Contemporary development debates in Latin America are marked by the pursuit of economic growth, technological improvement and poverty reduction, and are overshadowed by growing concerns about the preservation of the environment and human rights. This collection’s multidisciplinary perspective links local, national, regional and transnational levels of inquiry into the interaction of state and non-state actors involved in promoting or opposing natural resource development. Taking this approach allows the book to contemplate the complex panorama of competing visions, concepts and interests grounded in the mutual influences and interdependencies which shape the contemporary arena of social-environmental conflicts in the region.

One of the few major enquiries into women’s narratives of political incarceration, this volume examines first-person accounts written against a backdrop of momentous historical events in twentieth-century Germany. Rosa Luxemburg’s prison letters are the starting point for the study, which explores the ways in which writing is used as a response to incarceration: how does the writer ‘perform’ femininity within the de-feminizing context of prison? How does she negotiate a self-representation as a ‘good’ woman? Central to this investigation is an awareness of the role of language as a means of empowerment within the disempowering environment of prison. As a key female political figure in twentieth-century Germany, Luxemburg wrote letters from prison that encapsulate prevalent notions about womanhood, prison, and political engagement that are perceptible in the subsequent texts of the study. The diaries of Luise Rinser and Lore Wolf from National Socialist prisons show, in different ways, how the writer uses language to ‘survive’ prison, whilst Margret Bechler’s and Elisabeth Graul’s retrospective accounts of GDR incarceration give insight into the elastic concept of both the political prisoner and the ‘good’ woman. All narratives provide examples of the role of language in resisting an imposed identity as ‘prisoner’, ‘criminal’, and object of the prison system. Kim Richmond completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh and is now an Associate Lecturer in Languages at the Open University.

Thomas Frederick Tout (1855–1929) was arguably the most prolific English medieval historian of the early twentieth century. The son of an unsuccessful publican, he was described at his Oxford scholarship exam as ‘uncouth and untidy’; however he went on t

What are “cultural oblivion” and “psychological colonialism,” and how are they affecting the capacity of indigenous peoples in Canada to actively resist systematic and territorial oppression by the state? Following a decade-long research project, this new book by Pierrot Ross-Tremblay examines the production of oblivion among his own community, the Essipiunnuat (“People of the Brook Shells River”), and the relationship between oblivion and the colonial imperative to forget. This book not only illustrates how the cultural oblivion of vulnerable minority communities is a critical human rights issue, but also asks us to reflect upon both the role of the state and the local elite in creating and warping our perception and understanding of history.