Edited by Iván Molina, the most prolific Costa Rican historian of his generation, and Steven Palmer, the most influential North-American historian in Costa Rican social sciences in recent decades, The Costa Rica Reader: History, Culture, Politics offers a highly original selection of materials on Costa Rican society.
The book is organised in eight sections, which go from the colonial period to contemporary politics. The materials include original documents published for the first time in this collection, to edited versions of already printed chapters and articles. The editors seem to have in mind diversity as a guide for their selection. This insight drove them to include illustrations, fictional pieces and autobiographies, scarcely available together in any other publication, either in English or in Spanish. Visual culture and printed materials are combined in original ways. Disciplinary boundaries are not a matter of concern; instead they decided to identify themes in which materials gathered from different traditions come together. The authors represent a panoply of voices that includes a diverse mixture of class, gender and ethnic backgrounds.
The starting section explores issues around Costa Rican exceptionalism, a much repeated narrative suggesting that since colonial times, poverty and isolation has driven Costa Rica society towards a sense of being unique. The editors show that the story is much more complex. Then they introduce contributions which bring light into the transformations experienced by Costa Rican society with the introduction of coffee. The collection continues with sections in which political events that culminated with the 1948 Civil War are examined. A major concern of the next sections is to show the ethnic diversity of which Costa Rican society is formed. Ethnic diversity has not been a concern of mainstream Costa Rican social sciences in part because narratives of exceptionalism have been constructed on the basis of the ‘white legend’, which insists that the Costa Rican population has been homogenously white. The emphasis of the editors on issues of diversity and ethnicity is much higher than what can be found in the local social science literature. Issues of environmental degradation are examined, especially in relation to working conditions in agriculture. The last section entitled Tropical Soundings revisits recent institutional changes and the social movements that have been resisting neoliberal policies in the country.
A number of themes could have received more attention. The media is a missing topic in this collection; indeed the index does not report a single entry. While Costa Rican society modernised its institutions towards a social democratic welfare state in which insurance, health, electricity, telecommunications and higher education were among the key sectors; cultural policy advocated conservative perspectives. This weakness of cultural policies has diminished the possibilities of having a wider public sphere voicing opposition to projects that have debilitated welfare institutions in recent decades. Developments associated with new technologies, such as cable TV or the internet, do not seem to challenge this paradox.
Tourism is another topic which could have received more attention and not only in relation to the destruction of the environment. Tourist complexes especially along the coast have grown dramatically in recent years. These facilities attract high income visitors who are served by local workers in exchange of low salaries. Despite xenophobia, Nicaraguan migrants are needed to build hotels and other facilities that First World tourists are going to enjoy.
A related issue that perhaps does not receive enough attention in this book is the growth in the income gap that has taken place in recent years. Gini index reports show that despite Costa Rica being the second least unequal society in Latin America (the most unequal region of the world) after Uruguay, inequality has been increasing faster than in other countries. New forms of capital accumulation, especially associated with exports and tourism, are among the main contributing factors to new changing forms of inequality. This contrast of prosperity and impoverishment is producing new sorts of segregation which up to now have received little attention. There is a ‘spatialisation of inequalities’ that in the case of Costa Rica's capital, San José, takes the form of exclusive urban developments which coexist with humble communities. Many residents of these humble communities are domestic workers or private guards employed by residents of fortified enclaves. A geographical perspective could enrich the selected materials. In short, to some extent, the material bases of Costa Rica's sense of ‘exceptionalism’ have changed and it could be a matter of a further research by new generations of latinoamericanistas who will find this reader highly relevant especially in these years when Central America is not a priority on the agenda of Latin American studies.
Overall, this is a major effort of synthesis of Costa Rican history, culture and society, which will provide English speaking readers with an informed introduction. While critical of Costa Rica's history and recent developments, the editors seem to suggest throughout the reader that Costa Rica's case shows that there are chances to build institutions and policies oriented to the wellbeing of the majority. Central American countries in particular are not condemned to highly polarised societies either in political or economic terms. To be designed for an external audience enables the editors to locate the country in a comparative perspective and to be more optimistic than materials written for local audiences. Distance both geographical but also in terms of language gives authors a sense of optimism particularly welcome when free trade negotiations seem to be the climax of 25 years of neoliberalism.
