Editor's Choice Ep. 13: P FKN R: Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican Resistance w/ Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau
Release Date: 07/09/2026
Fighting Against the Return of Bolsonarismo: Brazil's First Round Election w/ Felipe Antunes de Oliveira
Latin American Perspectives
On October 4, Brazilians voted in the first round of a general election, and for the first time since 1998 Lula did not finish first. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, eldest son of the imprisoned former president, took 47 percent to Lula's 45, forcing a runoff on October 25, while the Bolsonaro family's Liberal Party became the largest force in both houses of Congress. Two days after the vote, Felipe Antunes de Oliveira joins us to walk through the electoral map, explain why the left did so badly, and look ahead to the second round and what a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would mean for...
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Editor's Choice Ep. 14: Hispanic Technocracy — From Fascism to Catholic Authoritarianism w/ Daniel Kressel
Latin American Perspectives
Hosts Alexander Scott and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli speak with Daniel Gunnar Kressel about his book Hispanic Technocracy: From Fascism to Catholic Authoritarianism in Spain, Argentina, and Chile, 1945–1991 (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Kressel argues that fascism did not simply die in 1945 but mutated, and that across Franco's Spain, Onganía's Argentina, and Pinochet's Chile a distinct post-fascist school of thought became state ideology, fusing Catholic spiritual mission, authoritarian rule, and early neoliberal economics. The conversation begins with Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora...
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Imperialism Ain't What It Used to Be: Cuba, Venezuela, and the Return of the Colonial State w/ Andrew Smolski
Latin American Perspectives
Andrew Smolski returns to the podcast to continue ouron going conversation on US imperialism and Cuba, recorded September 11, 2026. We discuss labor and neoliberalization in Mexico, the Cuban economy from the Special Period to the present, the new sanctions on Cuba and the US oil agreement with Venezuela, and the return of a nineteenth-century colonial politics in the hemisphere. Andrew Smolski is an assistant professor of rural sociology in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education at the Pennsylvania State University and a coordinating editor of Latin American...
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Political Ecology, Gender, and the Environment in Latin America (Parte 2): conversación con las autoras del número
Latin American Perspectives
En esta segunda parte de nuestra conversación sobre el número de enero de 2026 de Latin American Perspectives, "Political Ecology, Gender and the Environment in Latin America", vamos directamente a la investigación junto a cuatro de las autoras del dossier. La discusión, facilitada por la coeditora del número Mayarí Castillo (socióloga de la Universidad Mayor), reúne a Evelyn Arriagada, Paula Contreras, Beatriz Cid y Paula Acuña para explorar cómo el género funciona como categoría crítica en la ecología política y los estudios ambientales en América Latina. A lo largo del...
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Editor's Choice Ep. 13: P FKN R: Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican Resistance w/ Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau
Latin American Perspectives
Hosts Alexander Scott and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli speak with Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau about their new book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke University Press, 2026). Díaz and Rivera-Rideau — creators of the "Bad Bunny Syllabus" — situate Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio within more than a century of Puerto Rican history and a much longer tradition of music as resistance. The conversation traces the political and economic conditions that shaped Bad Bunny's formative years: the end of Section 936, the debt crisis and the...
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US Imperialism and Cuban Development w/ Andrew Smolski
Latin American Perspectives
Alexander Scott speaks with rural sociologist Andrew Smolski about U.S. imperialism and the long history of empire in Cuban development. Drawing on Smolski's archival research and his work on Cuban agriculture, the conversation traces how imperialism has shaped Cuba's capacity to develop across five centuries — from Spanish colonialism, the Haitian Revolution, and the rise of the sugar-slavery complex, through U.S. occupation and the Platt Amendment era, to a blockade now in its seventh decade — and asks what it would mean for development research to treat imperialism as a condition...
