulfillment of organizational objectives and the generation of motivation, sense of belonging and integration of all personnel. However, it is considered as implicit in the functioning of educational organizations and therefore specific planning, development and evaluation processes are not carried out. Greater attention should be paid to internal communication in order to exploit its potential as a strategy for the improvement of educational organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a question about the "diasporic" position of certain authors of cultural criticism in Latin America, always halfway between academic affiliation and a kind of fractious position regarding their increasingly bureaucratized practices of knowledge administration, this paper proposes a reading of three representative texts by the Brazilian-Argentine critic Raul Antelo: Crítica acéfala, Archifilologías latinoamericanas. Lecturas tras el agotamiento and A ruinologia. These strange and problematic texts seem to be articulated from a position that not only (post)critically revises the foundations of more conventional criticism, but also moves toward the behavior of the most radical bids of artistic conceptualism; in other words, in them criticism becomes an act: intervention. And therein lies its forceful emergence in the framework of contemporary literary and cultural studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statues of the Virgin Mary have been embarking on various types of movement and migration for centuries. They are the fixed points around which religious activities are carried out in communities in Spain and Latin America and play significant roles in the personal and social lives of their devotees. Until recently, however, scholarship has largely overlooked the potential richness of what religious material cultures can tell us about religious transformation in Latin America. This paper therefore offers a theoretical and methodological advance by way of a ground-up, 'material' approach to understanding religious change through the religious statues themselves. It utilises the statue of the Virgen de la Regla in Chipiona, Spain as a node on a map from which to trace the lines of movement from Spain into Cuba where a replica of the same Virgin, another nodal point, is worshipped as both Virgin Mary and Santeria Orisha Yemayá. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Latin American countries have introduced presidential recall in the last three decades. This exceptional and spontaneous mechanism by which somebody can remove a servant elected through a popular vote from office before the end of his term aims to broaden participation, empower citizens, and improve the responsibility and accountability of servants. However, the recall faces the challenge of being an instrument serving interests outside of its normative ideal. What are the consequences of holding a recall referendum? Under what conditions can the recall yield better results and be more effective? This paper answers these questions by comparing the presidential recall held in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Mexico. The evidence suggests that the mechanism can have substantial advantages and fulfill its objective when its holding is justified, there is no intervention from relevant political actors, and the institutional design does not hinder or discourage participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1990, the participation of China in the global imports of Latin America (LAC) was incipient, while by 2019, China had become the second largest supplier of the region. This paper uses a sample of 14 LAC countries, estimates the effects of imports from China on each LAC country's economic growth, and verifies if these effects are evidenced in these countries' non-exporting or exporting sectors. This study proposes a Seemingly-Unrelated-Regressions (SUR) system for each sector. Results show that before China entered into World Trade Organization (WTO), LAC imports from China positively affected the economic growth of some LAC countries. However, beneficiary countries increased after China's adhesion to WTO. Imports from China drive the economic growth of the non-exporting sectors of Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and El Salvador, the exporting sector of the Dominican Republic, and both sectors of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Except for the Dominican Republic, the countries whose export sectors benefit from China's imports are primary exporting countries. Adverse or null effects are estimated for the rest of the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of Latin American philosophy has established itself as a relevant subfield of philosophical inquiry. However, there might be good reasons to consider that our focus on the subfield could have distracted us from considering another subfield that, although it might share some geographical proximity, does not share the same historical basic elements. In this paper, I argue for a possible and meaningful conceptual difference between Latin American Philosophy and Indigenous philosophy produced in Latin America. First, I raise what I call Mariátegui’s Solidarity Challenge to show that there might be some neglectful treatment of the philosophical views of different Indigenous groups. I then depart from Mariátegui and engage in a critical exercise to show that even he would be guilty of failing in his own solidarity demands. I follow that by drawing out some implications of the argument. I first sketch how this differentiation would play out against the political project of “Mestizaje,” a project that seems to inform some of the Latin American philosophical tradition. I then speculate about the kinds of duties that the field of Latin American philosophy might have towards the field of Indigenous Philosophy produced in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses public policies concerning sustainability in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico; and examines their contribution to the transformation of the productivity practices towards circular economy (CE). The findings allow for a distinction among three fields: renewable energy and energy transition, sustainable production and consumption, and waste management. This paper points out elements for formulation of public policies directed towards CE, such as the need for stability and normative clarity to handle actions from active participators; the creation of taxes and economic/financial incentives to industrial updating processes and making of profit out of externalities; the formation and training of human capital to align business' goals with sustainable practices; and both the education and sensitization of the population that drive policies dissemination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the diversity of perspectives in the field of communication in Latin America and the Caribbean. It highlights the importance of the Chasqui magazine as a space for the production of current content. The article addresses three thematic axes: the early steps of communication in the region, discussions about communication in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the current and future challenges of communication. Additionally, it presents several research papers related to communication in the region, which contribute to Latin American communication thinking. The community is invited to read and share these papers. [Extracted from the article]

