Miriam Lang

Miriam Lang, Ecuador. Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar (former director of RLS Quito office)). Miriam Lang works as an associate professor for Social and Global Studies at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito, Ecuador. She holds a PhD in sociology and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies from the Free University in Berlin. She collaborates with the Latin American Permanent Working Group on Alternatives to Development and with internationalist, feminist, ecologist and antiracist social movements. The book “Beyond Development – Alternative visions from Latin America” which she co-edited (2013) has been translated into seven languages.
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Transformation(s) Blog

Ecuador: A victory against mining, and a dispute around meaningful policies of the left

by Miriam Lang On Sunday 7 February 2021, not only presidential elections took place in Ecuador. Cuenca, the third-largest city in the South American country, voted against a series of mega-mining projects in the headwaters of five rivers that supply the urban area with water. In the area, which is directly adjacent to a national park that has been declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, there are over 4,000 large and small […]

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Transformation(s) Blog

Enfrentando las deudas eternas desde el Sur

por Alberto Acosta , Esperanza Martinez , Miriam Lang La historia de la Modernidad tiene dos caras: por un lado, es una historia de revoluciones y luchas por los derechos. Pero, por orto lado, a la vez está plagada de violencias, de injusticias y de abusos. Muchos de los filósofos políticos ilustrados e incluso héroes de la Independencia eran esclavistas en su época. Las declaraciones de derechos -en linea liberal de derechos- excluían a mujeres y hombres […]

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Debates Introduction

Introduction to the Democracy debate

Is democracy a stronghold of social struggles or is it rather an institutional framework imposed by capitalism? Why are fascism and different kinds of authoritarianism coming back through elections? How can the scandalous inequality that structures contemporary capitalism and obviously limits democratic decision making strongly be dealt with?

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Debates Democracy in times of COVID-19

Democracy and transformation in the time of pandemic politics

As the world reels from historically unprecedented socio-economic and political impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19), many governments are rolling out emergency measures and guidelines for physical distancing, lockdowns, and quarantines, closing of borders, and restrictions of people’s movements in an effort to flatten the curve. Of great concern among social and labor movements, civil society, and people at large is how this global health emergency reshapes democratic institutions and democratization processes, for […]