Whatever the recent progress of Latin American (LA) studies in the US, it is less evident to outsiders than to specialists in the field. Defects of our LA programs are most noticeable at the liberal-arts core of humanities & the soc sci's. Anthrop in its present state, offers the best point of departure for examining LA culture; literary & historical studies are esp weak. A drawback to LA as a field of study, in contrast to Asia or Africa, is that its culture is deceptively recognizable to Amer's. Moreover, our inherited suspicion of the Catholic world discourages study of its intellectual origins, & prevents us from identifying its sociol'al & psychol'al foundations. Today the wholesale subsidizing of LA studies threatens to cut them off further from our academic mainstream & to encourage mediocrity. The various causes for the poverty of our LA programs may possibly relate to our submerged doubts about the wisdom of the original Protestant secession. AA.
The contemporary North Atlantic world has been marked by a waning enthusiasm for and salience of the study of workers. Yet the current ebb "in the traditional capitalist 'core' countries" (not to mention eastern Europe), Marcel van der Linden recently suggested, is far from being a "crisis" in the field of labor history as such. Rather, it is best understood as "only a regional phenomenon" since in much of "the so-called Third World, especially in the countries of the industrializing semi-periphery, interest in the history of labor and proletarian protest is growing steadily". Citing encouraging recent developments in labor history in Asia, he noted how the field has grown in parallel with "the stormy conquest of economic sectors by the world market [which] has led to a rapid expansion of the number of waged workers, and the emergence of new radical trade unions". Van der Linden's description fits well the study of labor in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the field first gained visibility in the early to mid-1980s and has now won recognition as an established specialization among scholars of many disciplines. After surveying the Latin American boom and its political context, this article offers a Brazilian/North Atlantic example in order to illustrate the intellectual gains, for students of both areas, that come with the transcendence of geographical parochialism.
China's Latin American studies during the Cold War can be divided into five phases. Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai showed concern for the development of Latin American studies in China. These studies were suspended during the Great Cultural Revolution. The field developed significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, with three academic associations being established and the five major systems of Latin American studies beginning to take shape. After 2000, Sino–Latin American relations entered a new era, and the first 10 years of the century saw their rapid development, opening broad perspectives for the field. Los estudios latinoamericanos en China durante la Guerra Fría se pueden dividir en cinco fases. El presidente Mao Zedong y el primer ministro Zhou Enlai mostraron interés en el desarrollo de dichos estudios, pero estos se suspendieron durante la Revolución Cultural. Posteriormente, el campo se desarrolló de manera significativa durante los años setenta y ochenta gracias al establecimiento de tres asociaciones académicas y conforme se consolidaron los cinco sistemas principales de estudios latinoamericanos. Después del año 2000, las relaciones entre China y Latinoamérica entraron en una nueva fase, y la primera década del nuevo siglo atestiguó un rápido desarrollo que expandió las posibilidades en el campo.
The initial development of Latin American studies in Britain in the early 1960s resulted from the interest of pioneering academics in London and Cambridge and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Alongside these academic efforts, the government's concerns about the declining role of British business in the region triggered the establishment of the Parry Committee in 1962. Reporting in 1965, this committee recommended the establishment of five government-financed Latin American centers, together with investment in training new Ph.D. students, especially in the social sciences. These younger scholars, who took the opportunity to do research and travel in Latin America, soon began to react more strongly against U.S. policy, economic inequality, and human rights abuses. In the 1970s, tensions between the older and newer generations became acute with the Pinochet coup and the "dirty wars." Many academics thus distanced themselves from business and government in a way that the pioneers had not anticipated.El desarrollo inicial de los estudios latinoamericanos en Gran Bretaña a principios de la década de 1960 se debió al interés de académicos pioneros en Londres, Cambridge y el Instituto Real de Asuntos Internacionales. Junto con estas iniciativas académicas, la preocupación gubernamental ante el declive de los negocios británicos en la región dio lugar a la fundación del Comité Parry en 1962. En su informe de 1965, dicho comité recomendó el establecimiento de cinco centros latinoamericanos financiados por el gobierno, así como la formación de nuevos estudiantes doctorales, sobre todo en el área de ciencias sociales. Estos académicos más jóvenes, que aprovecharon la oportunidad de estudiar en y viajar por América Latina, pronto comenzaron a reaccionar con mayor fuerza contra la política de EE.UU., la desigualdad económica y los abusos contra los derechos humanos. En la década de 1970, las tensiones entre las generaciones más viejas y las nuevas se agudizaron con el golpe de estado de Pinochet y las "guerras sucias." Muchos académicos se distanciaron entonces de los negocios y los asuntos del gobierno de una manera que los pioneros no habían previsto.