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Editor's Choice Ep. 12: Emergent Quilombos: Black Life and Hip-Hop in Brazil w/ Bryce Henson
Latin American Perspectives
Bryce Henson joins the pod to discuss his book Emergent Quilombos: Black Life and Hip Hop in Brazil (University of Texas Press, 2023). Drawing on ethnographic research in Salvador da Bahia, Henson explores Brazilian hip hop as a diasporic cultural and political movement rooted in Black radical traditions, anti-racist struggle, and collective community formation. Throughout the conversation, the group discusses the historical significance of quilombos in Brazil, the relationship between Blackness and political struggle, the role of hip hop as a form of “quilombismo,” and the...
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U.S. Imperialism Enters a New Stage w/ Steve Ellner
Latin American Perspectives
In this episode of the Latin American Perspectives Podcast, Alexander Scott speaks with historian and political scientist Steve Ellner about the changing nature of U.S. imperialism and the escalating political crisis in Venezuela. Drawing on Ellner’s recent work, the conversation examines sanctions, economic warfare, “hyper-imperialism,” the Venezuelan opposition, and the broader geopolitical tensions shaping Latin America today. Topics discussed include: Sanctions as a form of warfare Economic coercion and financial blockades U.S. policy toward Venezuela María Corina Machado and the...
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Political Ecology, Gender, and the Environment in Latin America con Mayarí Castillo
Latin American Perspectives
En este episodio del podcast de Latin American Perspectives, conversamos con Mayarí Castillo, socióloga de la Universidad Mayor y coeditora del número de enero de 2026, sobre los principales ejes que estructuran este nuevo dossier. A lo largo de la conversación, abordamos la ecología política como un marco para comprender la relación entre sociedad, naturaleza y poder en América Latina, y exploramos las raíces históricas de los conflictos socioambientales contemporáneos—desde el colonialismo y la formación de los Estados hasta el extractivismo y las crisis climáticas actuales....
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Amazon Rainforest and Socio-Ecological Alternatives in Latin America w/ Claudia Horn
Latin American Perspectives
LAP coordinating editor Claudia Horn (King’s College London) joins the pod to discuss the September 2025 issue: Amazon Rainforest and Socio-Ecological Alternatives in Latin America. What is the Amazon—and how should we understand it beyond dominant environmental, state-centered, or extractivist narratives? Our conversation explores the concept of multiplicity as a way of rethinking the Amazon as a space of diverse social worlds, political struggles, and ways of life. We also examine the forces threatening these worlds, while highlighting the forms of resistance, collective...
info_outlineHosts Alexander Scott and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli speak with Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau about their new book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke University Press, 2026).
Díaz and Rivera-Rideau — creators of the "Bad Bunny Syllabus" — situate Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio within more than a century of Puerto Rican history and a much longer tradition of music as resistance. The conversation traces the political and economic conditions that shaped Bad Bunny's formative years: the end of Section 936, the debt crisis and the imposition of the fiscal oversight board Puerto Ricans call La Junta, the gentrification and displacement accelerated by Acts 20/22, and the devastation and abandonment of Hurricane María. Vanessa shares her family's own experience of the storm and its aftermath, and both authors discuss the summer 2019 uprising that forced Governor Ricardo Rosselló's resignation — with particular attention to the Black feminist organizing of Colectiva Feminista en Construcción and the deep genealogy connecting bomba and plena to reggaetón and perreo as forms of communal protest. They close with Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance, the politics of a Spanish-language anti-colonial statement on one of the most-watched stages in the world, and why, in Puerto Rico, the party is the protest.
Vanessa Díaz is associate professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University and author of Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood (Duke University Press, 2020).
Petra R. Rivera-Rideau is associate professor of American Studies at Wellesley College and author of Remixing Reggaetón: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico (Duke University Press, 2015) and Fitness Fiesta!: Selling Latinx Culture through Zumba (Duke University Press, 2024).
Get the book:
P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance is available now from Duke University Press: https://www.dukeupress.edu/p-fkn-r (also available in Spanish)
Explore the Bad Bunny Syllabus: https://www.badbunnysyllabus.com/
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