Este artículo analiza la inserción de investigadoras y profesoras universitarias de ciencias sociales en Chile desde 1990. Sus objetivos son indagar en la importancia de los movimientos feministas para la emergencia de la perspectiva de género y la apertura de los cuerpos académicos a la presencia femenina, y caracterizar las condiciones laborales de cientistas sociales chilenas. La metodología utilizada fue la revisión sistemática, produciéndose un análisis sociohistórico sobre la transición democrática en su vinculación con los movimientos feministas, transformaciones demográficas y rearticulación de las ciencias sociales. Analizaremos la aseveración de las lógicas neoliberales en universidades (2000–2010) y discutiremos la rearticulación entre las demandas de los movimientos feministas y las críticas al androcentrismo en las ciencias sociales chilenas (2010–2023). La contribución original del texto consiste en poner en diálogo los estudios cuantitativos, cualitativos e históricos, abriendo nuevas vetas interpretativas sobre la desigualdad de género en la ciencia y educación superior en Chile.

Why do governments that redistribute property on a massive scale so frequently fail to grant property rights to land beneficiaries? A recent contribution answers this important question by suggesting that countries involved in major land reforms suffer from ‘property gaps’, while those that did not, like Colombia, are in a much better situation. Based on the Colombian case, we challenge this conclusion. We show that, far from having clear property rights over rural land, the country suffers from very serious gaps, both in a broad and narrow sense. This substantially weakens the purported negative association between redistribution and well-established property rights, and also reveals the glaring limitations of the liberal conceptualisations of such rights when applied to democratic states with gaping inequality in land distribution and violent conflicts over rural land.

The independence of Brazil (1822) resulted in its separation from Portugal and its birth as an independent empire. It is important to understand the role of people of colour in this movement for independence. Focusing on Ceará, the main argument of this article is that people of colour, both free and enslaved, played an active and significant role in Brazilian independence, as they fought for freedom, for established rights, and for greater involvement in public affairs. They accomplished this amidst social upheaval, political instability and the rise of local authoritarian leadership resulting from the collapse of the old colonial order. As a study in subaltern agency, the contributions of this article go even further, as the consulted primary source material depicts the vital role of Ceará in the absorption of Brazil's northern regions into the new empire – an understudied topic in its own right.

The proliferating Sino-US peer competition is increasingly impacting Latin American states and triggering uncertainty. As China’s expanding influence in the region challenges longstanding US supremacy in the western hemisphere and reshapes the strategic calculus for regional states, hedging behaviour becomes increasingly opportune. This most notably includes Brazil, the largest state in Latin America both politically and economically, whose hedging behaviour oscillated between governments, a characteristic normally associated with states facing higher systemic pressures. As such, how does the Sino-US peer competition impact Brazil’s hedging strategy? And why do coping behaviours differ on various indices between different administrations, from Lula to Bolsonaro? Findings suggest that depending on whether the incumbent government was left- or right-wing, Brazil’s hedge was recalibrated as either pro- or anti-US regional supremacy.

What is the origin of the Frente Amplio? While most contributions focus on party-building strategies and the electoral success of the Left, scholars have overlooked the previous process of party formation. This paper studies the Frente Amplio's formation in 1971 as a case of complete electoral coordination between extant parties, factions and individual left-wing politicians who understood the electoral inefficiencies of competing with each other. Making use of a historical narrative, our account complements other approaches, suggesting the critical role of electoral coordination, favoured by two systemic conditions (electoral stability and programmatic politics) that eased the process of party formation.

Why do organised criminal groups (OCGs) resort to dismemberment – a costly and resource-intensive practice – rather than simpler targeted killings? This article challenges the notion that such brutal violence is solely a byproduct of inter-criminal rivalries or efforts to conceal violence. Instead, we argue that dismemberments serve to entrench criminal governance regimes. By publicising these acts and/or the reasons behind them, criminal groups are demarcating the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and reinforcing their system of norms and punishments. Dismemberments serve as communicative violence targeting three audiences: rivals, group members and civilians. We demonstrate the logic of this argument through an original qualitative dataset of dismemberment cases in Barranquilla, Colombia, and multiple interviews gathered during over five years of fieldwork. This article contributes to understanding the mechanisms of extra-lethal violence that sustain criminal governance in Latin American cities.