Latin America is one of the regions facing many disasters with some of the worse impacts. The current governance model has not proven successful in disaster risk reduction. This article aims to theoretically analyse the relationship between ideal regional disaster risk governance (DRG) and the actual production of disaster risk in Latin America. From the so-called ‘vulnerability paradigm’ and a regional standpoint, this analysis contributes to the debate with a specific focus on ‘neo-extractivism.’ Pointing mainly to sociopolitical processes triggered as of the early 2000s in Latin America, ‘neo-extractivism’ relates to a regional ecological-political pattern of intensive natural resource exploitation. The first part of this article presents a regional overview of DRG and its scope in disaster risk reduction, analysing its ineffectiveness through the lens of the neoliberal governmentality problem. The second part deals with the issue of ‘neo-extractivism’ to outline the actual links between the political arena, the development discourse, and the creation of vulnerability and new hazards in the region’s contemporary social processes. We show a correlation between political arrangements and environmental degradation that brings about both disasters and an increase in disaster risk. ‘Neo-extractivism’ foregrounds the political conditions for the implementation of regional DRG and reveals how its projections within the development discourse relate incongruously with the essential factors of disaster risk.

PurposeBased on the research, the authors identify how four key concepts in disaster studies—agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability—are interrupted, and how these interruptions offer new perspectives for doing disaster research from and for the South.Design/methodology/approachMeta-analysis of case studies and revision of past and current collaborations of authors with communities across Chile.FindingsThe findings suggest that agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability, as fundamental concepts for disaster risk reduction (DRR) theory and practice, need to allow for ambivalences, ironies, granularization and further materializations. The authors identify these characteristics as the conditions that emerge when doing disaster research from within the disaster itself, perhaps the critical condition of what is usually known as the South.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to a reflexive assessment of fundamental concepts for critical disaster studies. The authors offer research-based and empirically rich redefinitions of these concepts. The authors also offer a novel understanding of the political and epistemological conditions of the “South” as both a geography and a project.

El poder transformador del discurso y de los ejemplos personales en Agustín: Ambrosio como modelo oratorio Andrés Covarrubias INSTITUTO DE FILOSOFÍA FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE CHILE acovarrc@uc.clResumen: San Agustín asume la retórica tradicional en términos de que el orador debe enseñar, deleitar y mover, pero la modifica al proponer que lo único necesario es lo primero. Esto en el contexto de que aunque las cosas dichas enseñen, deleiten y muevan menos, se ha de decir lo verdadero y justo, aunque no se logre el asentimiento del auditor. Una segunda diferencia es que para la retórica tradicional, las cosas pequeñas han de decirse con sencillez, las medianas con moderación y las grandes con grandilocuencia. En cambio, para el Obispo de Hipona, todo lo que predica el orador eclesiástico tiene grandeza, por estar vinculado a las Sagradas Escrituras. Este cambio de modelo solo es posible a partir del ejemplo de San Ambrosio.Palabras clave: San Agustín, San Ambrosio, retórica, ejemplo.Abstract: Saint Augustine assumes traditional rhetoric in terms that he must teach, delight and move, but he modifies it by proposing that to teach is the only necessary thing. This because although such things teach, delight and move less, here is need to say what is true and just, despite that the consent of the auditor cannot be assured. A second difference is that traditional rhetoric maintains that little things have to be said in a simple way, medium things have to be said with moderation, and the large things must be said grandly; however, the Bishop of Hippo says that everything that is preached by the ecclesiastical orator is great, because it is linked to the Holy Scriptures. This paradigm shift is only possible from the example of St. Ambrose.

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En este artículo desarrollo algunas coordenadas sociohistóricas y político-culturales para comprender críticamente las condiciones de emergencia de procesos de subjetividad mapuche en las ciudades, en el entramado de la "hegemonía cultural" de Chile postdictadura. A partir de una aproximación interdisciplinaria al fenómeno de la migración mapuche, de su situación urbana y de retorno de la "cuestión indígena" en los años noventa en América Latina, discuto acerca de la trama estructural que está a la base de estos procesos. Identifico así la relación necesaria entre la violencia constitutiva de la soberanía del Estado-nación chileno y el despliegue del patrón de acumulación capitalista. Sostengo desde allí que es posible observar en las condiciones de aparición de los procesos de autosubjetivación indígena urbana, tensiones de la actualización de dicho vínculo operando como matriz de territorialización, alterización y desposesión, a la luz del multiculturalismo como su dispositivo ideológico de legitimación y dominación.