The Politics of Culture in the Chávez Era

The turn of the twenty-first century was accompanied by a turn to the Left for the Latin American state, signalled in Venezuela with the election of Hugo Chávez. This interdisciplinary volume maps the shifts and trends in cultural policies and political cultures that accompanied Chávez’s four presidential terms (1999- 2013), situating these in the regional context of “Pink Tide” politics. Within this overview, it develops original close readings of varied aesthetic manifestations and cultural activities, that encompass conventional cultural products, such as recent film and literature, as well as engagements with cultural imaginaries that play out in political protest, urban culture, and grassroots heritage projects. In so doing, it examines how individual and collective imaginaries were negotiated and formed within, alongside or against the state with the advancement of the Bolivarian Revolution, accounting for the major modifications in power dynamics that were witnessed during the Chávez era. Simultaneously, it uncovers continuities in social configurations and political tensions that speak to broader historical patterns in Venezuela.