ROBERTO se HWARZ Brazilian Culture:Nationalism ROMÁN DE LA CAM,PA Mimicry and the Uncanny in

by Elimination, 2 33 CaribbeanDiscourse, 535

JosÉ RABASA OfZapatismo: Reflections on the Folkloric
c-PB EATRI z SARLO Intellectuals: Scission or Mimesis? 250
and the Impossible in a Subaltern Insurrection, 56I
w ALTER MIGNoLO The Movable Center: Geographical
DEBRA A.CASTILLO, MARÍA GUDELIA RANGEL GÓMEZ,
Discourses and TerritorialityDuring the Expansion
AND ARMANDO ROSAS soLÍs Tentative Exchanges:
ofthe Spanish Empire, 2 62
TijuanaProstitutes and Their Clients, 584
JOSÉ JOAQUÍN BRUNNER Notes onModernity and
Ju AN FLOREsThe Latino Imaginary:Meanings of
Postmodernity in Latin American Culture, 2 91 Community and Identity, 606
_,p JESÚS MARTÍN-BARBERO ANocturnalMap to
Explore aNew Field, 310 @ Positions and Polemics
_¡,
� NÉSTOR GARCÍA CANe u NI Cultural Studies from the -fl JoHN B EVERLEY Writing in Reverse: On theProject
1980s to the 1990s: Anthropological and Sociological ofthe Latin American Subaltern Studies Group, 62 3
Perspectives in Latin America, 3 29
----V MABEL MoRAÑA The Boom ofthe Subaltern, 643

111. Practices INTRODUCTION BY ABRIL TRIGO -.e.. GEoRGE Y ú DIe E Latin American Intellectuals in
-17 The 1990s:Practices andPolemics within Latin American aPost-Hegemonic Era, 655
Cultural Studies, 347 -..,.. Hu Go Ae Hu GAR Local/Global Latin Americanisms:
1 RENE s I Lv ERBLA TT PoliticalDisfranchisement, 375 "Theoretical Babbling," apropos Roberto Fernández
Retamar, 669
.---[) BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ STEPHAN On Citizenship:
_p NELLY RIe HARD Intersecting Latin America with Latin 6-
The Grammatology ofthe Body-Politic, 384
Americanism: Academic Knowledge, TheoreticalPractice,
EDUARDO ARCHETTI MaleHybrids in the World ofSoccer, 406 and Cultural Criticism, 686
ADRIÁN GORELIK AND GRACIELA SILVESTRI ThePast -p ALBERTO M oRE I RAs Irruption and Conservation:
as the Future: A Reactive Utopia in Buenos Aires, 427 Sorne Conditions ofLatin Americanist Critique, 706

ANA M.LÓPEZ Tears andDesire:Women andMelodrama -----{) N E I L LARsEN The Cultural StudiesMovement and Latin
in the "Old" Mexican Cinema, 441 America: An Overview, 728

