ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book reveals that a more disaggregated and nuanced view of contemporary Latin American social movements and social change depends on a careful blending of the two prevailing theoretical and methodological approaches. It highlights the effectiveness of loosely articulated movement networks, of acting in the manifold arenas where power is exercised and reproduced. Social movements, the preceding essays reveal, have enhanced the quality of the region's restricted democracies in several important ways. The book focuses on how structural forces are translated into new or reconstituted identities, contestatory discourses and strategies, and articulatory practices. It identifies another pressing issue to be further investigated by students of Latin American social movements in the 1990s: the impact of democratic politics on movement strategies and dynamics. Collective identities shape movement strategies and are, in turn, reconstituted at various points in the course of a movement's struggle.
