Maristella Svampa’s Latin America in Debate: Indigeneity, Development, Dependency, Populism attempts to provide a continent-wide historical survey on changes in the debates surrounding her four thematic issues. Revealed in the title, Svampa’s four schools of thought are: Indigeneity, Development, Dependency, and Populism. Svampa’s main goal is to examine the intersections between her central four themes and analyze how they have shifted over time through new academia, social movements, and government action. Her book focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Svampa has managed to turn two hundred years of history into something both digestible and instantly comparative. With the four themes laid side-by-side, it is impossible not to notice connections and ideas that flow between. The resurgence of old topic debates motivates her, especially considering a recent shift towards conservatism in Latin America.

The examination of post-colonial Latin American politics is not a new one, but Svampa attempts to reshape what she considers the most important schools of thought, and the metamorphosis of the main debates within each. Svampa’s opening argument focuses on the impact, or lack-thereof, of Indigenous peoples in nation-building. She uses four countries for her case study, which she chose from both a regional and political point of view. First are Bolivia and Peru, the nations meant to represent the Andean Region. Next is Mexico which is meant to represent Mesoamerica, and Argentina for not its regional but genocidal link with Indigenous peoples. It would have been more effective to represent Latin America by four regions and give country case studies (which she does throughout), rather than focus on four countries yet cite a multitude of sources from others. One may wonder about the exclusion of Brazil, for example, or Ecuador, which is widely known for one of the most successful Indigenous peoples movements in the continent. The Andes, Amazon, Meso-America, and Southern Nations would have allowed Svampa to fully examine the interconnectedness between countries in the region. Choosing four countries places unnecessary limitations on a book that is supposed to function as a comprehensive continental survey.

Her argument takes on two major ideas, first the understanding of the original debates surrounding her four chosen issues and then analyzing how those debates have shifted with time and new scholarship. Part I “Latin American Debates and History” and Part II “Scenarios, Contemporary Debates, and Disputed Categories” allow Svampa and the reader a clear partition of thought. Part I divides into four chapters, each representing the main critique of the titular four points. An overarching theme is the impact of colonialism on the process of post-colonialism, coupled with a discussion on underdevelopment and marginality. She views marginality through the lens of miscegenation, self-recognition (as Indigenous); as well as more economic viewpoints such as marginality, the marginal mass, and lumpenproletariat. She opens with an examination on indigeneity as a category of being, rather than a political character. A major debate she carries throughout the book is that of Indigenismo and Indianismo; she refers to the argument between the two as a “tension field.” She divides the topics of indigeneity into three issues: autonomy, the plurinational state, and the right to prior consultation.

Svampa goes on to unpack dependency theory, and how it became a main framework among Latin American intellectuals in the mid-1960s. The section begins by introducing ideas presented in the original scholarship of dependency theory and then shifts to new scholarship and challenges towards the theory. The two main ideas she focuses on are the philosophy and scholarship of dependency theory compared to the reality in Latin America. Svampa presents the economic issues fully in the sections on “development” and “dependency.” The shift from social to economic benefits her examination of the development of communism and socialism in Latin America, as well as the reactions to Marxist and Leninist ideals. The implications of buen vivir (good living) are examined in Indigenous and mestizo communities alongside local ideas surrounding nature as well as extractivism happening within the region. The section on development focuses on ecology and local ideas of environmentalism as well as the threat and aftermath of extraction.

Svampa’s version of populism considers the five major debates: origin, possibilities for autonomy, political dominance, cultural identity, and the debate between (neo)populism and neoliberalism. The section consists of two parts, the first examining the history behind the first populist movement, then the socioeconomic reach of the movement. Please note she titled her last chapter, “Twenty-First Century Populisms,” instead of the singular populism. That detail should be appreciated.

The focus of the end of the book is whether Latin America has reached the end of a cycle, leading to an end of leftist governments and a resurgence of conservative groups. Svampa’s title represents schools of thought that she believes are most important, and it is likely there are those who disagree. The book could function more freely under a title such as, “Latin America in Debate: The Effects of Colonialism in the Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries.” She covers so many different issues in her book that her four themes would have served better as general overlays, rather than limiting sections. Yet Svampa is setting herself, and the reader, with a successful roadmap about the kind of overview they are to expect. Maristella Svampa is an Argentine historian, who cares very deeply for that of which she is writing, a fact that cannot go unappreciated. Her fight and reconciliation with the Argentine genocidal past should be venerated.