Many tourist attractions throughout Central and South America, in countries including Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Ecuador, draw millions of visitors each year, in part because of their rich histories and the indigenous cultures that are believe
On Friday, October 2017, troops and federal police were deployed after several government and environmental agency buildings were set on fire by hundreds of armed men in the town of Humaíta in the Brazilian Amazon.
On August 1, 2017, activist Santiago Maldonado was detained by Argentine police at an indigenous rights rally in Patagonia and has not been seen since. According to José Miguel Vivanco of the Human Rights Watch Organization (2017), Maldonado was visiting a Mapuche Indigenous community to stand in solidarity with their opposition to the extradition of an indigenous leader.
The Mushuc Runa Soccer Club has made history not only for the indigenous community that it represents but also for the country of Ecuador as a whole.1 This indigenous team has ascended to the A division, the highest level of Ecuadorian professional soccer.
The Communications and Transport Secretary in Mexico has proposed a regional rail project, the Tren Transpeninsular (TTP), to connect major beach resort areas and several major archeological sites in the Yucatan Peninsula. A GSPIA capstone class taught by Marcela González Rivas, Policy and Planning in Development Countries, is working with a local non-profit in Mexico, Foro para el Desarrollo Sustentable, who has been hired to conduct a preliminary assessment of the potential social impacts of the TTP.
The Communications and Transport Secretary in Mexico has proposed a regional rail project, the Tren-Transpeninsular (TTP), to connect major beach resort areas and several major archeological sites in the Yucatan Peninsula. The capstone class is working with a local non-profit in Mexico, Foro para el Desarrollo Sustentable, who has been hired to conduct a preliminary assessment of the potential social impacts of the TTP.
Since the 1990s the concept of interculturalidad [interculturality] has taken hold in Latin American politics. In Ecuador, it has been a tenant of indigenous movements and NGOs in the struggle to recognize cultural diversity and eliminate socioeconomic inequalities. The current government, under President Rafael Correa, has adopted interculturalidad as a paradigm shift against the state’s neoliberal past.
Speaking to a crowd in the southern state of Chiapas in February, a region with the largest indigenous population in Mexico, Pope Francis condemned what he called “the systemic and organized way your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society” (Puella and Bernstein, 2016). These misunderstandings and exclusion have created in Mexico a situation in which indigenous communities face significantly higher rates of poverty, a problem that impacts their overall quality of life and access to basic resources for 12.6 percent of the population.
