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Viva Los Latino Americanos!
C-Lab Feature on Power in South America Having power is one thing, how to use it is another. There are many ways that power can be applied. In each instance, it requires that the resources that make up power are organized and designed. How are they leveraged to influence international policy making? When are those resources used to strengthen allegiances? Are urbanism and architecture part of power plays? C-Lab presents Volume readers with a dossier on South American power. We offer a glimpse into the resources that are being managed for the purposes of questioning and interacting with the current world order dominated by the US, Asia, and Europe. As many observe with curiosity the emergence of leftist governments that openly oppose US policy, C-Lab invites you to have a closer look at the design and the pieces that make up this Latin American powerbase. Short on advanced technology, development capital, and, in large chunks of the continent, exportable natural resources, the elements of power clearly differ from those of Northern Hemisphere advanced nations. Political personae and the repurposing of agrarian resources have helped the continent come a long way (see, Leadership Charisma, and Nation Building). At the same time, Latin American countries are now using tried and true power techniques once exercised by their gringo counterparts. Indeed, in the Americas there has been a noticeable reversal in the roles of governments north and south of the equator. Hendrik Hertzberg in a recent piece for The New Yorker comments on the ‘South Americanization’ of the US leadership, observing that many of the hallmark attributes of rightist Latin American governments have migrated to US soil. ‘[F]iscal recklessness, an accelerating wealth gap …, corruption masked by populist rhetoric, a frank official embrace of the techniques of “dirty war”, and … a judicial autogolpe…,’ characterize the Superpower’s political culture. Meanwhile, international diplomacy and the creation of collaborative alliances have been an active part of the agendas of current South American leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet. As an introduction to these well-crafted and resourceful forms of influence, C-Lab investigates the infrastructure of Latin American power. —Jeffrey Inaba |
25 March 2008 C-Lab's Jeffrey Inaba and Jesse Seegers recently interviewed robotics engineer, artist, and Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg for an upcoming issue of Volume on the theme of "Content Management." C-Lab is currently researching philanthropy, so we were very interested to hear about Goldberg's "Donation Dashboard" project, a online filtering program that recommends philanthropic causes suited to your preferences. [Donation Dashboard] 21 February 2008 21 February 2008 15 February 2008 8 February 2008 6 February 2008 1 December 2007 20 November 2007
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