F RANe INE MAS I ELLO The Unbearable Lightness of -JoHN KRANIA u sKAs Hybridity in a Transnational Frame:
History: Bestseller Scripts for Our Times, 459 Latin Americanist andPostcolonialPerspectives on
Cultural Studies, 736
RENA To oR TI z Legitimacy and Lifestyles, 474
--:p ANTONIO CORNEJO POLAR MestizajeandHybridity:
DANIEL MATO The TransnationalMaking ofRepresentations The Risks ofMetaphors-Notes, 760
ofGender, Ethnicity, and Culture: IndigenousPeoples'
Organizations at the Smithsonian Institution's Festival, 498 Works Cited, 765
Gu STA vo A. REMEDI TheProduction ofLocalPublic Spheres: Acknowledgment ofCopyrights, 805
Index, 8n
Community Radio Stations, 513
 cultural realities that make up the�pecificity ofLatin Am_<:Eican cu!_!:ura_l
studie�_the selected texts are introduced along with a map that charts the
cognitive constellations, thematic networks, critica! interventions, ideo­
logical fluxes, and chronological developments, as well as the position
that every author in this book has in the development of the field, thus
allowing the reader to choose among different routes and invent new
ones.
The selection, organization, and introduction of a representative cor­
pus of texts-an anthology, a collection, a compendium of any sort-is
always a difficult task. To decide which texts and authors will be included
is an agonizing process; to decide which ones will be excluded is even
worse. In that sense, no definitive anthology is possible, and this reader
<loes not intend to be the culmination of a field foil of contradictions
_and divergent methodological, epistemological, and hermeneutic ten-­
dencies, as our own introductions clearly demonstrate. O� the contrary,
it has to be read as an open work, one that is in the process_ofbecoming.
However, a few words about the criteria of selection are in arder. Many
people would disagree with our selection, with the inclusion of certain
authors or texts and the exclusion ofothers; many more would ask them­
selves why certain authors are included in one section instead ofanother;
others might demand a better representation far women, gays, and eth­
nic groups, or a more nuanced balance between different disciplines or
between authors from Latin America and abroad. Furthermore, sorne
people would complain about the absence of Latino critics, but in fact,
despite its many obvious connections with Latín American cultural stud­
ies, Latino cultural studies could be understood as a separate field with a
different set of problems, methodologies, and intellectual traditions. As
ainilier offact, thefour sections in whlch we h;ve organized the anthol­
ogy respond to the chronological impact of certain authors or texts upon
the farmation and development of the field, and should not be under­
stood as hierarchical categories. The absence of an author from any sec­
tion <loes not imply any sort of negative judgment on her or his work.
Nevertheless, after the exhausting consideration of severa!, s�metimes
opposite criteria of selection and methodological strategies, we have
come up with a list oftexts and authors that is not only representative of
the current status ofthe field but, more importantly, also provides an ac­
count of its historical farmation, its most outstanding ideological and
methodological trends, and its main thematic axes and theoretical con­
troversies. Therefare, we have put together a selection of texts that, far
the most part, have had a significant role in the development ofthe field
or represent a significant contribution to its current status.
2 ABRIL TRIGO
An Operational Definition of
Latin American Cultural Studies
What is in a name? The name is ofno importance and, nevertheless, we
are not so disingenuous as to believe that names are value free, empty
signifiers, because it is too well known that every name is charge.d, i_n­
eluctably, �i_th sedimentations ofmeanings linked .!_O concrete historical
faundations and institutions of power. Partially at least, tQ name is to
�s.. So, why are we including under the rubric of Latin American
cultural studies so many diverse practices, which are usually assessed by
their own practitioners under differing rubrics? Given the fierce resis­
tance to the invasion of"cultural studies" from so many camps, particu­
larly in Latín America, we could be ac�d_of�cac:lemj_c op_p_ortunism, Q_f
g:ying to capitalize on the current 2QPJJJ_,gity_of"cultural studies" in the
y._S. academy. O�ld b_e accu�eE.__Q[_mis.f_alculati_o.n._Why publish a
Latin American cultural studies reader, in English, precisely when both
U.S. and Latín American cultural studies have been so harshly criticized
far having become institutional gears far the global control of knowl­
edge? Should we not adopt another rubric, or adapt one ofthe many Latín
American historical variants? Our decision is a strategjc _9E._e. We do not
accept the consideration of "culturrumQi�s�s a_!,!niver§._al trad�par:J<;
�annot acc<:p�he histo�i�al pr_ec�dence or_th_e �piste�ological P:eem­
----�
.!!_lence of any particular
-··-- definition
-·-- �-of "cultural studies," 9r
. -···�- �--·
�- ..
bdieve -it is.
politicalJy P.rudent to cede the privilege, not of a rubric, �ut of the prac-
tices that that rubric names. We vindicate the specific politica�raI:�º=y
and the epistemological space ofLatin American cultural studies, . not as )
�-1?��h �fi�ii-i'e �"iiive_�;il "c.i¿l�u;¡i st_udie-;; �r a{-a �pplement-;fBrg�. .
E ,
- ¡
ish or U.S. cultural studies, but as a full-fledged field of inquir_y t�� �as
its 0'-\7_:I_E_Ístorical problematics and trajectories. By way of summary, but
with no pretense of proposing a definitive or prescriptive definition, we
outline the axial features of our working interpretation of Latín Ameri­
can cultural studies.
Latín American cultural studies consti!ute 1- .field of in�iry his!_?E.­
cally configured from the Latín American crü_ical t_Eaª-it�g_n_;¡.ncl in con­
stant, sometimes confljctive dialogue with Western schools of thought,
such as French structuralis� post;t�uctÜ.ralist; and·post�odernis� lin­
guistics, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology of culture; German
Frankfurt school and reception theory; semiotics and feminisms; aJ1d
more recently, British and U.S. cultural studi� l_he main objects of in-\
guiry ofLattn AmeriGan �ulj_l,!_ral st],lqjes_are tbe symbolic production_a!_ld \
living experiences of social reality in Latín Americ�_n a word, �n
General lntroduction 3
r'"

