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Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela
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About Who Can Stop The Drums?: Urban Social Movements In
Product Description In this vivid ethnography of social movements in the barrios, or poor shantytowns, of Caracas, Sujatha Fernandes reveals a significant dimension of political life in Venezuela since President Hugo Chávez was elected. Fernandes traces the histories of the barrios, from the guerrilla insurgency, movements against displacement, and cultural resistance of the 1960s and 1970s, through the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the neoliberal reforms that followed, to the Chávez period. She weaves barrio residents’ life stories into her account of movements for social and economic justice. Who Can Stop the Drums? demonstrates that the transformations under way in Venezuela are shaped by negotiations between the Chávez government and social movements with their own forms of historical memory, local organization, and consciousness. Fernandes portrays everyday life and politics in the shantytowns of Caracas through accounts of community-based radio, barrio assemblies, and popular fiestas, and the many interviews she conducted with activists and government officials. Most of the barrio activists she presents are Chávez supporters. They see the leftist president as someone who understands their precarious lives and has made important changes to the state system to redistribute resources. Yet they must balance receiving state resources, which are necessary to fund their community-based projects, with their desire to retain a sense of agency. Fernandes locates the struggles of the urban poor within Venezuela’s transition from neoliberalism to what she calls “post-neoliberalism.” She contends that in contemporary Venezuela we find a hybrid state; while Chávez is actively challenging neoliberalism, the state remains subject to the constraints and logics of global capital. Review “ In the Spirit of Negro Primero is a marvelous contribution to the literature on social movements, neoliberalism, cultural politics, and Venezuela. While most analyses of the country portray Hugo Chávez as either a liberating figure fighting neoliberalism to help the poor, or an authoritarian caudillo preserving his own power while destroying liberties and human rights, Sujatha Fernandes goes far beyond such polarities. By concentrating on the experiences of poor activists in Caracas, she provides a unique and nuanced perspective on a complicated political process, and reveals the Chávez government as much more complicated and interesting than most other scholars have allowed.”— Nancy Postero, author of Now We Are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Post-Multicultural Bolivia “Too much of the scholarly and political writing on the Venezuelan government centers on President Hugo Chávez and his style and rhetoric. In this original, timely, and important book, Sujatha Fernandes focuses on the barrio residents who form the social base of the Chávista movement. Along the way, she demonstrates a detailed understanding of Venezuela’s culture and recent political history.”— Steve Ellner, author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chávez Phenomenon “[A]n excellent, well-written, and engaging work of activist scholarship. It provides not only rich empirical data, but also theoretical insights on some of the key issues confronted by contemporary Latin American social activists. This book is highly recommended for scholars and activists with an interest in social movements and Latin America.” -- Lynn Horton, Contemporary Sociology “[T]his book certainly adds a flavorful icing, one that is certainly long overdue and more than welcome, to the existing literature on Venezuela.” -- J. Michael Ryan, Anthropological Quarterly “Fernandes forges a new and promising analytical approach to the study of social movements: that of examining the 'everyday wars of position.' … If others take up Fernandes’s research agenda, we will be rewarded with greater insight into the dynamics of contention within clientelism and revolution.”