The international legal prohibition of enforced disappearances first developed in the context of authoritarianism. In particular, throughout the second half of the 20th century, several Latin American governments used state agents and non-state actors to disappear political opponents and other identity groups. Today, advocates and scholars are employing the same category to contest state violence in a very different context: the disappearance of migrants, through detention and/or death, under the guise of border enforcement. In this paper, we consider acts of border violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border and at the EU's Southern and Eastern borders, including the Mediterranean Sea, imagining the potentials and limitations of labeling such practices as enforced disappearances in legal advocacy. After first exploring the doctrinal histories prohibiting enforced disappearance in international law, the paper examines two questions: first, what are the common and differing underlying assumptions in the authoritarianism and border violence contexts that make the legal category of "enforced disappearance" relevant for migrants and their families? Second, what are the practical benefits for migrant rights struggles in such a framing? Beyond simply characterizing such acts of border violence as egregious, the categorization of certain practices as enforced disappearances under international law can provide the relatives of missing migrants with concrete informational remedies and other forms of reparation, including through their rights provisioned by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. For countless individuals whose loved ones have gone missing on the move for reasons of State design, this legal framing could help finally uncover the truth behind the fate and whereabouts of their disappeared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent global trends show high levels of households' indebtedness in developed and emerging economies. This paper proposes a method applicable in those economies where a household financial survey and interest rate caps exist. The method applies to the country with the most indebted households in Latin America, Chile. The results state that: (i) the same debt threshold does not apply to all households as variables such as income affect it; (ii) the debt threshold increases with households' income level; (iii) the presence of mortgage debt increases the debt thresholds; (iv) Chilean households overindebted are more than a quarter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most systematic reviews of the relationships between work-related psychosocial risks, health, and performance have only considered papers in English, thus ignoring, to a considerable extent, studies conducted in Latin America. In addition, most systematic reviews that have indeed included Latin-American studies have focused on only one occupation and one kind of psychosocial risk, which contributes to producing scattered empirical evidence of this relationship. This paper reports the results of a comprehensive and critical systematic review of 85 studies that examined the relationships between psychosocial risks, health, and performance across a wide range of organizational contexts in Latin America over the last ten years. The paper contributes to the organizational psychology literature by critically reviewing and integrating the most recent studies on this topic in Latin America, identifying their main limitations, and proposing future lines of research that update the debate on this relationship and move this field of study forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University Rankings and impact factor indicators were critical in the extension of the global belief in the intrinsic academic value of "World Class Institutions," along with the international recognition of successful individuals forged through mainstream journals. However, these supposedly global standards were not adopted passively, nor massively, in the so-called periphery. Drawing from quantitative and qualitative studies of evaluative cultures in Latin America, particularly in Argentina, this paper observes various circuits of recognition and different paths for prestige-building. First, it discusses a multi-scale approach to national scientific fields highlighting heterogeneity in terms of the orientation of research agendas and styles of academic publishing. Evaluative cultures are examined as a complex set of instances of legitimation that provide room for maneuvering between global standards and local orders. Second, the paper delves into the role played by Latin America in forging an open access, non-commercial, regional publishing circuit with a dominant, but not exclusive, composition of journals from the social sciences and humanities. Finally, it argue that facing this dynamical publishing ecosystem developed in the public domain, national research assessment systems are alienated by incentives directed only to performance in mainstream publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is an important driver of migration, but little research exists on whether migrant communities in the U.S. identify climate change-related factors as reasons for migrating. In 2021, we conducted a multidisciplinary, collaborative project to better understand the nexus of climate change and immigrant health in the Atlanta area. This paper presents one arm of this collaboration that explored both the role of climate change in decisions to immigrate to Georgia and the ways that climate change intersects with other possible drivers of migration. First generation migrants from Latin America were recruited primarily through CPACS Cosmo Health Center and were invited to participate in an intake survey and an in-depth interview. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Findings suggest that while participants may not have explicitly identified climate change as a primary reason for migration, in both surveys and in-depth interviews, participants reported multiple and intersecting social, economic, political, and environmental factors that are directly or indirectly influenced by climate change and that are involved in their decisions to migrate. The narratives that emerged from in-depth interviews further contextualised survey data and elucidated the complex nexus of climate change, migration, and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial inequality associated with the location of population and activities, access to infrastructure and services, employment and material living conditions, is a historical reality in Latin America. This phenomenon has accompanied the demands of successive development models, and since the mid-twentieth century it has begun to be recognised in its full complexity with the installation of developmentalist governments. As a result, various public policies were adopted that failed to have a significant impact on these inequalities or to address their social consequences. Given the need to reformulate approaches, optimise