Re-visioning Latin American Studies in the United States

Abstract

In the early 1990s, an influential group of northern scholars, foundation representatives and observers of academic trends came to the conclusion that ‘Area Studies’ were in crisis. Although the critiques and calls for reformulation applied across the board to a heterogeneous array of Area Studies fields, they had particular resonance within Latin American Studies (LAS). Rooted in disciplinary and institutional developments dating back to the beginning of the 20^th century, LAS came into its own in the 1950s, in the context of the Cold War. It rapidly became the largest, most well-funded and most prestigious of the Area Studies fields. For this reason, among others, LAS assumed a central role in the broader debate: should Area Studies persist in their current form? If not, what successor intellectual and institutional configurations should emerge in their place? Nearly twenty years later, this high-stakes debate has virtually disappeared. By various important measures, LAS is thriving. This essay provides what we argue is the principal explanation for this remarkable ongoing vitality of our field.

Keywords:

• Area Studies
• Latin American Studies
• LASA

Notes

 1. For analyses of this proclaimed crisis, see Ali Mirsepassi, ‘Area Studies, Globalization, and the Nation-State in Crisis’, Nepantla: Views from South, 3, 2002, pp. 547–52; Ali Mirsepassi, Amrita Basu, and Frederick Stirton Weaver (eds), Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World: Recasting the Area Studies Debate, Syracuse, NY, Syracuse UP, 2003; and David L. Szanton (ed.), The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, Berkeley, CA, U of California Press, 2004, especially the contribution of Timothy Mitchell, ‘The Middle East in the past and future of social science’.

 2. Another version of this article will appear in Cultural Anthropology.

 3. See, for example, Robert H. Bates, ‘Area Studies and Political Science: Rupture and Possible Synthesis’, Africa Today 44: 2, 1997, pp.123–31; and his ‘Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?’, Ps-Political Science & Politics, 30: 2, 1997, pp. 166–69.

 4. Arif Dirlik, ‘The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism’, Critical Inquiry, 20:2, 1994, pp. 328–56; J. K. Gibson-Graham, ‘Area Studies after Poststructuralism’, Environment and Planning, 36: 3, 2004, pp. 405–19; Ravi Arvind Palat, ‘Beyond Orientalism: Decolonizing Asian Studies’, Development and Society, 29: 2, 2000, pp. 105–35; Vicente L. Rafael, ‘The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States’, Social Text, 41, 1994, pp. 91–111.

 5. For example, eight major writers were invited to LASA '91 to offer literary readings, and a series of panels were organized around their work. This was followed by readings from eight major Central American writers in LASA ’92 with an analogous panel structure.

 6. Latin America focused scholars such as de la Cadena, Escobar, Blaser, Lins Ribeiro, have been central to this initiative. See, for example, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, ‘World Anthropologies. Cosmopolitics for a New Global Scenario in Anthropology’, Critique of Anthropology, 26:4, 2006, pp. 363–86.

 7. See http://www.relaju.org/index.php?option = com_content&view = article&id = 2&Itemid = 2 Last visited 11/21/2010.

 8. The library was the William Gates Collection; it furnished the foundation of Tulane's internationally distinguished holdings of resource materials on Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico, countries which, with the exception of Mexico, where thoroughly dominated politically and economically by the United Fruit Company until the mid-1950s. Zemurray's former mansion on Audubon Place and St. Charles Avenue is now the residence of Tulane's president.

 9. See, Arturo Escobar, ‘Power and Visibility: Development and the Invention and Management of the Third World’, Cultural Anthropology, 3:4, 1998, p. 429.

10. See Victor Bulmer-Thomas, (ed.), Thirty Years of Latin American Studies in the United Kingdom 1965–1995, London, Institute of Latin American Studies, 1997.

11. Well known are the 1990s Ford Foundation initiative on ‘Rethinking Area Studies’, and LASA's Strategic Plan 2003–2006, undertaken in 2001–2002.

12. Paul W. Drake and Lisa Hilbink, ‘Latin American Studies: Theory and Practice’, in D. Szanton (ed.), The Politics of Knowledge, p. 35.

13. Drake and Hilbink, ‘Latin American Studies’, p. 41.

14. Elizabeth Jelin, and Alejandro Grimson, ‘Los estudios sobre América Latina desde América Latina y el Caribe’, LASA Forum, 36:3, Fall 2005, pp. 6–7.

15. See James Green, ‘Expanding Brazilian Studies in the U.S.’, LASA Forum, 36:2, 2005, p. 6.

16. Jeffrey Lesser, ‘Centering the Periphery: Non-Latin Americanisms’, LASA Forum, 38:1, 2007, pp. 7–8.

17. On the politics of translation, see de Lima Costa 2006; Sonia E. Alvarez, Claudia de Lima Costa, Verónia Feliú, Rebecca Hester, Norma Klahn, and Millie Thayer, (eds), Translocalities/Translocalidades: Feminist Politics of Translation in the Latin/a Américas, Durham NC, Duke UP, forthcoming.

18. Rafael, ‘The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States’, p. 98.

19. Rafael, ‘The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States’, p. 107.

20. Grant Farred, ‘Crying for Argentina: The Branding and Unbranding of Area Studies,’ Nepantla 4:1, 2003, pp. 121–32, p. 130.

21. See, LASA Forum, 33:4, 2003, p. 12.

22. See, Florencia Mallon, ‘Interdisciplinarity as Border Crossing’, LASA Forum, 36:3, 2005, pp. 15–16.

23. Otros Saberes is an initiative of LASA that funds, on a competitive basis, for research teams comprised of both civil society and university-based intellectuals. LASA provided the ‘seed monies’ for the initiative, and Coordinators raised the rest from foundations. Research teams worked for a year on their projects, and presented the results at the subsequent LASA Congress. A volume that highlights the first round of Otros Saberes research is soon to be published by the School of Advanced Research Press.

24. In addition to our general experiences, these are drawn from the four articles in the Forum. See, Evelyn S. Huber, ‘What LASA Can Do for Political Science’, LASA Forum, 32: 2, Spring 2007, pp. 6–8; Raúl Madrid, ‘A Survey of Political Scientists’ Views on LASA’, LASA Forum, 32: 2, Spring 2007, pp. 8–11; Ariel C. Armony, ‘El Incierto Rumbo de LASA’, LASA Forum, 32: 2, Spring 2007, pp. 11–13; Susan C. Stokes, ‘What Might LASA do to Meet the Needs and Serve the Interests of Political Scientists?’, LASA Forum, 32: 2, Spring 2007, pp. 13–16. These were commissioned with the purpose of eliciting four views of the transformation in LAS that we describe here, a political science perspective that we knew to be critical.

25. This cannot be an across-the board criticism since it pertains primarily to the social sciences once again. After all, some would argue that literary standards have been significantly enhanced since the emergence of post-structuralism, for instance.

26. See, for example, Sandra Harding, ‘Negotiating with the Positivist Legacy: New Social Justice Movements and a Standpoint Politics of Method’, en George Steinmetz (ed.), The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences, Durham, Duke UP, 2005, pp. 346–66.