Viva explores the growing role of women in Latin America focussing in particular on the construction of gender through political activism and the centrality of gender, class and ethnicity to the ideological construct of `the nation'.

Chapter 1 Gender, Racism and the Politics of Identities in Latin America, Sallie Westwood, Sarah A. Radcliffe; Chapter 2 The Seeking of Truth and the Gendering of Consciousness, Jennifer Schirmer; Chapter 3 Ecologia, María-Pilar García Guadilla; Chapter 4 'We Learned to Think Politically', Leda Maria Vieira Machado; Chapter 5 Women's Political Participation in Colonias Populares In Guadalajara, Mexico, Nikki Craske; Chapter 6 Female Consciousness or Feminist Consciousness?, Yvonne Corcoran-Nantes; Chapter 7 Touching the Air, Catherine M. Boyle; Chapter 8 Adjustment from Below, Caroline O. N. Moser; Chapter 9 'People Have to Rise Up - Like the Great Women Fighters', Sarah A. Radcliffe;

Sarah A. Radcliffe is lecturer in Geography at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London.,
Sallie Westwood is senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester.