Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern

Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela

Beginning in the late 1950s political leaders in Venezuela built what they celebrated as Latin Americaâ€™s most stable democracy. But outside the staid halls of power, in the gritty barrios of a rapidly urbanizing country, another politics was risingâ€”unruly, contentious, and clamoring for inclusion.

Based on years of archival and ethnographic research in Venezuelaâ€™s largest public housing community, Barrio Rising delivers the first in-depth history of urban popular politics before the Bolivarian Revolution, providing crucial context for understanding the democracy that emerged during the presidency of Hugo ChÃ¡vez.

In the mid-1950s, a military government bent on modernizing Venezuela razed dozens of slums in the heart of the capital Caracas, replacing them with massive buildings to house the cityâ€™s working poor. The project remained unfinished when the dictatorship fell on January 23, 1958, and in a matter of days city residents illegally occupied thousands of apartments, squatted on green spaces, and renamed the neighborhood to honor the emerging democracy: the 23 de Enero (January 23).

During the next thirty years, through eviction efforts, guerrilla conflict, state violence, internal strife, and official neglect, inhabitants of el veintitrÃ©s learned to use their strategic location and symbolic tie to the promise of democracy in order to demand a better life. Granting legitimacy to the state through the vote but protesting its failings with violent street actions when necessary, they laid the foundation for an expansive understanding of democracyâ€”both radical and electoralâ€”whose features still resonate today.

Blending rich narrative accounts with incisive analyses of urban space, politics, and everyday life, Barrio Rising offers a sweeping reinterpretation of modern Venezuelan history as seen not by its leaders but by residents of one of the countryâ€™s most distinctive popular neighborhoods.
Country USA
Manufacturer University of California Press
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-07-24
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	University of California Press
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-07-24
Format	Kindle eBook

Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela

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