1st Edition
Uruguay in Transnational Perspective
Most of the world knows Uruguay only for its soccer team, or its vaunted title as the "Switzerland of South America," an enduring moniker given to the country for its earlier social welfare policies and relative stability. Even many scholarly narratives of Latin America fail to integrate the country into historical accounts, reducing the country to, as one historian has explained, "a periphery within the periphery that is Latin America."
This volume challenges that characterization, taking one of the most innovative small states in the region and analyzing its transnational influence on the world. Uruguay in Transnational Perspective takes a broad look at the country’s three-hundred-year history, connecting imperial practices and resistance, Afro-Latin movements, and feminist firebrands, among others to understand how the country and its citizens have influenced and shaped regional and global historical narratives in a way that has thus far been overlooked.
With a true collaboration between scholars of the Global North and Global South, the volume is both transnational in its scholarly focus and its production. Its interdisciplinary nature offers a broad range of perspectives from leading scholars in the field to re-evaluate Uruguay’s impact on the global stage.
Introduction: Uruguay in Transnational Focus
Debbie Sharnak and Pedro Cameselle-Pesce
Part One: From the Banda Oriental to a Republic
1. Trans-Imperial Dynamics and the Making of Independent Uruguay: The Portuguese Presence in the Formation of the Banda Oriental (1716-1810)
Fabrício Prado
2. Artigas and the Formation of Uruguay: A Transnational Look
Nicolás Duffau and Ana Frega, Translated by Inés Coira
3. Rethinking Trans-local Black Communities in Uruguay Across the Southern Cone
Alex Borucki
4. British Economic Expansion and Informal Empire in Uruguay during the Nineteenth Century
Peter Winn
Part Two: Forging Nationality and National Narratives
5. Italians in Montevideo and the Conception of a Latin Atlantic, 1915-1920
John Galante
6. Between Offside to Orsái: Uruguayan Soccer, a (Trans)National Sport
Soledad Mocchi-Radichi and Rodrigo Viqueira
7. Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and the Rise of Tango in the Early 20th Century
Daniel Richter
8. The Global Circulation of Eugenic Ideas Through Women’s Gymnastics in Mid-Twentieth Century Uruguay
Paola Dogliotti Moro
Part Three: Social Movements and Solidarities
9. "For Peace and Freedom:" Paulina Luisi and Global Anti-Fascist Feminism from Uruguay
Katherine M. Marino
10. Black Anti-fascism: The Transnational Politics of Nuestra Raza
Vannina Sztainbok
11. Panorama Estudiantil: Mapping the Transnational Solidarities and Ideologies of Uruguayan University Students (1908-1956)
Megan Strom
Part Four: Exploring Cold War Uruguay Transnationally
12. Aldo Solari and Vivian Trías: Two Intellectual Drifts in the Cold War
Aldo Marchesi and Vania Markarian
13. The secret services of the Soviet Bloc and their allies in Uruguay: The fight against imperialism during the first half of the 1960s
Michal Zourek
14. Christian Democratic Parties of Uruguay and Chile in the discussion on the unity of the left (1964-1971)
Jimena Alonso
15. An Anarchy for The South: Third Worldism, Popular Power, and the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation, 1956-76
Troy Araiza Kokinis
16. Uruguay and the "Cuban issue," 1959-1964
Roberto García Ferreira
17. Wounds that won’t heal: Mujeres case challenges to Uruguay’s post-transitional culture of impunity
Mariana Achugar and Gabriela Fried Amilivia
Biography
Pedro Cameselle-Pesce is an Assistant Professor of History at Western Washington University. He has published several essays on Uruguay-U.S. relations and regional anti-fascist movements. His article, "Italian-Uruguayans for Free Italy: Serafino Romualdi's Quest for Transnational Anti-Fascist Networks during World War II," can be found in The Americas (2020).
Debbie Sharnak is Assistant Professor of History and International Studies at Rowan University. Her research focuses on Latin America, human rights, transitional justice, and U.S. foreign policy. Sharnak’s book, Of Light and Struggle: Social Justice, Human Rights, and Accountability in Uruguay, was published in 2023.
