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This paper presents the results of formative research conducted from January to June 2020 in the Department of Atlántico, Caribbean region of Colombia, whose findings were used as inputs to design the national strategy for comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) outside school – Tírala Plena – including its curriculum. This is within the framework of the multi-country project coordinated by UNFPA and WHO aimed at generating evidence on the role of facilitators in the delivery of CSE in non-school contexts. The research was carried out in four municipalities in northern Colombia, in rural and marginal urban contexts with conditions of vulnerability for the adolescent population, including a strong presence of migrant populations from Venezuela. A total of 150 male and female adolescents ages 10–17 participated in the formative research. Workshops such as patchwork quilt, body mapping and talking maps were used as methods to gather information. The groups were divided by sex and age (10–13 years old and 14–17 years old). Knowledge, attitudes and social norms regarding adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus, and gender-based violence, were identified in adolescents (schooled and not schooled, but with minimal or no access to CSE). All of the above enabled us to establish a set of recommendations for the strengthening of the CSE strategy Tírala plena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses how Venezuelan migrant women negotiate, challenge and at times reproduce oppressive gender relations as they navigate their new socio-economic realities within Trinidad and Tobago. These socio-economic realities include the ways they attempt to meet their financial needs within feminised labour markets such as engaging in care and domestic work. We focus on how the pervasive constructions of their femininity, based upon the social and cultural expectations they migrated with from Venezuela, re-produce unequal power relations in their everyday lives. We also examine how the gendered stereotypes of Venezuelan migrant women within Trinidad and Tobago reflect how their racialised identities are situated as desirable and exploitable within the Trinidadian labour market. We engage in a feminist narrative analysis that employs the qualitative method of in-depth interviews to gain gendered insights from Venezuelan migrant women about their lived experiences. We share these migrant women's stories of survival to highlight how their liminal racialised identities lead to hypervisibility and invisibility, resulting in them experiencing multiple forms of discrimination, including xenophobia and stereotyping. Yet, despite these challenges, we explore how they remain empowered to find ways to challenge stigma, discrimination and xenophobia and access necessary material resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gramsci’s vision of the national-popular and counter-hegemonic struggle offers an insightful framework for a more systematical and synthetic reading of the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. In contradistinction to the simplistic accounts that draw on pure anti-capitalist and/or anti-imperialist struggles, a Gramscian lens can sharpen the perspective into internal colonial relationships with regard to squattering, race and gender as well as the contradictory nature of socialism. A Gramscian lens can also help us formulate a coherent critique of prevailing hegemonic leadership types from a participatory-democratic perspective. With this in mind, I contend that Chávez bequeathed two major legacies that need to be carefully taken into account by the revolutionaries and other socialist intellectuals and scholars of the twenty-first century. The first is that the task of the national-democratic revolution has become more pressing than ever for Third World revolutions and needs to be successfully incorporated into the struggle for socialism. Interestingly enough, this legacy brings to the table what Gramsci understands by the “national-popular.” Following Schiller’s (Dialect Anthropol 35(3):255–260, 2011 ) assertion that a comparative outlook on Venezuela is necessary in order to offer a more nuanced and sophisticated analysis of the complexity of the Bolivarian process, this paper also presents a comparative/historical analysis of Gramsci’s Italy and Venezuela. Chávez’s second legacy arises from the recognition that socialism is to be understood as a long protracted process replete with inner contradictions and risks embedded in the political-cultural transformation of daily life. This legacy underlines institutional innovation and cultural struggle, which exhibit astonishing similarities with Gramsci’s vision of counter-hegemonic struggle. As such, this paper touches on the challenges and contradictions of the post-Chávez era as they pertain to the transformation of daily life via counter-hegemonic tools and leadership mechanisms. Indeed, any genuine social transformation toward socialism excludes race- and gender-blind approaches, hence the necessity of rigorously analyzing the limitations of the Bolivarian process in race and gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined exposure to drug use and the lag between exposure and use. This paper estimates prevalence of opportunity to use a substance, for use, and for use given an opportunity to use among a sample of Venezuelan adolescents. Several covariates on the opportunity to use and the transition to use are also examined. Findings show that lifetime prevalence of substance use among Venezuelan adolescents increases dramatically and more closely resembles rates among US and European samples when having had an opportunity to use was taken into account. A majority of youth who transitioned to use did so the same year exposure occurred, and females had a shorter time difference compared to males. Covariates primarily predicted exposure rather than having used after controlling for exposure, and their effects varied by substance. Implications for prevention efforts are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper analyzes the role that multinational oil companies played in the formation of social concepts and citizen participation which were promoted in the oil camps of Venezuela and which served as an important model for varios sectors of Venezuelan society. The experience in oil camps reconfigured regional identities and introduced a new lifestyle, reformulating the use of public and private space, the management of time, and also comsumption patterns. Conscious of the dislocation that employment In the new and unfamiliar oil industry implied, companies sought to incorporate the family into this process and redefined the role of women as key to the socialization process. This paper analyzes the participation of intellectual goups, and the middle class which colaborated with the oil companies in order to promote a national cultural project and civil society which would promote certain legitimacy in relation to the transnational companies in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper analyzes the role that multinational oil companies played in the formation of social concepts and citizen participation which were promoted in the oil camps of Venezuela and which served as an important model for varios sectors of Venezuelan society. The experience in oil camps reconfigured regional identities and introduced a new lifestyle, reformulating the use of public and private space, the management of time, and also comsumption patterns. Conscious of the dislocation that employment in the new and unfamiliar oil industry implied, companies sought to incorporate the family into this process and redefined the role of women as key to the socialization process. This paper analyzes the participation of intellectual goups, and the middle class which colaborated with the oil companies in order to promote a national cultural project and civil society which would promote certain legitimacy in relation to the transnational companies in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe the use of mitigation as a politeness strategy by Venezuelan students and professors when they exchange e-mails. A total of 26 e-mails were exchanged between 8 women and 8 men. The mitigation resources were categorized according to the attenuation level which they addressed: locution, illocution and origin of the message (Caffi, 1999). The analysis of the data revealed that both men and women use resources to soften the intention of their messages. However, women outnumbered men in the use of mitigation resources. We believe that, as women show more of their personalities, they tend to create discursive barriers to defend their image from any invasion. Moreover, when they reduce the social distance between them and their interlocutors the messages become less formal; hence, a higher use of mitigation is required. Additionally, we noticed that women use more mitigation resources than men in order to defend their image of autonomy and territory, while maintaining balance in the interaction between them and their interlocutors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]