The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development

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In The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo boldly argues that crucial twentieth-century revolutionary challenges to colonialism and capitalism in the Americas have failed to resist—and in fact have been constitutively related to—the very developmentalist narratives that have justified and naturalized postwar capitalism. Saldaña-Portillo brings the critique of development discourse to bear on such exemplars of revolutionary and resistant political thought and practice as Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Malcolm X, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and the Guatemalan guerrilla resistance. She suggests that for each of these, developmentalist constructions frame the struggle as a heroic movement from unconsciousness to consciousness, from a childlike backwardness toward a disciplined and self-aware maturity. Reading governmental reports, memos, and policies, Saldaña-Portillo traces the arc of development narratives from its beginnings in the 1944 Bretton Woods conference through its apex during Robert S. McNamara's reign at the World Bank (1968–1981). She compares these narratives with models of subjectivity and agency embedded in the autobiographical texts of three revolutionary icons of the 1960s and 1970s—those of Che Guevara, Guatemalan insurgent Mario Payeras, and Malcolm X—and the agricultural policy of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Saldaña-Portillo highlights a shared paradigm of a masculinist transformation of the individual requiring the "transcendence" of ethnic particularity for the good of the nation. While she argues that this model of progress often alienated the very communities targeted by the revolutionaries, she shows how contemporary insurgents such as Rigoberta Menchú, the Zapatista movement, and queer Aztlán have taken up the radicalism of their predecessors to retheorize revolutionary subjectivity for the twenty-first century. Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 About the Series......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Part I......Page 15 1. Introduction......Page 16 2. Development and Revolution: Narratives of Liberation and Regimes of Subjectivity in the Postwar Period......Page 29 National Development as the Promise of a Postcolonial Era......Page 31 From Territory to Interiority: The Desiring Subject of Development......Page 41 From Rostow to McNamara and Back Again......Page 58 “Development Is Peace”? A Response from the Periphery......Page 61 Part II......Page 74 3. The Authorized Subjects of Revolution: Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Mario Payeras......Page 75 Resemblance-in-Difference......Page 77 Chronicle of a Death, Retold......Page 80 Is “el Nuevo Hombre” la Nueva Mujer in Drag?......Page 91 Betwixt Ariel and Caliban: A Small Arc of Historical Representation......Page 99 Che’s Legacy: “We Announced Simply That We Were Going to Triumph”......Page 103 4. Irresistible Seduction: Rural Subjectivity under Sandinista Agricultural Policy......Page 121 What Women Remember......Page 125 The Legacy of Dependency: Establishing an Agricultural State Sector, 1979–1981......Page 128 Stage Two: Agrarian Reform, 1981–1985......Page 139 Landownership and National Identity, 1985–1986......Page 151 For the Prisoners of Hope......Page 155 Part III......Page 162 5. Reiterations of the Revolutionary “I”: Menchú and the Performance of Subaltern Conciencia......Page 163 “Wavering on the Horizon of Social Being”......Page 165 Autobiographical Desire and the Testimonio Critic......Page 168 The Autobiographical “I” and the Ruse of Authenticity......Page 177 A Limited Participation......Page 192 6. The Politics of Silence: Development and Difference in Zapatismo......Page 204 Inventing the “Indian” for Spanish Colonialism......Page 213 The Rise of the Revolutionary Mestizo......Page 219 Cronica de una guerra anunciada......Page 228 Death by Development: “Dolor, pena, muerte, y . . . silencio”......Page 238 7. Epilogue Toward an American “American Studies”: Postrevolutionary Reflections on Malcolm X and the New Aztlán......Page 271 Malcolm X: Angry Prince or Gentle Servant?......Page 276 Disciplining the Other and White Anxiety......Page 286 Ticket to the New Aztlán......Page 292 1. Introduction......Page 305 2. Development and Revolution......Page 307 3. The Authorized Subjects of Revolution......Page 316 4. Irresistible Seduction......Page 321 5. Reiterations of the Revolutionary “I”......Page 328 6. The Politics of Silence......Page 339 7. Epilogue: Toward an American “American Studies”......Page 362 Works Cited......Page 366