scholarly journals Procesos y materialidad en el estudio del lenguaje en sociedad

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (267-268) ◽  
pp. 277-282
Author(s):  
Virginia Zavala
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Meaning Production ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Critical Perspectives

Abstract In this brief essay, and making use of my own research in Peru, I raise two issues that I have been reflecting on throughout my career and that I believe constitute challenges in addressing language in society. The first refers to the importance of studying the processes of meaning production from an ethnographic perspective, and the second, to the centrality of articulating the production of these meanings with the material conditions of existence that make them possible or difficult. These two points are committed to combining ethnographic sociolinguistics and glotopolitics, as critical perspectives that are enhancing sociolinguistics in Latin America.

Rethinking the Paradigm

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emile G. McAnany
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Government Project ◽  
Communication For Development ◽  
Dominant Paradigm ◽  
Dependency Approach ◽  
Critical Perspectives

This chapter focuses on the rise of the critical or dependency paradigm in Latin America and the success of its theories but somewhat limited applications over a period from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s. It first examines the context of the paradigm shift that paved the way for a new theory in the discourse of communication and social change, and how that may have affected practice. It then considers how the dependency approach to communication for development (c4d) first came into favor in Latin America. It also discusses the dependency paradigm in theory and practice and Everett Rogers's critique of the old or dominant paradigm, which he articulated in the book Communication and Development: Critical Perspectives (1976a). The chapter concludes by demonstrating how practice and critical theory came together in a government project in Tanzania's ujamaa villages.

scholarly journals Montevideo Crisscrossed. Two Novels by Mario Benedetti: The Truce and Thanks for the Fire

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 28-46
Author(s):  
Pedro Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Writing Strategies ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The Military ◽  
Aesthetic Values ◽  
Critical Perspectives

This essay is a rereading of two novels by Mario Benedetti published first in Montevideo in the 1960’s and subsequently in Mexico around the 1970’s, receiving changing receptions over the years. Both have Montevideo as their setting, but the topographical perspectives and writing strategies are different. It traces the networks of writers, publishers and readers in Latin America developed during the 20th century and their obliteration by the military regimes in the 1970’s. Reviewing the fluctuating moods in Benedetti’s later reception, this essay compares opposite sets of aesthetic values developed during the second half of the last century, which are taken for granted even today, studying their initial hypotheses and showing how literary works are distorted by prejudiced sets of critical perspectives that pigeonhole works and authors in boxes established in advance.

Critical-Cultural Research: New Sensibilities and Old Realities

1985 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Deetz
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Future Research ◽  
New Work ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Participative Research ◽  
Distorted Communication ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Critical Perspectives

Critical perspectives on cultural research in organizations have received much attention recently. Future directions for this work are explored here through a review of central concepts and research. Continuation, but with greater theoretical focus, is expected for studies of language, metaphor, stories, and myths, which investigate the creation and maintenance of domination through systematically distorted communication. New work with participative research procedures holds promise of providing greater organizational change. Generally, future research will be more empirical, focus more on structures and material conditions, and be more closely related to the lives of people in host organizations.

scholarly journals Is Self-Expression Chic? Globalisation, Value Change and Convergence in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Henrique Carlos De Oliveira De Castro ◽  
Daniel Capistrano ◽  
Sonia Ranincheski ◽  
Elvis Bisong Tambe
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Latin America ◽  
National Level ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Value Change ◽  
The World ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Main Factor

The literature concerning human values change, argues the main factor driving increasing levels of secularization and self-expression is the improvement of material conditions. In fact, studies succeeded to present evidence of the strong relationship between GDP and post-materialist attitudes at the national level. Still, in this study, we demonstrate this relationship is not as strong in Latin America. Based on the theory of mass-elite convergence of values, we argue that the main factor driving value change in Latin America is globalisation and not economic development. With globalisation, attitudes and values hitherto exclusive to the elites became socially desirable and praised (chic) resulting in their massive dissemination. Using data from the World Values Survey, we confirm that variables related to material conditions are the best predictor for secularization and self-expression among Western European countries. However, in Latin America, the effects of economic development are weaker, and the evidence indicates that variables related to social globalisation are more important to explain value change patterns.

Grassroots Expectations of Democracy and Economy: Argentina in Comparative Perspective. By Nancy R. Powers. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. 294p. $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-670
Author(s):  
Steven Levitsky
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Small Sample Size ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Poor People ◽  
University Of Pittsburgh ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Mass Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship

As the recent political meltdowns in Venezuela and Argentina made clear, a vast gap persists between elite behavior and mass attitudes in much of Latin America. Scholarly understanding of this gap—and its political implications—would benefit from more fine-grained, yet theoretically informed, studies of nonelites. Nancy Powers's Grassroots Expectations of Democracy and Economy is one such study. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 41 residents of two lower-income neighborhoods in Argentina's federal capital, Powers examines how poor people understand their own interests. She argues that people experience poverty in vastly different ways, and this variation has important implications for political behavior. Thus, to understand how poor people view the relationship between their own material conditions and government policy, one must examine “the conditions themselves and how people live with them” (p. 33). This kind of inductive analysis has important and well-known limitations, particularly for studies—such as this one—based on a small sample size. Yet given how little we continue to know about the relationship between mass attitudes and macrolevel politics in Latin America, such a “bottom up” approach should be welcomed. To the extent that fine-grained inductive research generates insights that 1) are unlikely to emerge out of larger-n studies and 2) challenge or refine dominant theoretical assumptions, it can be extremely fruitful. This is the case with important sections of the book.

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