With the so-called linguistic turn, historians have begun to study the ways in which a multitude of cultural forms are imbricated in the colonial and imperial project. In analyzing the infinite ways in which power is exercised and manifested, historians are turning a critical eye toward a myriad of cultural productions for a better understanding of how culture, politics, and power work in concert. One example is the increasing scrutiny given to geographical conceptions and representations. In Latin American colonial studies, a number of recent works have analyzed the ways in which deep, culturally rooted structures of spatial perception and representation have influenced the colonial process. This essay attempts to bring a number of those works into meaningful dialogue with one another with respect to the cultural and political facets of cartography. It also introduces work by scholars studying other regions of the world that may push the field farther and the work of the “new cultural cartographers” who have problematized traditional notions about the mimetic quality of maps and their presumed objectivity. In sum, this essay surveys recent literature pertaining to colonial cartography in Latin America, analyzes a number of comparative and theoretical studies that may broaden future research, and suggests that cartography and maps offer a fruitful avenue for further study and analysis of colonialism, imperialism, and state formation.

Este ensayo explica la evolución del debate en torno a la legalización de drogas psicoactivas ilícitas en Colombia. Este debate tuvo un protagonista central: el Presidente Ernesto Samper Pizano (1994–1998). En los años setenta fue un activo participante en la polémica a favor de una actitud más liberal y menos prohibicionista sobre la marihuana. Desde el poder dos décadas después, fue el que impulsó la major criminalización del fenómeno de las drogas. Este trabajo traza ese recorrido histórico y analiza los motivos pragmáticos para que Samper se movieira entre la legalización generosa y la prohibición categórica. Su pensamiento y su comportamiento reflejan en buena medida una actitud relativamente extendida en Colombia frente a los narcóticos: la oscilación entre convivir y combatir las drogas. En uno y otro escenario, el papel de Estados Unidos ha sido fundamental. El peso de Washington y su cruzada anti-drogas resultaron notoriamente influyentes en las discusiones colombianas sobre qué hacer con el narcotráfico y los narcotraficantes. Al inicio de un nuevo milenio, Colombia está frente a un abismo, un abismo en parte originado por la prohibición de drogas.

On the Colombian Left during the 1940s, little differentiated the rank and file of the Communist party from the left wing of the Liberal party. Individuals commonly moved back and forth between the two groups. Animosity was rampant among leaders, however, as shown by the clashes between the principal compañeros and Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's left-Liberal populist mobilization. As this rivalry played out in the Communist strongholds of the union movement, it became apparent that a large portion of the organized working class (perhaps a majority) supported Gaitán even though their leaders dismissed him as a fascist. Workers, organized and unorganized, clearly demonstrated their belief that Gaitanismo was a radical movement of change despite the fact that it arose within the traditional party system.

Indigenous peoples of Ecuador have organized and mobilized over the past thirty years, partly to reshape their identities after centuries of domination. This research is a preliminary effort to explore the contemporary complexity of that identity. Best viewed as a quantitative case study, this analysis uses responses from seventy-six indigenous college students to a self-administered questionnaire. The authors found that indigenous students with greater “acculturation experiences” with mestizo culture were more strident in rejecting elements of that culture than were their colleagues who had had fewer encounters with mestizo elements of Ecuadorian society. While the tendency to identify oneself ethnically by rejecting the dominant culture represents only one dimension of ethnic identity (maintaining distinctiveness), the authors consider the findings important for future research on the dynamics of the process of ethnic identification.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, restrictions on archives in Russia have diminished markedly. Some of the repositories have potential interest for Latin Americanists, including the Comintern Archive. This research note discusses the objectives of the archive and the types of material it contains. A list of the major collections relevant to Latin America is followed by comments on how to use the archive and websites that will facilitate research in Russia. Also provided are bibliographic references to academic studies on Latin America based on Comintern materials.