Reaction Papers for Latin America in the Twentieth Century

Excerpts from the Paper

Reaction Papers for Latin America in the Twentieth Century
Set One
The first set of papers including Charles Mann’s “A View from Above” from his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, the chapter “Part One: Setting the Scene” by Doreen Massey from the book for space, and the chapter “People and Power” raise issues about power: the power of governments and the power in how modern-day people tell stories about the past.
My favorite piece from this set is “A View from Above” because it discusses the arrogance of historians, anthropologists, and sociologists in describing the history of Latin America. The view from above can be interpreted as the imaginary airplane surveying the scene, but it can also be interpreted as...

..... feel like they are part of the civic and policy-making part of the country. But many people are becoming involved in a practice called “participatory budgeting” where regular citizens are a part of delegations that have a say in how money is spent. In earlier papers I have commented about how important money and resources are for power. Giving people the power to make decisions about how and where resources will be spent empowers them and also empowers people like them who would also probably make similar decisions.
Overall, I think that North American and European nations could learn a lot from Latin-American nations about organizing groups that benefit regular people and give them power and a voice in their government and in their lives.