The 'Catastrophic Consciousness of Backwardness': Culture and Dependency Theory in Latin America and the Caribbean

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (103) ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
Michael Niblett
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Economic Analyses ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Economic

This article examines the relationship between economic and cultural dependency. Its analysis is framed by Enrique Dussel's methodological insistence on the international transfer of surplus value as the essence of dependency. Beginning with an examination of the heyday of classical dependency theory in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1960s and 1970s, the article moves on to consider the increasing importance accorded culture as a site of power and struggle, focusing on the work of Sylvia Wynter. The second half of the article turns to the literary registration of dependency. Arguing that literary works can provide a barometric reading of the pressures of underdevelopment in advance of political-economic analyses, I consider Patrícia Galvão's Parque Industrial (1933) and Olive Senior's 'Boxed-In' (2015). Published, respectively, some forty years either side of the heyday of dependency theory, these paradigmatic fictions are examples of both the diagnostic and active role of literature in responding to the depredations of dependency.

The Plantation’s Colonial Modernity in Comparative Perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Adom Getachew
Keyword(s):  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Plantation Slavery ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
A Site ◽  
The University ◽  
Plantation Society

By reconstructing the pioneering work of political economists and social theorists associated with the New World Group at the University of the West Indies and the Dar es Salaam School at the University of Dar es Salaam, this chapter recovers the theorization of the plantation as a modernizing institution that produced a distinctive colonial modernity. Between the 1960s and 1970s, George Beckford and Lloyd Best theorized the Caribbean as a pure plantation society in which the forms of economic exploitation and idioms of sociality that emerged in the context of plantation slavery continued to structure islands states like Jamaica. While primarily associated with slavery in the Americas, Walter Rodney conceptualized the colonial plantation as a form of economic and social organization that traveled to contexts like Tanzania and continued to structure postcolonial legacies. Through south/south comparison, the use of conceptual innovation and lateral extension, this cohort of social theorists offered a distinctive mode of thinking through modernity as a site of convergence and divergence. Their comparative historical, sociological, and economic studies of the plantation highlight the uneven and differentiated ways in which societies in the global south had been radically transformed by imperial imposition. In the jettisoning of north/south, West/non-West axes of comparison and in the effort to attend to the specificity of postcolonial political and economic forms, this episode of comparative theorizing can inform contemporary projects of globalizing political theory.

Dependency Theory in the Academic Self-Reports of the Brasília Group

2021 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2110367
Author(s):  
Claudia Wasserman
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

A group of Brazilian writers—Ruy Mauro Marini, Theotônio dos Santos, and Vânia Bambirra—met in Brasilia in the 1960s and 1970s and produced, predominantly in exile, theories about the reality of Latin America and the periphery. In the 1980s, with the amnesty, the group returned to Brazil and confronted a hostile atmosphere in the academy. Analysis of these writers’ trajectories based on the academic self-reports they produced in the 1990s for admission or reentry into Brazilian universities addresses their views of the 1964 coup, exile, and the return to Brazil after the amnesty, the identity assigned to the group, and the controversy over the authorship of dependency theory. Um grupo de autores brasileiros—Rui Mauro Marini, Theotônio dos Santos e Vânia Bambirra—reuniu-se em Brasília e nos anos 1960 e 1970 e produziu, predominantemente no exílio, teorias acerca da realidade latino-americana e periférica. Nos anos 1980, com a anistia, o grupo retornou ao Brasil e foi hostilizado na academia. Um analisis da trajetória dos autores a partir de seus memoriais acadêmicos elaborados nos anos 1990 para ingresso ou reingresso nas universidades brasileiras abordam as visões a respeito do golpe de 1964, o exílio e o retorno depois da anistia, as denominações atribuídas ao grupo, e as polêmicas em torno da paternidade da teoria da dependência.

scholarly journals Creating Destinations for a Better Tomorrow: UN Development Aid for Cultural Tourism in the 1960s

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942097476
Author(s):  
Marie Huber
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Employment Sector ◽  
Development Decade ◽  
Colonial Legacies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
International Experts

Tourism is today considered as a crucial employment sector in many developing countries. In the growing field of historical tourism research, however, the relationships between tourism and development, and the role of international organizations, above all the UN, have been given little attention to date. My paper will illuminate how during the 1960s tourism first became the subject of UN policies and a praised solution for developing countries. Examples from expert consultancy missions in developing countries such as Ethiopia, India and Nepal will be contextualized within the more general debates and programme activities for heritage conservation and also the first UN development decade. Drawing on sources from the archives of UNESCO, as well as tourism promotion material, it will be possible to understand how tourism sectors in many so-called developing countries were shaped considerably by this international cooperation. Like in other areas of development aid, activities in tourism were grounded in scientific studies and based on statistical data and analysis by international experts. Examining this knowledge production is a telling exercise in understanding development histories colonial legacies under the umbrella of the UN during the 1960s and 1970s.

