Segregated and Split Society: Social and Political Dimensions of Inequality in the Chaco
This project focuses on group-based inequalities in the Gran Chaco (Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia). For the short-term scholarship for doctoral students of desiguALdades.net. I propose to explore the socio-political aspect of inequality. My central research issues concerns: (1) the construction of cultural differences and social hierarchies; (2) the persistence of unequal distribution of power between different cultural groups and their asymmetric access to public and political institutions; and (3) social policies of development and poverty reduction deployed with international funds by local NGOs and their long-term effects. The production and reproduction of enduring political inequalities in the Chaco region will be studied in the context of multiple processes of colonization and nation-building as well as under the influence of current trans-regional dynamics of democratization and the global expansion of market-oriented economy.
