The Right Against Rights in Latin America

From President Bolsonaro's openly racist, misogynist, and homophobic rhetoric in Brazil, to the politicisation of gender ideology leading to the rejection of a peace deal in Colombia and beyond, Latin America is home to right-against-rights movements that have grown in numbers, strength, and influence in recent years. New anti-rights groups are intent on blocking, rolling back, and reversing social movements' legislative advances by obstructing justice and accountability processes and influencing politicians across the region.

The Right against Rights in Latin America contains chapters that empirically explore the breadth, depth, and diversity of a new wave of anti-rights movements in Latin America. It details why they are fundamentally different from previous movements in the region, and — perhaps more importantly — why it is of vital importance that we study, analyse, and understand them in a global context.

Leigh A. Payne, University of Oxford,Julia Zulver, University of Oxford and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,Simón Escoffier, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Leigh A. Payne is Professor of Sociology and Latin America at the University of Oxford, St Antony's College. She works broadly on responses to past atrocity. Together with Gabriel Pereira and Laura Bernal Bermúdez, she has published Transitional Justice and Corporate Accountability: Deploying Archimedes' Lever (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and a follow-up edited volume on Economic Actors and the Limits of Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2022). She has also edited with Karina Ansolabehere and Barbara Frey Disappearances in the Post-Transition Era in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2021) and with Juan Espindola Collaboration in Authoritarian and Armed Conflict Settings (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Julia Zulver is a Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies. She is currently based at the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas at the UNAM in Mexico City (2020-2022). Her project 'High-Risk Leadership in Latin America' focuses on women's leadership in the pursuit of social justice in various violent contexts. She earned her DPhil in Sociology at the University of Oxford in 2018, where she studied how and why organisations of women mobilise in high-risk contexts, actions which expose them to further danger. Her book High-Risk Feminism in Colombia: Women's Mobilization in Violent Contexts was published by Rutgers University Press in 2022.


Simón Escoffier is an Assistant Professor at the Instituto Iberoamericano de Desarrollo Sostenible (IIDS) and Faculty Fellow in the PhD in Social Sciences Programme at Universidad Autónoma de Chile. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Political Science Institute at Universidad Católica de Chile. He is the author of the book Mobilising at the Urban Margins: Citizenship and Patronage Politics in Post-Dictatorial Chile (Cambridge University Press). He holds a doctorate from the Sociology Department and St Antony's College at University of Oxford. His research sits at the intersection of social movements, citizenship, urban marginality, local governance, democracy, and Latin American studies. He teaches on sociological theory, politics, and social movements.

1. Introduction: The Right-Against-Rights in Latin America, SIMÓN ESCOFFIER, LEIGH A. PAYNE, AND JULIA ZULVER
2. The Rights-Against-Rights in Latin America: An Analytical Framework, LEIGH A. PAYNE
3. Families of Perpetrators Mobilising Against Human Rights Trials in Argentina, VALENTINA SALVI
4. The Religious Right and Anti-Genderism in Colombia, ELIZABETH S. CORREDOR
5. The Transnational Force of Anti-LGBTQI Politics in Latin America, SAMUEL RITHOLTZ AND MIGUEL MESQUITA
6. 'In the Name of the Family': The Evangelical Caucus and Rights Rollbacks in Brazil, ANDREZA ARUSKA DE SOUZA SANTOS
7. Framejacking Rights Discourse to Undermine Latin American Multilateral Human Rights Institutions, GILLIAN KANE, MIRTA MORAGA, AND KIRAN STALLONE
8. Why Anti-Abortion Movements Fail: The Case of Chile, SIMÓN ESCOFFIER AND LIETA VIVALDI
9. The Violent Rollback of Indigenous and Environmental Rights: The Emblematic Case of Lenca Leader Berta Cáceres in Honduras, NANCY R. TAPIAS TORRADO
10. Opposing Affirmative Action: Covert and Coded Challenges to Racial Equality in Uruguay, DEBBIE SHARNAK
11. Resisting Redistribution with Recognition: A Radical Neoliberal Countermovement in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, ANNA KRAUSOVA
12. Righting Rights, Righting Wrongs: Final Reflections, JULIA ZULVER AND LEIGH A. PAYNE