Social Movements in Latin America: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The multiplicity of social movements in contemporary Latin America highlights the importance of making historical and social scientific knowledge available so that we can see the genealogies of current historical developments. Activities organized by social actors—neighbourhood associations, clubs, student groups, unions, interest groups, peasants, indigenous communities or political groups—designed to produce changes in social, political, economic and intellectual structures, or aiming to prevent transformation of those threatened structures proliferate; social movements are not new in Latin American history. The analysis of social movements in Latin America between the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries can illuminate the reasons for the propagation of the events. The difficulty in formulating theories and concepts to explain social movements is, however, proportional to the political importance of these processes in Latin American societies.