Belen Villegas Pla Awarded John Fell Oxford University Press Grant
The Latin American Centre is pleased to announce that Belen Villegas Pla, Departmental Lecturer in Latin American Studies, has been awarded a John Fell Oxford University Press grant to support a new research project.
Project Title: The political economy of 'care' in the new right-wing movements: the Latin American case.
There is a growing consensus among scholars and policymakers that issues related to “care” have gained significant prominence on the public and political agenda worldwide. In Latin America, over the past ten years, care and social reproduction have become central to the political discourse of center-left governments, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public policies addressing the issue of “care,” historically promoted by feminist and progressive movements, have focused on providing goods and services to children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, in most cases with a gender perspective.
However, these issues are also increasingly being incorporated into the narratives of right-wing and far-right political parties around the world, and Latin America is no exception. In contrast to the type of intervention carried out by progressive movements, far-right political parties are reinterpreting “the problem of care” by emphasizing the recovery of “traditional family values,” new visions of the role of the state, and pro-natalist discourses combined with a strong anti-immigration stance. Consequently, while feminist and progressive movements have long shaped the care agenda in Latin America, an emerging phenomenon -the appropriation of these themes by conservative and far-right actors- remains underexamined. Understanding this shift is crucial to grasping how social reproduction is becoming a contentious field. By emphasizing care as a central arena of ideological struggle, this project offers timely insights that are both theoretically and politically significant. Given the importance of Latin America in the care debates, it is vital to assess whether the emerging right-wing proposals involve retracting public care policies and redefining the role of the state in social reproduction. Furthermore, examining these regional transformations will contribute to understanding the shared aspirations of the emerging right wing worldwide.
