In this study, we assess how well globally-threatened bird species in Latin America are currently represented within existing protected areas, and we identify conservation priority areas for the most under-protected species. We used publicly available data to map the Area of Habitat (AOH) for each of the 129 land birds in South America listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as either Critically Endangered, Endangered, or Vulnerable (the latter only under criterion D – those with the smallest populations or ranges). We then set two minimum conservation targets for each species: first a population-based target that estimates the proportion of the AOH needed to conserve 1,000 mature individuals (or the total population if smaller) to prevent extinction; and second, an area-based target that estimates the amount of habitat needed to sustain the long-term conservation of each species. The AOH maps were then overlaid with existing protected areas to identify those species that do not yet have their minimum conservation targets met. Using this approach, we identified 10 species that require additional protection to avoid extinction, and a further 45 species that need expanded protection for sustained conservation. Fortunately, most species already met their target. We also ran a prioritization analysis to identify and map the most important places for meeting the goals of the under-protected species. We found that just 661.3 km2 is needed to meet population-based targets for the ten species of greatest concern, and 14,363 km2 is needed to meet area-based targets for all under-protected species combined. These areas represent <0.1% of the region’s land area and are mostly concentrated in five countries (Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil). Expanding reserves to cover these areas should result in both improved conservation outcomes and Red List status for these species.

This special dossier examines how understandings of Andean glaciers transform under the planetary crisis, defined by humanity’s impact on geophysical processes at a planetary scale. Once regarded as remnants of deep geological time, glaciers have become emblematic casualties of anthropogenic global warming, their accelerated melting compressing geological history into human timescales and raising urgent ethical and political questions about protection, mitigation, and loss. This interdisciplinary collection, including contributions focused on Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and the wider region, calls for approaches that move beyond universalizing Anthropocene narratives and toward historically and territorially situated accounts of glacial change, challenging colonial and extractivist frameworks that have long shaped the governance of ice and nature. The introduction argues that dominant scientific and state-centered framings—rooted in objectivity, distant observation, and a physicochemical definition of ice—tend to abstract glaciers into universal, placeless indicators of global change, obscuring the local extractivist and colonial dynamics driving their destruction, particularly through mining of critical minerals for a green energy transition. Against this detached view, the dossier foregrounds situated, relational, and often Indigenous conceptions of glaciers as vital entities embedded in organic, social, and spiritual life.

Household food (HFI) and water insecurity (HWI) have each been linked to poorer child health but their joint relationship is understudied. We used 2023–2024 Ecuadorian National Infant Malnutrition Survey data to examine the independent and joint associations of HFI and HWI exposure with illness, anaemia, and malnutrition in 6–59 month olds. The Food Insecurity Experience Scale measured marginal and moderate–severe HFI. Water indicators (source, availability, accessibility, microbial safety) measured HWI. We used a 4-category indicator to classify HFI only, HWI only, joint HFI/HWI, and secure food and water. Child respiratory (RI) and diarrheal illness (DI) were assessed from caregiver reports, anaemia from blood haemoglobin, and nutrition indicators from anthropometric measurements. Modified Poisson regression models estimated adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR). Joint HFI/HWI was associated with a higher RI and DI prevalence, HFI only with higher RI, stunting and overweight/obesity, and HWI only with higher overweight/obesity but lower anaemia. The age-stratified analyses linked joint HFI/HWI and HFI only to higher RI and DI in 6–23 month olds and higher RI in 24–59 month olds. Joint HFI/HWI and HWI were linked to lower anaemia. In 24–59 month olds, HFI only was associated with higher stunting and HWI only with higher overweight/obesity. Exclusion of marginal HFI in the sensitivity analysis identified child-level double malnutrition as more prevalent in 24–59 month olds from HFI only or joint HFI/HWI households. These findings suggest HFI and HWI independently and jointly influence child health and nutrition, underscoring the need for effective multisectoral policies and interventions simultaneously targeting both.

