Exploring Identity in Latin American History

The historiography of Latin America, which for decades centered on the twin cold-war concerns of revolution (and the repression thereof) and economic development, has within the past few years begun to explore questions of identity-the ways in which the ideologies and subjectivities of ordinary people have intersected with material conditions. In the Latin American context, analysis of social identities has centered primarily on class, ethnicity, gender, race, and nationality, considering ways in which elite and nonelite actors have tried to fashion the meanings of labels such as woman, Maya, or peasant. Other categories, such as sexual, generational, and regional identities, have begun to attract some scholarly attention but thus far have taken a back seat to categories more conventionally associated with Latin American studies. This scholarly turn is hardly divorced from interest in revolutionary movements, however. Examining levels of repression and exploitation in the region, many historians of Latin America have speculated on why no larger and more successful resistance movements have blossomed. Exploring identity as an analytical category uncovers the fissures that often gaped under pressure from repressive military forces, foreign intervention, and elite domination. Alternatively, these studies also reveal the important ways in which social identities provided the cultural glue that bolstered solidarity under these same pressures. The success of these recent explorations of Latin American identities thus hinges upon the examination of social markers as historically specific rather than essential and inherent. The four books under review here form part of a larger body of literature that has fundamentally shifted the terrain in Latin American studies. Edited collections such