Recently, a number of countries in Latin America have seen monumental acts of citizen actions calling for more democratic forms of governing. These acts have primarily focused on presidential politics related to neoliberal policies, term limits, gender-based violence, and Indigenous peoples’ rights. In this panel, authors focus on ethnographic materials to complicate popular understandings of democracy within recent Latin American political contexts. Participants focus on Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico to explore the ways citizens of these countries conceive of democracy, employ protest, and often challenge assumptions based on identity, subjectivity, and political affiliation. In using ethnographic examples, each presenter draws upon voices on the ground in order to understand macro-level political processes. In doing so, we draw attention to the ways democracy is enacted beyond the voting box, in spectacular manifestations, media circulations, and performances of sovereignty.