Sugar Rush: Sugar and Science in the British Caribbean

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-150
Author(s):  
Nicole A. Jacoberger
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sugar Beet ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Cane Sugar ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Foreign Competition ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
A Site

This article examines the contrasting evolution in sugar refining in Jamaica and Barbados incentivized by Mercantilist policies, changes in labor systems, and competition from foreign sugar revealing the role of Caribbean plantations as a site for experimentation from the eighteenth through mid-nineteenth century. Britain's seventeenth- and eighteenth-century protectionist policies imposed high duties on refined cane-sugar from the colonies, discouraging colonies from exporting refined sugar as opposed to raw. This system allowed Britain to retain control over trade and commerce and provided exclusive sugar sales to Caribbean sugar plantations. Barbadian planters swiftly gained immense wealth and political power until Jamaica and other islands produced competitive sugar. The Jamaica Assembly invested heavily in technological innovations intended to improve efficiency, produce competitive sugar in a market that eventually opened to foreign competition such as sugar beet, and increase profits to undercut losses from duties. They valued local knowledge, incentivizing everyone from local planters to chemists, engineers, and science enthusiasts to experiment in Jamaica and publish their findings. These publications disseminated important findings throughout Britain and its colonies, revealing the significance of the Caribbean as a site for local experimentation and knowledge.

scholarly journals Advancing environmental public health in Latin America and the Caribbean

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Marcelo Korc ◽  
Fred Hauchman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
The Public ◽  
Environmental Public Health ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Health And Well Being

This paper highlights the important leadership role of the public health sector, working with other governmental sectors and nongovernmental entities, to advance environmental public health in Latin America and the Caribbean toward the achievement of 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 3: Health and Well-Being. The most pressing current and future environmental public health threats are discussed, followed by a brief review of major historical and current international and regional efforts to address these concerns. The paper concludes with a discussion of three major components of a regional environmental public health agenda that responsible parties can undertake to make significant progress toward ensuring the health and well-being of all people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

scholarly journals Revisiting Raúl Prebisch’s concept of crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-164
Author(s):  
Crespo Maria Victoria ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Import Substitution ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Economic Commission ◽  
Neoclassical Economic Theory ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Horizon Of Expectations ◽  
Theoretical Proposal

This article offers a review and appraisal of the concept of crisis in the context of the remarkable trajectory and works of argentine economist Raul Prebisch. It argues that the crisis of the 1930s is the foundation of Prebisch’s theoretical proposal on dependency and development in Lat-in America. The crisis of 1929-1930 was the turning point that encour-aged him to revise and reinvent neoclassical economic theory, promote industrialization and import substitution, and, more importantly, to deeply restructure the role of the State in the region. The crisis leads to decision and action, and it implies and orientation towards the future, a new “horizon of expectations.” This horizon throughout the most part of the twentieth century in Latin America was development. The article also puts forward an interpretation of his program at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL), also triggered by the crisis and oriented to the formulation of policies meant to overcome the crisis. Finally, the article shows how through his interactions with CEPAL sociologists, in particular José Medina Echavarría, Prebisch proposes a redefinition of his concept of crisis, shifting from an economic and junctural concept to a structural one: the crisis of peripheral capitalism

A New Kind of Vanguard: Cuban−North Korean Discourse on Revolutionary Strategy for the Global South in the 1960s

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Moe Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Global South ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Cuban Government ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Harsh Criticism ◽  
Latin American Left ◽  
Leftist Parties

Abstract During the 1960s, the Cuban government attempted to play a leadership role within the Latin American Left. In the process Cuban leaders departed from Marxist−Leninist orthodoxy, garnering harsh criticism from their Soviet and Chinese allies. Yet Cuba found a steadfast supporter of its controversial positions in North Korea. This support can in large part be explained by the parallels between Cuban and North Korean ideas about revolution in the developing nations of the Global South. Most significantly, both parties embraced a radical reconceptualisation of the role of the Marxist−Leninist vanguard party. This new doctrine appealed primarily to younger Latin American militants frustrated with the established leftist parties and party politics in general. The Cuban/North Korean theory of the party had a tangible influence in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Mexico, Bolivia and Nicaragua, as revolutionary groups in these societies took up arms in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Latin American Publishing Circuit in the 21st Century: Following the Trajectory of César Aira

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 056-064
Author(s):  
María Belén Riveiro ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Latin American ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Latin American Literature ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
César Aira ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Cesar Aira ◽  
The 1960S

This essay poses a question about the identity of Latin American literature in the 21st century. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Latin America Boom received recognition both locally and internationally, becoming the dominant means of defining Latin American literature up to the present. This essay explores new ways to understand this notion of Latin America in the literary scene. The case of the Argentine writer César Aira is relevant for analyzing alternative publishing circuits that connect various points of the region. These publishing houses foster a defiant way of establishing the value of literature.

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