be read as a cultural_ text, what caEEies a sociohistorical symbolic m�n­ clusively endogenous or exogenous processes, Latin American cultural
ing and is intertwined with various discursiye formations., could be come studies cannot be fully grasped without considering their relation to Brit­
a leg��;;;- bject of_inquirt, from art and literature, to sports and me­ ish and U.S. cultural studies. This requires a dually contextual bifoéal
dia, to social lifestyles, beliefs, and feelings. Therefore, Latin American hermeneutics, capable of interpreting the text against the sociohistorical
cultural studies produce their own obje cts of study 0 the process of in: milieu in which it originated, and simultaneously against the sociohis­
vestig3tio12.:_ This means that c�tural studies cannot be defined �xclu­ torical milieu in which the subje ct's own interpretation is being pro­
sively by their to pies of research or by any particular methodological ap­ duced. This critica! methodology, by pitting historically set meanings
pr�cii;-'which they share with severa! disciplines, but in�tei_áby the and values against each other and situating the subject in the actual flux
ryistemologi - -- . ----"-· - ·-�--
cal construction of those tapies. Prec isely in this operatio�,
-
";'.hich has a cognitive_ (heuristic, hermeneutical, explicative, analytical)
of history, prevents the entrapment of contingency politics-merely em­
pirical and conjunctural, like identity politics-and guarantees the
and pr�cal (prospe ctive, critica!, strategic, synthetic) yalue, li�s their grasping of the contingent in comprehensive social and geopolitical for­
fil.r.ongly political thrust. In this sense, Latin American cul!u�s�udies mations.
-- focus-on the ·-· -�-- -institutions,
an<!lysis of - --- experien ---· c es, and symbolic produc-
-·- -- ·--· ·-
tion as intricately connecte_d to social, political, and material relations, RELATI ONS HI P W ITH B R ITIS H
�e_lati;ns to which these elements in �urn contribute·. Consequently,�-
)1-�
ANO U.S. CULTURAL STUDIES
can be defined as historically and geogrJphl_siJJy_pver..d.�t�_�ed _!.a.ti.n American cultural studies.did..not originate in British cultural stuc.!,­
, . symbolic and performative institutions and lifestyles specific to concrete ies or in Western postmodern theories. Well befare British cultural stud­
i
¡ ;ocia! forma�ions, which �evelop _
uñdé-r particular m.9de.§_2_f pr�, ies and postmodern writers reachedLatin America, and well befare Brit­
3jg_riJ:,_p.!_ion, _and cons.ump_tio.v_ of goods and arti�acts with symbolic ish-cultu-�al �udies we�e coined ÍnBritain and postmodernism was born,
!
E!_ue. 'Dt!E!.lWral is perhaps a better term to captme the kaleidoscopic na­ many Latin American intellectuals were already doing sorne sort of cul­
Jur�f o�r object of study than culture, which generally implies somede- tural studies. Similarly, the genealogy ofLatin American cultural studies
1 g��e oI rei5. cat�?�: Thus, t,�an be concep!ualized as a -fiJstori­
_ _ is manifold and eclectic, and <loes not relate directly and solely to post­
.: �ally overdetermined field of struggle for the symbolic and performative structural and postmodernist theories. They are not an offshoot ofU.S.
-
¡(

.,· .'produ
·- c!iQ!!,_reg_rod°iiction, and --
contestation of social re;lity and political
,, ..,

cultural studies either, which they actually antec ede. Instead,_ they �re an­
�

-
- - �. -
..

--
) hegemony, through which colle ctive identities evolve. As such, �k other locally and historically grounc:led practice of that abstraction called
. tura! can be considered
- Lafin-American cultural
- studies' privileged field
.--- "culniral studies," as, for instance, British,U.S., and Australian cultural

