Ramón Fogel’s short volume examines and compares two contemporary peasant social movements in Paraguay, both of which were crushed by the Stroessner regime in the 1970s. The Ligas Agrarias were centered in the southern department of Misiones, while the Pueblo de Dios originated in the frontier area of Caaguazú. The former was a Catholic-based movement that progressively matured as a vehicle for political action. The Pueblo de Dios, in contrast, was a fundamentalist evangelical sect that withdrew into itself, becoming a socially disarticulated, apolitical millenarian group. Fogel shows how both were a threat to the state because they rejected new hegemonic relationships which resulted from distinct processes of economic development in the two areas.
Although fogel never explicitly outlines his methodology, it is clear that his work is informed by contemporary dependency and world-systems perspectives, particularly as they are articulated by such Latin American authors as Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Fogel is concerned with how ideology is shaped and how it can change. By focusing on contradiction and crisis in the context of history and economic change, this study provides an ideal framework to investigate the power of ideology and politics in contemporary Paraguay.
Like many Latin American sociologists, Fogel’s use of participant observation with specific populations would identify him as an anthropologist to North American readers. Yet his most distinguishing characteristic, as is the case with a growing number of young Paraguayan intellectuals, is his dedication to research and his courage to take on sensitive topics in a political climate where such investigation is considered as subversive as the phenomena it investigates.
