Art and Social Movements ─ Cultural Politics in Mexico and Aztlan

McCaughan argues that the social power of activist artists emanates from their ability to provoke people to see, think, and act in innovative ways. Artists, he claims, help to create visual languages and spaces through which activists can imagine and perform new collective identities and forms of meaningful citizenship. The artists' work that he discusses remains vital today—in movements demanding fuller democratic rights and social justice for working people, women, ethnic communities, immigrants, and sexual minorities throughout Mexico and the United States. Integrating insights from scholarship on the cultural politics of representation with structural analyses of specific historical contexts, McCaughan expands our understanding of social movements.

Edward J. McCaughan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at San Francisco State University. His books include Reinventing Revolution: The Renovation of Left Discourse in Cuba and Mexico.