-
,of inquiry inasmuch as it is reciprocally produced by and a producer of
.
what is experienced at the social and the política[ spheres. Toe. soc_Lo_!ili;tori-
cal overdetermination of the cultural guarantees its inextricable conne c-
----
tion to the political. A cultural text is always part of a wider and more
c omplex symbolic system, a field of struggle for the sym_l;_,o!lc reproduc ­
iioñof so-cial reality that is ultimately elucidated at the political sphere.
Upon this operational definition, we can summarize the c�tral tenets Óf
our hypotheses.
SOCIOHISTORICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION
�tin American cultural studies are a disputed field in a global scenario,
which means that they must necessarily be read agains!_ th�iswr­
ical background of Latin American socioeconomic and .ge.o.c.ultui:aLeR­
meshment in worldwide affairs and externa! influences. Just as Latin
American cultural phenomena cannot be fully explicated as either ex-
studies are. However, the consolidation ofLatin American cultural stud­
ies in the 1980s and 1990s coincided with a dramatic turn, inextricably
conne cted to the formation of a global theoretical marketplace, from the
.
long-lasting influence ofEuropean modern values, theories, and think­
� (particularly from France and Germany) j:o Anglo-American pQstin­
dustrial �nd_pos�odern ac<!<iem_Lc_hegemony, a phenomenon further
dramatized by the �rgeE_um�fLatin �-m�i;:i ca� intelh;_ cti¿_a.J mig@nts. _
SOCIOHISTORICAL CONTINUITIES
Latin American cultura.!_gudies are_no. t . j.usuh.e_pJ.Qd_ust_of an.l!plstemo.:.
logical break,_postmodern or otherwise, but the result of specific socio­
historical conti_nuities in the Latin American political and cultural IIJ.i­
lieus, despite the fact that sorne celebrities in Latin American cultural
studies trace their roots dii-ectly t� Europe�;-;cho�ls of thought whi'le
c ircumventing the opulent Latin American critica! tradition. Néstor

