Authors:
- Offers an overview of the main political and social processes taking place in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez
- Provides a critical reading of Venezuela’s historical development as a petro-state
- Framed by over 10 years of original research
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book presents an ethnographic study of how grassroots activism in Venezuela during the Chávez presidency can be understood in relation to the country's history as a petro-state. Taking the contested relationship between the popular sectors and the Venezuelan state as a point of departure, Iselin Åsedotter Strønen explores how notions such as class, race, state, bureaucracy, popular politics, capitalism, neoliberalism, consumption, oil wealth, and corruption gained salience in the Bolivarian process. A central argument is that the Bolivarian process was an attempt to challenge the practices, ideas, and values inherited from Venezuela's historical development as an oil-producing state. Drawing on rich ethnographic material from Caracas' shantytowns, state institutions, as well as everyday life and public culture, Strønen explores the complexities and challenges in fostering deep social and political change.
Reviews
“Strønen’s vivid ethnography and penetrating analysis of ‘the Bolivarian Space’ significantly advances understanding of what Hugo Chávez’s efforts to transform Venezuela meant to racially stigmatised popular classes. Offering new perspectives on grassroots agency and the complicated relationships between disadvantaged citizens, activists and a ‘pro-poor’ government, and providing an innovative approach to the Venezuelan petro-state, seen from below, her diagnosis of the successes and failures of this period remains relevant not just to Venezuela but to the whole of Latin America today.” (John Gledhill, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, The University of Manchester, UK)
“With rich ethnographic detail, Iselin Åsedotter Strønen makes a vital contribution to understanding the Bolivarian revolutionary process in the Chávez era. She captures the frustration, hope, and hard work that characterized barrio-based organizing. Strønen uncovers how histories of exclusion and aspirations for access to Venezuela’s oil wealth continue to shape moral economies, at times in expected ways. Grassroots Politics and Oil Culture in Venezuela is a necessary rejoinder to one-dimensional portrayals of the Bolivarian movement. ” (Naomi Schiller, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology, Brooklyn College, CUNY, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
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University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Iselin Åsedotter Strønen
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Grassroots Politics and Oil Culture in Venezuela
Book Subtitle: The Revolutionary Petro-State
Authors: Iselin Åsedotter Strønen
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59507-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-59506-1Published: 14 September 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-86640-6Published: 26 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-59507-8Published: 01 September 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXI, 357
Number of Illustrations: 23 illustrations in colour
Topics: Political Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Area Studies