resources and overcome obstacles in the implementation of public policies, this paper seeks to analyse the policies on the government agenda in Argentina from the change of management materialized at the end of 2019, identifying the limitations, achievements and potentialities of the policies proposed in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico and their effects on territorial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the cumulative production of knowledge about the development of Latin America, in general, and Argentina, in particular, from the case of Economic Development, in the period 1958-1975. The author proposes, through a conceptual theoretical analysis, that the accumulation of knowledge is evidenced by gradually posing new analysis variables and questions. Between 1958 and 1959, a central problem was the transformation of an agrarian productive structure into an industrial one. Between 1961 and 1969, the above is assumed, and includes social and political aspects of Latin American underdevelopment. Between 1970 and 1975, the magazine publishes discussions on dependency and on some specific experiences of underdevelopment, condensing problematizations and findings from the two previous periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent electoral successes of right-wing and far-right actors in different parts of the world have prompted discussion on various topics: the causes of their rise, their characteristics and strategies, the motivations of electorates and the depth of the right-wing shifts in a range of societies. This paper proposes key themes for systematising this debate and some clues to understanding the rise of the right in such diverse and heterogeneous national realities. It also suggests recovering a constructivist conceptualisation of "authoritarian traditions" in order to analyse the mobilisation strategies, behaviour and coordination of right-wing groups from a perspective that highlights their dynamic and innovative nature. This approach allows us to (re)think authoritarianism as the result of symbolic practices and discourses that are assembled, (re)invented and updated to serve various purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the literature about Revista Moderna (1898-1903) and Revista Moderna de México (1903-1911) assumes that both publications integrate a single editorial project because of its affiliation with the Latin American modernism, particularly with that of the second generation, which presented a more decadent aspect. Although some scholars have noted the differences between the two formats, the petit revue and the North American styled magazine, the truth is that Revista Moderna de México has been reviewed in very similar terms to its predecessor, that is, as a literary, elitist and minority magazine, representative of a group with a specific literary positioning. In this paper, I will examine some of the devices that the editors of Revista Moderna de México used to articulate this transformation not only of format, but also of discursive positioning, mediated by the political and publishing market conditions from that time. This study pretends to draw attention to the set of negotiations and resistance that some agents of the literary field carried out through their professionalization process and their search for an alleged autonomy regarding other recognition figures during the transition from the 19th century to the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: This paper studies the role of the Chilean state during the great drought of 1967-1969 as a mediator between human beings and nature. Institutional adaptations and the effort to improve the infrastructure were elements of continuity with respect to previous droughts, but there were novelties as well, such as attempts to pursue weather modification and the artificial melting of glaciers. The support of technologies and scientists operating from peripheral state institutions was essential for these purposes. All the above took place in the context of the Cold War when the predominant environmental imaginaries made human intervention look favorable and necessary for the modernization of countries. Methodology: Diverse primary sources were used, such as ministerial documents, decrees, bulletins, and reports of different state institutions that allowed understanding the logic of state management during the water crisis. Similarly, research in national and international press helped identify how imaginaries about the environment were expressed and disseminated publicly, which tended to validate novel efforts to control nature. Originality: This is an original study for Latin America, which addresses the early appearance of science and technology in the efforts of what today would be known as geoengineering: mainly through the observation of new actors, which expanded the traditional forms of mediation between humans and nature, led by the state, concerning climate crises. Conclusions: In the 1960s, optimism grew for the human capacity to control and manipulate water resources by appealing to ways other than those previously known, associated with infrastructure development. Expert knowledge was placed at the service of peripheral institutions of the state to promote these changes with lasting consequences. The human desire to control nature at all costs was validated, which helps explain the temporal projection of experiments with artificial rain and glacier control to the present day in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 5.4 million people have fled Venezuela in the last decade, with 4.6 million arriving in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Most are refugees seeking to settle in another of the region's countries, including Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. This paper focuses on the Venezuelan diaspora towards these countries and analyses whether these borders should be defined as open or closed, along with the forms of institutional incorporation or exclusion these people have experienced. To do this, it takes a case-by-case approach, reviewing legislation and analysing policy for each country. While Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay are all Mercosur members and signed the common residence agreement, which facilitated the movement of people, Paraguay has not created a special migration category for Venezuelan citizens, and has taken a more restrictive approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a comparative study of the socio-state capacities developed during the processes of institutionalising protected natural areas (PNA) in Latin America. It sets them within a framework of their interdependence with global governance processes and in relation to the role human rights have played for these purposes. Taking an approach that combines analysis of multilevel collective action with process monitoring, this work traces the trajectories of national and multilateral institutions; analyses the main dynamics that arise in the delimitation of the protection of natural areas in the countries with the greatest biodiversity in the region; and explores the possibilities for new agreements on the global agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the meanings and practices of digital