4 ABRIL TRIGO General lntroduction s

 García Canclini, arguably the most internationally emblematic represen­
tative of the field, and Beatriz Sarlo, a Latin American cultural studies
scholar malgré-lui, rarely credit any Latin Americ an cultural thinker be­
yond their own circles. This silencing is somewhat contradicted when
Garcí a Canclini claims that he "became involved in cultural studies be­
fare [he] realized this is what it was called," or when Sarlo say s that she
"thought [she] was doing the history ofideas" (Garcí a Canclini 1996, 84;
Sarlo 1997a, 87). Obviously, if prior to becoming acqua inted with cul­
tural studies as such, they were already practicing them, it is because the
field's issues and methodologies predate it as such. Both Sarlo, a literary
critic, and Garcí a Canclini, a cultural anthropologist, were working in
fields already permeated by theoretical, methodological, and ideologic al
controversies that constitute pivota! issues within Latin American cul­
tural studies.
According to Julio Ramos, a literary critic who is concerned with the
discursive, disciplinary, and institutional genealogy of national litera­
tures, and with the central role of cultural policies in the consolidation
of nation-states and their national imaginaries, ytin Ameritan_c_ultJ]ral
studies deal primarily with the emergence or the survival ofethn.icJdemi­
ri�, qiasporic subjects, and subaltern lores, topics that nurture an epist'=.­
mology at the Iimits of traditional disciplinary boundaries., These topics
reflect (upon) the intensification of conflicts in heterogeneous social for­
mations, such as the border culture ofU.S. L atinos and the uneven mo­
dernity ofLatin America throughout its history. The difference Q��
current Latin American cultural studies and traditional Latín American
thoughtis that the Iatter bet on the integrative �apability ofnational lite;�
atures and a rt, while the former questions them asapp a ratuses ofp;;-wer�
The fact remains, however, that not only the topics of inquiry, but most
importantly the institutions and practices ofknowledge in Latín America
have always been "heterogeneous, irreducible to the principies of auton­
omy which Iimited the disciplines in the United States or France, for in­
stance." L atin American cultural thinkers since the early nineteenth cen­
'" tury have "worked, precisely in the i_::terstitial site �f t� essi,, wit_h
transdisciplinary devices and ways of knowledge" (Ramos 1996, 36).
f,')' 1
�­
They are, in the truest sense, the early precursors ofLatin Americ
----an -cu!-
1
/✓. � \ ..
-
tura! studies.
1/'., \'i,
_f,.m_erica ,_ alongside neocolonialism, the popular, modernityL.and mod­ 1
SOCIOPOLITICAL FRACTURES
Latín American cultural studies also originated as a hermeneutical and
critica! response to the economic, social, política!, and cultural transfor­
mations of Latín American countries and societies under the imp act of
6 ABRIL TRIGO
transnational finance capitalism and the globalization of ci¿Iture experi­
�nced si�c� the �arly 197os.._ The crushing of democratic popular move­
ments and the installation of repressive regimes paved the way for the
neoliberal dismantling of local industries and social Iegislation, the pri­
vatization of state enterprises, the deregulation of labor and speculative
capital, the twenty-fold increase of national debts, and the overall im­
mersion in global capitalism and transnational mass culture.
Has the national question been superseded by globalization? Do new
social movements and the emergence of previously suppressed identities
replace national imaginaries? Is civil society outside, above, or against
the nation-state? Does the deterritorialization of capital deterritoffi!lize
old territorial allegiances? Two a xes intersect here. On one hanct, _the
problematic ofgie nation-st� articulation to the global markets,
which leads to the core issues ofcitizenship and consumption, identities
and the s11bject; o_n the other hanfthe p..E_oblematic of m�y, with
the subsequent impact ofthe postmodern and the postnational, g_Iobal­
ization and its articulation to the local and the national, and the passage
fro� international sphere to transnational networks.
The politics of the 1960s were guided (and many times dogmatically
misguided)by the p�mis;-th�-��e ma in contradLctions of the times
were bourgeoisie versus proletariat and imp.erialism_versus.nation. Such contra­
dictions subsumed every single sociopolitical conflict and allowed for
the formation ofpopular national blocs in order to carry out the pending
national-democratic and social revolutions. Qependency theory, ped�
g2gy ofthe oppre�sed, �nd theology o�ib�ation..., among the mo�t im­
_ portant critica! paradigms to emerge from Latin America in that period,
directly nurtured and/or responded to the said premise. Later, i.__mper�I­
it,m and the nation, the main characters in this dr ama, faded from the
scene, alongside the mere concept of social class. Imperialism, with the
end of a bipolar world, the advent of flexible postindustrial capitalism,
and the dispersa! ofits centers, lost its currency. Ifit is no longer possible
to think in terms ofmodern economic and cultural imperialism, how can
the peoples of the periphery name these postmodern, apparently de­
centered, transnational centers ofpower? How can they devise liberating
política! strategies without being able to name this imperial postmod­
ern, this flexible, ubiquitous, omnivorous regime? Correlatively, how can
these peoples name themselves, that is, create themselves as agents of
their own destiny? �tional question is still a capital issue in Latín
ernization. So is dependency theory, a vernacular form ofpost-Marxism­
not to be confused with other forms ofpost-M arxism, which proclaim the
General lntroduction 7
 demise of Marxist thought-and anticolonialism-not to be confused
with postcolonial studies, which assume the demise ofanticolonial strug­
