The Latin American Obsession

I’d probably spend the next few years reading, writing and researching on Latin America. I’m currently working on my dissertation about Venezuela, particularly about the prospects of the military as source of state ideology. Much Marxist and post-Marxist literature consider the military as a coercive apparatus that only implements state ideology and my dissertation looks at the reverse – how the military itself can be the source of state ideology. When I tell people about my topic, a lot of them say it’s interesting – either out of courtesy or sincerity, I’ll never know. I remember my Bolivian friend telling me “military is such a big word for a small girl.” But the common question I normally encounter is – why Latin America? What drives a frail Asian girl who speaks neither Spanish nor Portuguese to study Latin America?

I’m not going to fabricate some “when-I-was-a-little-girl-I-was-fascinated-with-Aztecs” type of story. I did not watch Marimar. I picked Dhalsim over Blanca in Street Fighter, and I was never Montezuma in Sid Meier’s Civilization. (I was Bismarck when I conquered the world.) Honestly, it was Gareth Richards who stirred my interest in Latin America in his undergraduate course Politics of Change. People can say whatever they want about Gareth, but I’m not ashamed to admit that he greatly influenced my research interests and even my choice of university for post-grad. Then of course, there’s Walden Bello. He was supportive enough to let me deliver his MA lecture on Democratic Transitions in Chile and it just amazed me how structurally similar yet qualitatively different Chile and the Philippines are.

But what really fascinates me about Latin America is the rise of populist leaders and their anti-neoliberal rhetoric. In Venezuela, constitutions are sold in the streets and people actually buy and read it. In Brazil, kids in the mountains blame unrestricted free trade for their poverty. If that’s not enough, Hugo Chavez calling Bush the devil in the UN and the donkey in his television programme is entertaining to say the least. That’s not something you see everyday.

Of course, there are perky factors that triggered my interest too, like Venezuela’s good track record in Miss Universe and other beauty pageants, or the observed overproduction of ‘el guapos’ in Dominican Republic (Didith and Ollie can attest to this!).

So while everyone else is obsessed about China or the Middle East, I think I’m set in focusing on Latin America. After all, with this topic, I don’t mind going on fieldwork.