Arturo Escobar is assistant professor of anthropology at Smith College. Sonia E. Alvarez is associate professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Arturo Escobar is assistant professor of anthropology at Smith College. Sonia E. Alvarez is associate professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Theory and Protest in Latin America Today -- Conceptualizing Social Movements in Contemporary Latin America -- Social Movements: Actors, Theories, Expectations -- Marxism, Feminism, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America -- The Study of New Social Movements in Latin America and the Question of Autonomy -- Culture, Economics, and Politics in Latin American Social Movements Theory and Research -- The Making of Collective Identities -- "I Dreamed of Foxes and Hawks": Reflections on Peasant Protest, New Social Movements, and the Rondas Campesinas of Northern Peru -- From Resistance to Social Movement: The Indigenous Authorities Movement in Colombia -- Power, Gender, and Development: Popular Women's Organizations and the Politics of Needs in Ecuador -- The Venezuelan Ecology Movement: Symbolic Effectiveness, Social Practices, and Political Strategies -- Rethinking the Study of Social Movements: The Case of Christian Base Communities in Urban Brazil -- Homosexual Identities in Transitional Brazilian Politics -- Articulating Strategies and Democratizing Democracy -- Feminisms in Latin America: From Bogota to San Bernardo -- The Evolution of Urban Popular Movements in Mexico Between 1968 and 1988 -- Radical Opposition Parties and Squatters Movements in Pinochet's Chile -- Democratization and the Decline of Urban Social Movements in Uruguay: A Political-Institutional Account -- Popular Movements in the Context of the Consolidation of Democracy in Brazil -- Social Movements and Political Power in Latin America -- Conclusion: Theoretical and Political Horizons of Change in Contemporary Latin American Social Movements -- About the Book -- Series in Political Economy and Economic Development in Latin America

This book, paying attention to the axes of identity, strategy, and democracy, grew out of the authors' shared and growing interest in contemporary social movements and the vast theoretical literature on these movements produced during the 1980s, particularly in Latin America and Western Europe.