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Mots. Les langages du politique, n°109/2015

Mots. Les langages du politique, n°109/2015

Discours d'Amérique latine. Identités et conflits

Edited by Jean-Paul Honoré, Églantine Samouth, Yeny Serrano

Mots. Les langages du politique



Latin America Discourses. Identities and conflicts

The purpose of this dossier is to analyse how collective identities (ethnic, political, social and gender identities) are constructed and displayed through the political and media discourse in Latin America. In this region, in fact, many groups demanding identity recognition have managed to influence public policy and are the source of social movements and sociopolitical changes. These identities include, for example, the ethnic identity claims of « indigenous » people, identities linked to an affiliation to a particular political party, to an ideology, to a national group or to gender identities. Moreover, otherness, or the question of the relationship to « the other », is at the heart of the notion of identity. In this sense, the notions of identity and otherness are closely linked to the question of conflict. Therefore, this dossier also discusses the question of identity-related conflicts.

Papers in this dossier cover Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, as well as the border area between Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. According to each case, identity is understood in terms of: polemic labels (the use of the words right and left); national issues (the question of the Malvinas); the argumentative strategy involving the « racialization » of discourse; or government communication with educational purposes (e.g. against domestic violence). The issue of identity linked to a dominated language is also examined with the case of Nahuatl.