Thinking global, living local: Voices in a globalized world

  • Inclusive Growth? Let’s first evaluate!

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    Can we achieve inclusive growth? Of course we can. How can we achieve it? Well, that’s complicated…and nobody really knows for sure. When aiming for equal distribution of wealth across society, heedless of the adage that the road to success is paved with many failures, most governmental agencies and civil […]

  • Mexican pesos. Photo by Speaking Latino CC BY 2.0

    Mexico’s middle class takes a body blow

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    A struggling middle class watched from the sidelines while Congress mangled a ‘miscellaneous fiscal reform’ through the Senate and passed it in ‘fast-track’ mode, creating great concern among millions of households. When Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto took up office in 2012, he came in embracing his role as the […]

  • The Silent Economy: Mexico’s Forgotten Women Workers

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    Far beyond the aggregated numbers of an urban economy lies a silent and untraceable population working everyday to sustain entire families, doing whatever is humanly possible to get out of poverty. From the woman picking up garbage to housemaids, prostitutes, newspaper sellers, housewives and “viene vienes” (those who illegally rent […]

  • The Virtues of Gender in Istmo de Tehuantepec

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    Man, Woman, and Muxe. In the region of the Mexican Istmo de Tehuantepec, women’s strong role in society has led to a quite peculiar structure which includes a “third gender”. Neither a man, nor a woman, Muxe is the name given by the Zapotecos to males assuming the social roles, […]

  • Mexico-China Official Meeting

    Project Dragon Mart: the Collateral Effects of Economic Growth

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    After a series of contentious legal disputes, in August 2013 Cancun will finally know whether the Chinese “Dragon Mart” will ever come into existence along the coast of Mexico’s most important tourist destination. The construction of the Dragon Mart business complex (similar to a shopping mall where many huge and […]