Constructing Civil Society, Supporting Local Development A Case Study of Community Radio in Postwar EI Salvador

Authors

  • Diana E. Agosta

Abstract

The rural community radios created in EI Salvador at the end of the long civil war in the early 1990s have facilitated the growth of what is defined locally as civil society, influenced by a range of international discourses. This paper explores the particular meanings that "civil society" took on in these regions. It focuses on local organizations that represented many sectors of the public which had been invisible or marginalized from the public sphere in the past--campesinos, women, rural small business.

Author Biography

Diana E. Agosta

Diana Agosta received her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2004 from the City University Of New York (Naming the Future: How Salvadoran Community Radio Builds Civil Society and Popular Culture). She has been involved in community media in the United States as a video producer and educator, as a Board member of Manhattan Neighborhood Network, and as guest editor of Community Media Review. The author appreciates financial support for this project from the following institutions: Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation through the Cultural Anthropology Program and the program in Ethics and Values Studies, Research on Science and Technology (renamed in 1997 as Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and Technology), and the Jewish Foundation for Women.

Downloads

Published

2007-03-01

Issue

Vol. 21 No. 1 (2007)

Section

Articles