sovereignty that four social collectives are building and enacting in Latin America. Through a qualitative methodological approach based on semi-structured interviews with founding members of the selected collectives, we sought to know how they conceive and carry out activities of digital sovereignty on a daily basis. Among the research findings, the identification of five articulating axes in the work of these organizations stands out, namely: 1) conception / proposal of particular digital sovereignty; 2.) ways to achieve/achieve digital sovereignty; 3.) criticism and resignification in the ways of making digital sovereignty; 4.) agents involved and 5.) relationship with other groups and/ or organizations interested in digital sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the behavior of the Economic Fitness indicator as a measure of the international competitiveness of Latin American economies, as well as an indicator of their relationship with per capita income gaps and the Human Development Index (HDI). Positive correlations were found between per capita income gaps and the stagnation of the international competitiveness of Latin American economies, as well as between human development levels and the productive structure, suggesting a causal relationship between human development and competitiveness. This paper also finds that the Economic Fitness indicator fluctuates significantly when estimated using exports in domestic value-added, suggesting that the original estimate may over- or underestimate competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: During the first decade of the current century, Latin American countries have shown high and consistent economic growth rates, increasing per capita GDP and reducing poverty. Social indicators improved in even the poorest and least equitable countries in the region. In terms of health care results, marked advances were made in infant mortality rates. Objective: The aim of this paper is to identify if decreasing poverty rates in Latin America and the Caribbean during the first decade of the century have had an effect on health inequality, specifically by reducing the health care equity gap and, if so, whether that trend and its effects were distributed evenly at the sub-national level. Methods: Basic statistical tools were applied to national and sub-national administrative data for eleven Latin American countries (Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uruguay) to compare the evolution of a set of social determinants with a classic health care outcome, such infant mortality) during the period 1995–2012. This document proposes a set of indicators to analyze relative evolution of results and convergence to equity, and to discuss general trends in health care reforms across the region. Results: The document shows a correspondence between poverty reduction, and improvement of health care indicators at a regional level, though national differences persist. In some cases, like Brazil and Peru, the reduction in infant mortality rates is coupled with significant movements towards health equity. This trend is different in Bolivia, where the drop in poverty is not followed by better outcomes in poor departments. At the same, results are not necessarily linked to health systems organization and/or specific reforms. For instance, both Brazil and Peru pursue in applying decentralized solutions, although the incentive mechanisms are quite different: the former has a supply side structure at the public provision level while the latter has implemented mixed payment systems. Conclusion: While some of the same instruments and measures of effectiveness in health care reforms appear across the region, specific impact evaluations should be performed. To reduce the equity gap in Latin America requires not only major improvements in social determinants but also the design and implementation of sound institutional policy and more robust regulatory frameworks (institutional determinants) so that more resources yield better practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of the paper are to identify the types of State that propose the main economic approaches that were designed after the perfect competition model, and to make approximations to the size of the identified States. The analysis method is composed of two steps: selection of the key functions that are required for the implementation of economic processes, and definition of the degree of State intervention in these functions. The results indicate that the minimum States are diverse and that the planning States are different. Of the approaches that base the coordination of economic processes in the market, the ultra-minimal versions of the State are those designed by the perfect competition model and Pareto welfare economics, while the most extensive exposures are those drawn by development economics and Latin American structuralism with the welfare State and the developmental State, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Te objective of this paper is to contribute to the current theoretical and conceptual debates that address the technopolitical phenomenon. Specifically, it addresses the processes of appropriation and use of information and communication technologies that the new indigenous movements carry out in the Latin American continent, whose central purpose is to confront the colonial matrix of power that governs the functioning of the modern-modern-colonial-capitalist world system. It is found that technopolitics emerges as a praxis of antagonistic struggle in contexts of intercultural conflict, which demands the design of research agendas that attend to the specificity of local processes that, "from below", dispute the meaning of interculturality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the leadership approach to the pandemic in Latin America based on the traditional cultural approach to leadership in this region. Using the framework of challenges proposed by Grint (2020), a response to Covid is recommended based on its categorization as a wicked, as opposed to a tame or critical, problem. Using a framework of adaptive leadership (Heifetz, 1994) and advanced change theory (Quinn, 2000), Ricardo Semler's transformation of Semco is explored as an example of an alternative approach to leadership to address wicked problems in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of “suffering” in the migratory experience of displaced Venezuelans on their way to Peru, in the context of departure, during the journey, and arrival context. Through a mixed qualitative methodology of participant observation and interviews, we seek to understand the significance of suffering in the different phases of the process. In the analyzed case, it was found that each phase corresponds to different motives and types of suffering and that others remain in the three stages. Although the concept of suffering is implicit in many recent academic contributions about the migration phenomenon, there is a need for adequate theoretical development of the suffering of Venezuelan displaced persons. This study contributes to the literature on migration and suffering, and at the same time, to the emerging literature on the Venezuelan exodus in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]