Despite the expansion of non-contributory cash transfer programmes in Latin America – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic – public support for a universal basic income (UBI) remains remarkably low. Using original survey data from seven countries, we find that fewer than 10 per cent of respondents support both the universality and unconditionality that define UBI. Notably, support for UBI is not significantly shaped by socio-economic status or left-right orientation, and current recipients of targeted transfers are no more likely than others to favour UBI. In contrast, support for targeted programmes – particularly for the extreme poor – is robust and explained by income, education and ideology, consistent with classic self-interest models. These findings challenge the view that targeted programmes may serve as stepping stones toward universalist policies. Rather, they suggest that such programmes may consolidate a political logic of deservingness that constrains broader redistributive ambitions.

This article places maritime violence at the center of the history of international ordering. It views the transformation of the nineteenth-century Atlantic from the deck of one ship, a Baltimore-built privateer called the Irresistible. The ship’s captain seized Spanish and Portuguese shipping under a privateering commission from the Oriental Republic. Sponsorship of privateers by the Oriental Republic and other new Latin American governments reflected an open-ended Atlantic constitutionalism that recognized sovereignty at multiple scales. That constitutional context formed the background to three cases involving the Irresistible and its crew that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The cases show how privateering politics opened to wide-ranging debates about the definition of states, war, and piracy, while preserving the indeterminacies of sovereignty in the new Atlantic system. That system, closing as it formed, was composed of new states pressured to align with powerful empires. Privateering disputes featured sharpening rhetoric about piracy as a crime under the law of nations while at the same time preserving a regime that protected low-level maritime violence. Situating the politics of piracy at the nexus of domestic and international orders, the article highlights the political uses and legal limits of the discourse of pirates as enemies of all and connects this history to an understanding of terrorism and states in the international order.

This study examines the presence and representation of the concept of soundscapes in Latin American primary school music education curricula. A documentary analysis of 18 countries’ curricula is carried out, focusing on references to soundscapes and their derivatives. The results reveal an inconsistent presence of the concept of soundscape, ranging from explicit or implicit references to an absence of the term, consistent with R. Murray Schafer’s ideas. Second, soundscapes are associated with educational objectives related to listening as a gateway to developing aesthetic experiences, self-care and environmental awareness, creating everyday sound environments linked to local identity and heritage and recording and disseminating sound pieces using digital resources. It is concluded that, in the Latin American context, soundscape acquires multiple educational, cultural and cross-cutting dimensions, promoting interdisciplinarity, creativity, environmental education and digital competence as pillars of a music education committed to contemporary issues. The study recommends a greater presence of soundscape in the region’s educational policies, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

This article provides a comparative analysis of the taxonomies and categorical frameworks used to identify Afro-descendant populations in Latin America across the 2010 and 2020 census rounds. These rounds mark the first time in the region’s postcolonial history that all countries included at least one ethno-racial question targeting Afro-descendants. The results suggest that most national statistical offices elicit responses from Afro-descendants through a multicultural approach to enumeration, including questions on ancestry, cultural customs, and group belonging. Conversely, many of these ethnic-based question formulations paradoxically employ racial categories to classify Afro-descendant responses, such as negro, mulato, and moreno. These findings suggest that the growing statistical visibility of Afro-descendants in the region is partly shaped by negotiations between national statistical offices and stakeholders over categories that render Afro-descendant populations identifiable to the state as distinct ethno-racial groups. These negotiations have significant implications in a region where census classifications often serve as a basis for securing identity-based collective rights and legal protections under a “new Latin American constitutionalism,” in which Afro-descendants seemingly must rearticulate their relationships with the state from “a rubric of race to one of ethnicity.”

In what conditions are national episcopates in Latin America likely to confront autocratic regimes? In what conditions are bishops positioned to mediate state-society conflicts? This article offers a structural account of episcopal responses to autocracy through comparative analysis of church-state relations and pastoral letters published in Cuba and Nicaragua during critical junctures from the Cold War to the 2020s. The personalization of regime authority, combined with repressive violence, increases the likelihood that bishops publicly confront autocracy. Personalization reduces opportunities for mediation, as regime leaders resist compromising their authority in mediation processes. Moreover, United States punitive measures against autocracies dependent on great power support can shift bishops into confrontational roles. Latin American regimes seeking alliances with geopolitical adversaries of the United States can also preclude opportunities for bishops to mediate conflicts. Conversely, the depersonalization of authority and the necessity to alleviate United States pressure opens the space that makes episcopal mediation efforts possible.