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Martín Cortés & Inés Valdez | From Marxism and Dependentismo to Civil Society and Democracy
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Tue, Feb 10, 2026
12 PM – 1:15 PM EST (GMT-5)
Aaron Burr Hall, Room 216 (open to students, faculty, visiting scholars and staff)
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
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This talk examines how contemporary political debates centered on democracy are indebted to intellectual shifts that occurred during the transitions from dictatorship to democracy in Latin America in the 1980s. We will discuss the contrast between the political languages of this period (centered around civil society and the rule of law) and the dominant debates of the 1970s, focused on the state, dependent development, and revolution. We will assess both the promises and the gaps of the transitional frameworks and how they still structure contemporary Latin American politics.
ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS
Martín Cortés’s research focuses on political theory, intellectual history, and the history of the left. His work examines the key theoretical contributions of Latin American Marxism, including critiques of linear time, the relationship between social class and political subjectivity, and the significance of the national question. At IAS, he will explore the concept of "non-Western Marxisms," analyzing the connections between Latin American Marxism and other Marxist traditions from the capitalist periphery, such as those of the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.
Inés Valdez works on the political theory of empire, Latin American Marxism, and racial capitalism. At the Institute, she is working on Marxist dependency theory. A recovery of this tradition demonstrates that it has important implications for pressing issues in anti-colonial political theory. These include postcolonial democracy, the perils of rehabilitating the New International Economic Order, and the place of political economy in theorizing empire and anti-colonialism.
DISCUSSANT
Vera S. Candiani, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University
This event is open to students, faculty, visiting scholars and staff.
Sponsorship of an event does not constitute institutional endorsement of external speakers or views presented.
Where
Aaron Burr Hall, Room 216 (open to students, faculty, visiting scholars and staff)
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Speakers
Hanna Garth
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Princeton University
Hanna Garth is a sociocultural and medical anthropologist focused on the anthropology of food. Garth’s scholarship is broadly focused on the ways in which marginalized communities struggle to overcome structural inequalities and prejudice as they attempt to access basic needs. Garth studies these questions in Latin America and the Caribbean, and among Black and Latinx communities in the United States. She has focused on the ways in which the global industrial food system affects food access inequalities. Her first book "" (Stanford University Press, 2020), is based on ethnographic research in Santiago de Cuba, the island's second largest city. Her research reveals the ways that even food distribution systems, which ostensibly supply sufficient nutritional needs, can also have detrimental effects on individual and community wellbeing. Her next book project will draw on ethnographic research she has conducted on the Los Angeles Food Justice Movement from 2008-2021. This project analyzes the work of organizations that are trying to improve access to healthy food in South Los Angeles. Based on this work she co-edited the volume (University of Minnesota Press, 2020). She is also conducting new research in South Los Angeles on emergency food programming during and after COVID-19, and developing future work on fish and seafood in the Caribbean.
Prior to arriving at Princeton she was an assistant professor in Anthropology at UC San Diego from 2016-2021. She received her PhD in Anthropology from UCLA, an MPH from Boston University, and was a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine in Anthropology.
Hosted By
Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies