scholarly journals Postcolonial theory and its Impact upon modern historical-anthropological research of Latin America

Author(s):  
Irina Veselova

The object of this research is the postcolonial theory, while the subject is its impact upon the historical, and namely, historical-anthropological research of Latin America. The author examines such peculiarities of post-colonialism as the problem of identification, the “oppressed”, the importance of linguistic component of scientific description, as well as the political bias of this direction. Attention is turned to the process of adaptation of postcolonial theory to Latin American scientific foundation; emphasis is placed on the fact that the region has its own tradition of interpretation of the colonial past that results in occurrence of the so-called phenomenon of decolonial turn within the Latin American humanities. Based on the comparative method and qualitative content analysis of the works dedicated to postcolonial theory, the author demonstrates the presence of a wide range of opinions of Latin American researchers on such concepts as “colonialism: and “Latin Americanism”. The conclusion is made that the intense discussion on the theoretical aspects of colonial and decolonial theory may underlie the new vector in the historical studies of Latin America.  At the same time, decolonial turn alongside postcolonial theory, raise a number of questions, the solution of which is vital for the development of accurate methodology for further scientific research. For the Russian Latin American scholars, the new trends turn into a special challenge that should be considered in carrying out historical and anthropological research.

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Margarita Feizaka ◽  

While there are studies on differences between traditional Spanish and Latin American Spanish, they tend to either compare Castilian Spanish to one national variation in Latin America (e.g. Mexican Spanish) or assume that the whole region of Latin America is rather linguistically homogenous. This research aims to provide a brief insight into differences between variations of the Spanish language spoken in different countries in Latin America, comparing three local dialects: Mexican, Venezuelan and Chilean. Qualitative content analysis and the comparative method were applied to conduct the research. The findings suggest that there are differences in grammar usage and lexicon between different countries. While phenomena like anglicisms and changing prepositions were detected in all local dialects, Mexican Spanish stood out in terms of grammar, and Mexican and Venezuelan Spanish vocabulary showed specific local expressions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
João Carlos Amoroso Botelho

Desde que autores como Germani (1962), Di Tella (1969) e Ianni (1975) aplicaram a noção de populismo à América Latina, muito se escreveu sobre o tema. O conceito se estirou tanto que tem servido para definir políticos os mais díspares. Com a ausência das condições socioeconômicas descritas pelas formulações clássicas, a estratégia adotada é limitar a categoria à dimensão política. Esse procedimento, porém, não é capaz de descrever atributos exclusivos suficientes para que o populismo seja um fenômeno específico. Ao mesmo tempo, o conceito está tão enraizado que não é viável abandoná-lo. A solução proposta é avaliar em quais características um político se aproxima e se afasta dos casos paradigmáticos do passado. Assim, ele pode ser populista em certos aspectos e não em outros. Com esse procedimento, se chega a uma classificação, em que um líder apresente mais ou menos atributos descritos pelas definições clássicas, eliminando a necessidade de reformulação constante do conceito para adaptá-lo a novas circunstâncias. Também haveria menos espaço a que o rótulo de populista continuasse servindo para desqualificar políticos latino-americanos. O artigo aborda definições clássicas e recentes aplicadas à América Latina e avalia a viabilidade empírica da estratégia de se concentrar na dimensão política.---LA APLICACIÓN DEL CONCEPTO DE POPULISMO AMÉRICA LATINA: la necesidad de clasificar, y no descalificar Desde que autores como Germani (1962), Di Tella (1969) y Ianni (1975) aplicaron la noción de populismo a la América Latina, mucho se ha escrito sobre el tema. El concepto se ha estirado tanto que ha definido políticos muy dispares. Con la ausencia de las condiciones socioeconómicas descritas por las formulaciones clásicas, la estrategia adoptada es concentrarse en la dimensión política. Ese procedimiento, sin embargo, no es capaz de describir atributos exclusivos suficientes para que el populismo sea un fenómeno específico. Al mismo tiempo, el concepto está tan enraizado que no es viable abandonarlo. La solución propuesta es evaluar en cuales características un político se acerca y se aleja de los casos paradigmáticos del pasado. Así, ello puede ser populista en ciertos aspectos y no en otros. Con ese procedimiento, se llega a una clasificación, en que un líder presente más o menos atributos descritos por las definiciones clásicas, eliminando la necesidad de reformulación constante del concepto. También habría menos espacio a que el rótulo de populista continuase sirviendo para descalificar políticos latinoamericanos. El artículo presenta definiciones clásicas y recientes aplicadas a la América Latina y discute la viabilidad empírica de la estrategia de concentrarse en la dimensión política.Palabras-clave: populismo; América Latina; casos paradigmáticos; clasificación.---THE APPLICATION OF THE CONCEPT OF POPULISM IN LATIN AMERICA: the need to classify and not disqualifyEver since authors such as Germani (1962), Di Tella (1969) and Ianni (1975) applied the notion of populism in Latin America, much has been written on the subject. The concept stretched out so much that it has served to define the most dissimilar politicians. In the absence of socioeconomic conditions described by classical formulations, the strategy adopted is to restrict the category to the political dimension. Such a procedure, however, is not capable of describing adequate particular attributes that populism would be a specific phenomenon. At the same time, the concept is so deeply embedded in our society that it is not feasible to abandon it. The proposed solution is to evaluate in which characteristics a politician reaches and moves away from the paradigmatic cases of the past. Thus, it can be populist in some respects and not in others. In such a procedure, we arrive at a classification in which a leader shows more or less attributes described by classical definitions, eliminating the need for constant reformulation of the concept to adapt it to new circumstances. Also, there would be less space to which the label of populist would continue to serve to disqualify Latin American politicians. The article discusses recent and classic settings applied to Latin America and assesses the empirical viability of focusing on the political dimension strategy.Key words: populism; Latin America; paradigmatic cases; classification.


Author(s):  
Ricardo Gaete Quezada

Latin American higher education in recent decades has experienced the main world trends, relative to the massification of student access, insufficient state funding, increase of private institutions in the tertiary education system, as well as a regional debate on its consideration as a good public guaranteed by the State, increasing the relevance of the university mission in solving global needs. Through the comparative method developed through a documentary analysis, the influence in Latin America of the Supranational Policy on social responsibility of UNESCO higher education institutions is analyzed. The results show this influence in the Region, through the Declarations of the UNESCO World Conferences on Higher Education, materialized in the actions developed by the International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC), such as the holding of the Regional Conferences on Higher Education or the creation of the Regional Observatory of Social Responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean (ORSALC). In addition, there is an academic debate between the concept of university social responsibility, established in the Region since the beginning of the new Millennium, related to managing the impacts of university work on its stakeholders, evolving towards the recognition of higher education as a good public and a human right as an expression of a territorial social responsibility, effectively contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. It is concluded that the analyzed Supranational Policy must consolidate its influence in the Region in the long term, by implementing some actions key strategies, such as strengthening the Latin American Higher Education Area or research on the contributions that Latin American universities must make to effectively guarantee higher education as a common good in the Region. 


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 362-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Glenn Penny

German interactions with Latin America have a long history. Indeed, early modern historians have demonstrated that people from German-speaking central Europe took part in all aspects of the European conquest of Central and South America. They have shown that these people were critical to mining operations and publishing in sixteenth-century Mexico; they have found them among Portuguese and Spanish sailors and soldiers almost everywhere; and they have located them playing important roles in a wide range of professions from Mexico to the south of Chile.


1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 889-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin C. Needler

One way of acquiring insight into the processes of political development in Latin America is to compare the countries of the area systematically in terms of the “degree of development” which each can be said to have attained. Ideally, such an enterprise can lead to the understanding of the past history of the “more developed” countries by reference to the present problems of the “less developed” while an understanding of the problems confronting the more developed countries can make possible a glimpse into the future of those now less developed. Isolation of the factors responsible for a state's being more or less developed can moreover prove instructive for the understanding of the relations between political and socioeconomic phenomena.Perhaps most important, such comparisons provide the means for holding constant effects attributable to characteristics shared by all, or nearly all, of the Latin American countries. Thus it can be argued with much plausibility that military intervention in politics, say, derives from elements in the Hispanic tradition. Yet it is clear that the frequency of military intervention varies from country to country, even where they share equally in that tradidition. Thus one is forced to go beyond the “Hispanic tradition” thesis with which the investigation might otherwise have come to rest.In the present article I will be concerned with the problem of the relation of political development to socioeconomic development in the Latin American context. For reasons that will become apparent below, I will not at this point attempt a rigorous analysis of the concept of political development, which has already been the subject of a large and rapidly growing literature.


1966 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonine Tibesar

This book is a major study of one of the most serious problems of the Church in Latin America today, the shortage of priests, by the Secretary General of the Latin-American College of Louvain University. Ten years have been devoted to research, and this effort is reflected in the extensive bibliography, numerous statistical tables, and the wide range of facts contained in the text. In a word, this study is a notable effort to understand and explain the lack of priests in an area which is traditionally looked upon as Catholic.


Author(s):  
N. M. Yakovleva ◽  
P. P. Yakovlev

Among all the regions of the world, Latin America has been the most vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus epidemic. The COVID-19 pandemic not only exposed the weaknesses of national health systems, but also served as a catalyst for the crisis socio-economic phenomena that have developed in the region over the past decade. The impact of the pandemic should serve Latin America as a clear lesson and motivate the local political and business establishment to make a significant adjustment to the content of the regional development strategy. It is logical, in our opinion, to raise the question of rethinking the role of the state in public life, the development of a modern, meeting the requirements of the moment, the Latin American concept of epidemiological and socio-economic security. In the post-covid period, at the center of public attention and targeted government efforts ought to be the challenges of radically improving health care through the priority development of those sectors of the economy that can provide diversification and, as a result, increase the level of crisis-sustainability of Latin American states. First of all, they should focus on the manufacturing industry, including the production of a wide range of medicines and equipment, as well as the sectors that ensure the development and modernization of socio-economic infrastructure: utilities, transport, alternative energy, telecommunications. In the field of international relations, the importance of cooperation with those States that have pioneered the development of COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines has increased significantly. In this context, it must be mentioned the interest that the registration in the Russian Federation of the first domestic vaccine Sputnik V provoked in Latin America.


2001 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81
Author(s):  
PAMELA K. STARR

ABSTRACT The capacity of dollarization to generate stable growth in Latin America despite occasional instability in the international financial system has been the subject of significant economic analysis in recent years. Yet very little attention has been afforded to the politics of the issue. This paper attempts to fill this void by looking at both the political and the economic factors which influence the policy effectiveness of dollarization. The paper reviews the theoretic and policy debate within which the dollarization question is situated and then develops an informal model of the political and economic variables which influence the viability of dollarization. It concludes that although dollarization may be the correct policy choice for some Latin American countries, it is unlikely to benefit the majority. Most Latin American countries would benefit more from directly addressing the forces know to promote economic instability.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Satsumi Lopez-Morales ◽  
Karla Maria Nava-Aguirre ◽  
Antonio Huerta-Estevez

Purpose Latin America has not been exempted from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, this study aims to identify the actions of 50 main multilatinas to face the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative content analysis was conducted on newspapers published in Latin America and corporate websites from March 2020 to April 2020, during which the multilatinas took their first actions toward the pandemic. Findings Results identified 106 actions taken by multilatinas in social, operational, philanthropic and financial areas. This paper analyzes the results, discuss the implications for business theories and develops three theoretical propositions. Practical implications First, this study can serve as a reference for business decision-makers as it offers guidance in taking actions during a pandemic. Second, it highlights the importance of the speed of responses to unforeseen challenges. The study recommends that business managers include in their contingency plans procedures for addressing unforeseen situations, such as the pandemic, with a focus on increasing their response capacity. Originality/value The importance of this study lies in understanding multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) initial actions taken during unexpected disasters and rare events. This study fills two important gaps in the business literature that have not been addressed in the Latin American context, namely, the actions taken by MNEs facing a public health disaster and how MNEs cope with disastrous and rare events.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2110591
Author(s):  
Maíra Machado Bichir

The analysis of Theotônio dos Santos, a central reference of the Marxist theory of dependency, of the counterrevolutionary political processes in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, reflecting what he observes as an advance of fascistization, proposes the concept of a dependent fascism to characterize some of the military governments that materialized in the region. His writings on the subject are part of a wide range of debates that took place in Latin America during the 1970s, which focused on the context of political radicalization between revolution and counterrevolution, a tug-of-war that led to a consolidation of military coups. These writings express his position on both the political crisis that took place in Latin American countries at that time and the transformations of the political regime and the state itself. Efforts to renew these debates are anchored in the expectation that they may shed light on recent Latin American history. A análise de Theotônio dos Santos, referência central da teoria Marxista da dependência, sobre os processos políticos contrarrevolucionários na América Latina nas décadas de 1960 e 1970, ao observar um avanço da fascistização, propõe o conceito de fascismo dependente para caracterizar alguns dos governos militares que se concretizaram na região. Seus escritos sobre o tema se inscrevem em um amplo campo de debates que tiveram lugar na América Latina durante a década de 1970, os quais se debruçavam sobre o contexto de radicalização política entre revolução e contrarrevolução, no qual a consolidação de golpes militares estava imersa, e expressam o posicionamento do autor em relação tanto à crise política que teve lugar nos países latino-americanos naquele então, quanto às transformações do próprio regime político e do Estado. O esforço de recuperar tal debate está ancorado na expectativa de que tais reflexões possam lançar luz sobre a história recente latino-americana.


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