Abstract, Beasts of Prey or Rational Animals? Private Governance in Brazil’s Jogo do Bicho

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Beasts of Prey or Rational Animals? Private Governance in Brazil’s Jogo do Bicho

by Danilo Freire

A rational-choice account of Brazil’s jogo do bicho (animal game), possibly the largest illegal lottery game in the world, examines the mechanisms that have fostered the lottery’s notable growth outside the boundaries of Brazilian law and reveals how animal-game financiers combine costly signals and selective incentives to induce cooperation from members of the community and exploit the fragmentation of Brazil’s political system to advance their long-term interests.

Political Report # 1297 Puerto Ricans Fear Schools Will Be Privatized in the Wake of Hurricane Maria

By Aida Chavez and Rachel M. Cohen The Intercept

AS HURRICANE MARIA departed Puerto Rico, leaving utter ruin in its wake, one community in Vieques picked itself out of the wreckage by focusing on getting school back open. "The community took out of their own time and said, 'Let's do this, we need to repair and reopen this,' and we started working," Josuan Aloyo told The Intercept in Spanish. "Cleaning out the trash and debris, and trying to find people that had the proper tools." Aloyo, assistant director of Escuela Adrienne Serrano, said the school opened up immediately. Aloyo said they were determined to take in as many students as possible in the hopes of giving even a bit of order back to their lives. Right after the hurricane, Escuela Adrienne Serrano had 40 students, a number that steadily increased each week until they managed to bring 80 students back. But then, on October 18, Humacao School District's regional director told Escuela Adrienne Serrano to suspend classes. School administrators were told they "couldn't have students until they authorized us to open the school," Aloyo said. "We couldn't have classes until the firefighters certified us." "Ever since that moment, we didn't listen to them. We kept receiving the students that arrived but Friday, we ran out of potable water, so we had to start turning down students," Aloyo said. "We hope tomorrow, if we get water, we can start receiving students. Whoever shows up, we'll receive them. If there's no food in the cafeteria, well, we can just cook for them ourselves and make a simple breakfast and lunch."

Political Report # 1277 In Wake of Hurricane Irma, Vultures Eye Puerto Rico’s Electric Grid for Privatization

By Kate Aronoff, Angel Manuel Soto, and Averie Timm,  The Intercept

Vultures circling the wreckage of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Irma are closing in on a long-sought prize: the privatizing of the island’s electric utility. Puerto Rico avoided the very worst of the storm, which darted just north of the U.S. territory. But it didn’t escape unscathed. Following a request from Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló, the White House declared a state of emergency. Three people were killed and more than 1 million were left without electricity in the storm’s wake. The fragile body responsible for that power is the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, whose executive leadership warned ahead of the storm that parts of the island could be left without electricity for up to six months. Thanks to the change in the storm’s path and a crew of dedicated line workers, Prepa, the island’s sole electricity provider, now expects most towns to have their lights back on within two weeks and full power within a month. As of Monday, more than 70 percent of homes had already gotten electricity back. But once the lights are turned on, Puerto Rican households will face a new threat. “[The investors] have the best sales pitch now,” Carlos Gallisá, a former consumer representative on Prepa’s board of directors, told The Intercept by phone from San Juan. “They have already started, saying that only privatization will serve the people.”

Abstract, Site of Memory and Site of Forgetting The Repurposing of the Punta Carretas Prison

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Site of Memory and Site of Forgetting The Repurposing of the Punta Carretas Prison

by Ana Guglielmucci and Luciana Scaraffuni Ribeiro

Efforts to classify the Punta Carretas Prison, repurposed as a shopping center, into a “site of forgetting” imposed through the logic of the market obscure the ongoing productivity of the place as a vehicle of memory linked not only to the military dictatorship but also to the privatization of public patrimony. They fail to account for the dynamic and complex process of construction of a common past resulting from direct confrontations between different sectors of Uruguayan society. The increasing politicization and spatialization of collective memory, focusing on past experiences of repression, overlook the link between memory, history, nation-state, museum, everyday life, people’s dreams, their sense of the future, and utopia.

Abstract, Site of Memory and Site of Forgetting The Repurposing of the Punta Carretas Prison

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Site of Memory and Site of Forgetting The Repurposing of the Punta Carretas Prison

by Ana Guglielmucci and Luciana Scaraffuni Ribeiro

Efforts to classify the Punta Carretas Prison, repurposed as a shopping center, into a “site of forgetting” imposed through the logic of the market obscure the ongoing productivity of the place as a vehicle of memory linked not only to the military dictatorship but also to the privatization of public patrimony. They fail to account for the dynamic and complex process of construction of a common past resulting from direct confrontations between different sectors of Uruguayan society. The increasing politicization and spatialization of collective memory, focusing on past experiences of repression, overlook the link between memory, history, nation-state, museum, everyday life, people’s dreams, their sense of the future, and utopia.

Political Report # 1165 Popular Uprising Backs Striking Teachers in Southern Mexico

The fight for teachers' rights has blossomed into a movement against education privatization. This sign at a July 6 march says, "We parents support the teachers against the education reform." Photo: Valeria Méndez (CC BY-ND 2.0) By Emily Keppler, Labor Notes

In Chiapas, Mexico, what started as a fight for teachers union power has exploded into a popular movement against the privatization of public education and the entire public sector. Fifty thousand teachers, students, parents, and small-business owners marched at sunset July 11 through the streets of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital city of Chiapas-in just one of at least 10 protests across five states. Meanwhile an hour east, in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, parents, students, social justice organizations, and members of civil society were gathering for the 15th night of their highway blockade. The protests came as representatives of the CNTE, the dissident caucus in the teachers union, met with federal representatives in Mexico City for their third dialogue on the controversial education reform. The teachers have been fighting this reform since 2012, when the Mexican Congress passed the measure. It's being imposed gradually, region by region. But in the last few months, as the reform has encroached on the more militant southern states, the fight for teachers' rights has attracted more allies and blossomed into a movement against education privatization.

Abstract, Chronicle of a Dispossession Foretold: Tourist Development on Mexico’s Pacific Coast by María Veronica Ibarra García and Circe Badillo Salas

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Abstract:   Chronicle of a Dispossession Foretold: Tourist Development on Mexico’s Pacific Coast 

by María Veronica Ibarra García and Circe Badillo Salas

The production of a tourist space on the Bahía de Banderas, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, has required converting the land, the river, and the bay into private property, dispossessing the citizenry of its access to them and interfering with the right of free transit. The production of this unequal and exclusive space demonstrates the absence of democracy in spatial production and the defenselessness of the citizenry in the face of the neoliberal project.