Social Text Special Issue 104: Introduction

Social Text Collective

The cover article and accompanying special report in the September 9, 2010 issue of The Economist, “A Latin American Decade?” somewhat tentatively hail renewed ties between the region and the “developed” world after attempts to foster national industries and intraregional integration “have stagnated or fallen apart.” Not surprisingly, the ties that matter to the magazine derive from market-oriented reforms and commodity-driven booms that are “starting to attract increased interest from outsiders.” Despite a pattern of similar claims about foreign interest that began around 1492, The Economist knows what it sees: the transnational moment has arrived.

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