Historias en curso: reconfiguraciones de los estudios culturales latinoamericanos

Abstract

This essay examines the relationships between the politics of criticism, the sociohistorical conditions and the processes of institutionalization of Latin American cultural studies both in Latin America and in the US. In the US, Latin American cultural studies are materialized, with few exceptions, within the academic field. In Latin America, on the other hand, due to the history of academic intervention within the public sphere and civil society, Latin American cultural studies are generated from individual or collective, academic or para-academic, intellectual and artistic practices, which present diverse forms of institutionalization. If Latin American cultural studies, which emerged simultaneously in Latin America and the US in the 1980s, produced a great deal of commotion among the traditional disciplines of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, its later programmatic institutionalization is relatively insubstantial. Nevertheless, the impact of globalization, which started in the 1970s, brought into question the functions both fields had, exposing the limits of their respective interpretative theories and revealing the need for inter- and transdisciplinary practices. Even when these complex and polemic connections, on the one hand, question the existence of Latin American cultural studies as a transdisciplinary field, on the other hand, they keep it alive, always reconfiguring it according to the local contexts of intervention.

This essay examines the relationships between the politics of criticism, the sociohistorical conditions and the processes of institutionalization of Latin American cultural studies both in Latin America and in the US. In the US, Latin American cultural studies are materialized, with few exceptions, within the academic field. In Latin America, on the other hand, due to the history of academic intervention within the public sphere and civil society, Latin American cultural studies are generated from individual or collective, academic or para-academic, intellectual and artistic practices, which present diverse forms of institutionalization. If Latin American cultural studies, which emerged simultaneously in Latin America and the US in the 1980s, produced a great deal of commotion among the traditional disciplines of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, its later programmatic institutionalization is relatively insubstantial. Nevertheless, the impact of globalization, which started in the 1970s, brought into question the functions both fields had, exposing the limits of their respective interpretative theories and revealing the need for inter- and transdisciplinary practices. Even when these complex and polemic connections, on the one hand, question the existence of Latin American cultural studies as a transdisciplinary field, on the other hand, they keep it alive, always reconfiguring it according to the local contexts of intervention.

En este ensayo reflexiono sobre las relaciones entre políticas de la crítica, condiciones socio-históricas y procesos de institucionalización de los estudios culturales latinoamericanos tanto en América Latina como en los Estados Unidos. Mientras que en los Estados Unidos los estudios culturales latinoamericanos no se pueden materializar, salvo casos excepcionales, sino en el ámbito académico, en América Latina, por el contrario, y debido a la histórica interacción de la actividad académica con la esfera pública y la sociedad civil, ellos se generan a partir de prácticas intelectuales y artísticas, ya sean individuales o colectivas, académicas o para-académicas, que presentan diversos grados y formas de institucionalización. Si bien la irrupción de los estudios culturales latinoamericanos, que se da simultáneamente en América Latina y en Estados Unidos durante los años ochenta, produjo una gran conmoción y revuelta en las tradicionales disciplinas pertenecientes a las humanidades y a las ciencias sociales, su posterior institucionalización en programas específicos es relativamente exigua. No obstante, las transformaciones globales producidas desde los años setenta cuestionaron la función de ambos campos, expusieron los límites de sus marcos interpretativos específicos y revelaron la necesidad de rediseñarlos inter- y transdisciplinariamente. Aun cuando estas complejas y polémicas conexiones, por un lado, cuestionan la existencia de los estudios culturales latinoamericanos como campo transdiciplinario, por el otro, lo mantienen con vida, siempre reconfigurándolos de acuerdo a los contextos locales.