gles-whose main objectives of economic justice, popular democracy,
and cultural emancipation are still unfulfilled.
"fhis is the reason why the need to insist upon the political is n:edullar
to any project within Latin American cultural studies. As a matter offact,
Latin American intellectuals have always been intricately Iinked__!.2_poli­
tics and the political, both,in theory and practice. :$ut since politics bas
become old-fashioned and reading cu!� p-;litical terms has����
a la mode, more than ever the status ofthe political needs to be elu�i�a_te;!_
politically (Jameson 1990a, 44). What is the articulation between culture
and politics, or better yet, between the cultural and the political? Jhe
interpretation_of culture_sj_Q. 20IiticªLterms should not end up depoliti­
cizing politics. On the contrary, a more rigorous discernment of the mu­
tually overdetermined status of the political and the cultural should
allow for a deeper and renewed politicization of both politics and cul­
tures on the understanding that they still constitute two discernible-al­
though never discrete or autonomous-spheres of social action. Culture
is overde_termined by the political as politics is overdeterminedby}iíe
__91Itu!"_ a], but ITt there is _a_speci.fically political praxis as we)l as a sp�cifj­
,cally cultural one. And here is where utopia comes in, because if utopia
is basically a necessarily evasive horizon, it needs to be permanently re­
inscribed in our critica! practice in the same way politics has always been
inscribed in cultural studies as a tension between the intellectual and the
academic, desire and knowledge (Hall 1980, 17). ��meson Q_as saic L
� (1990a, 51), and this utopian will, renovated as
practice and not just as desire, is what recreates the long tradition of
Latin American th_QughLi haLr.esonates in the intellectual adventure of
Latin American cultural studies.
LATI N AME R ICAN U N O I SCI P LI N E O THO U G HT
' Ionialism in its various forms, not merely as its rhetorical and stylistic ,u_•, . \·'. u
It has become sort of commonsensical to affirm that the most character­
istfr feature ofLatin American cultural studies is their multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary methodology, and sorne of i:heir
_rnost distinguished practitioners assume this decidedly. On one hand,
John l}eve1Jey,_speaking from the strong U.S. academic disciplinary tradi­
tion, stresses that "the point ofcultural studies was not so much to create
a dialogue between disciplines as to challenge the integrity of disciplin­
ary boundaries per se", (1993, 20). Néstor García Canclini's position, On
the other hand, is cautiously nuanced. Although he applauds cultural
studies' interdisciplinary methodology, he warns that "it must not be-
8 ABRIL TRIGO
come a substitute for the different disciplines [which] should become in­
volved in the study of culture, inform one another, interact, and make
their respective boundaries as porous as possible. But from the peda­
gogic point ofview, it seems to me that at university leve! the differences
between disciplines should be kept" (1996, 86). While Beverley cele-
brates transgression, García .. �-ªnclinj rec�!Ilf!l_ends a complementary
�-------
balance __between_the_disciplined pedagogic moment and the ulterior
multidisciplinary professional practice. But the core ofthe matter is that
multi�:·i;ter:2��transdiscipli�!it�-are..deeply engrained in Latin t.,.m�i:.
can writing, in the form of an essayist thrust tp.at evolves from the \
nineteenth-cen.ill!}'_pJ)ly_gr�phj ;;:tellectu-:i.1 (the lawyer by profession who
�a poet, a journalist, an ideologue: a politician, a statesman). It is
precisely that polygraphic practice-very clase indeed to the kind of
contingent, impure, deprogrammed "border text" proposed by Nelly
Richard, quoting exc!usively European poststructuralist writers, as para-
digmatic of "cultural criticism" (1998a)-which has always already tra-
versed discursive formations, confused social spheres, and contami-
nated the disciplines even befare their academic institutional inception
at the beginning ofthis century. For this reason, Latin American cultural
studies canr�Q!._be defined either by its multi-, inter-, or trans�j�ciplinar ..
J!l�-ogy, an i�sue which¿s_Neil Larsen correctly argue_s,J..�.i�t...'..'.� Nº
serious issue any more" (Larsen 1998, 247). M�, as Walter Mignolo e L-fl u1�
writ�, "One could say that there is a style of intellectual producti;n, in �º,U<,,-¡., .,. (Z.
to
1 �.o
l'ó,C I P<-• ,-.) F
and from the Third World, which consists of a ce_rt_ª1.!!._11E._9.i��Iinar::- s,,-, 0 co/'A e
fYJ ... I _� i�_IJ.ot esse_!ltia_!i;;_111Jhªt e.2Splains this: it is rather the history of 'ir-Je ,s�ifl.l
colonialism and_the gar.ne__ofpqwer_and cultural sch_ohgship in the his-
fs,¿: ;l /l-'
tory ofthe colonial countries and in the history ofthe_c_olo.nies'�(Mignolo � (??-IS ove
character ofLatin American t1t:;- ófc.•CC
r
1998a, rr2). In this sense, the ---· undisciplined
- -. .=;:....:c.:c..:::.:=---==-:.c:.-...cc...... COt.o, VA ( e;
critica! thinking would be �byproq__u':!_.Qfme_hig _ orlc�.!._�_E:�1�0� <?f <:_o- ut,F>-- cs1..;,.
inadv�rtent syncfrome, but aÍso as a methodolo�ical_ s��gf:�an� n � � ���'
_ �
_
epistemological
-- ------· tactic dependent upon theuneven development of the :., L._f N;.
-- - - --- .. .ci �-� �
modern relations of cultural production. D< ft � e 'J
EPISTEMIC SHIFTS
Latin American cultural studies are also the aftermath of the epistemic
;hifts experienced by ��i-;;;-ientific disciplines and discursive for- I:f.L-":, , 7_''
mations. In that manner, they are the Iocus where human and social ��si-c�:f,:,.,
_sciences, such ��_anthropology, socj_ology, historiography, communica- �-�.,�Je����
tions,..and Iiterary c�iticism, c��v�g_�rg_!Iaj a new concepjion_ofthe cul-ú�� /JLO �L
tur_gl (as a) field of struggle that began to take shape in the Í96§s and ro"'"'".
- --- -=-----...-. OC, ... ffJ ..
General lntroduction g