Suchergebnisse

The Bolivian Intellectual Fausto Reinaga produced an enormous body of literature addressing the critical themes of twentieth century Bolivia : race, nation, and colonialism. This thesis explores those works. It does so through political-anthropological, historical, ethnographic, literary, pedagogical, and language-based methods and discussions. The larger political, economic, and social contexts of Bolivia are narrated through Fausto Reinaga's biographical and literary trajectories (1906- 1994). This thesis emphasizes, as Reinaga's work did, non- Western perspectives. It also brings to light globally formational events across the historical landscape which had previously been obscured. In doing so, this thesis contemplates the difficult subjects of governance, citizenship, race, identity, philosophy, and even academia itself. It analyzes the trajectory of the legacy of this understudied writer, which changed radically through his lifetime, and also right up to the contemporary moment. The main argument of this thesis is that, by examining the subjective and objective realities of oppressed political subjects in Bolivia, Reinaga deconstructs the hegemony of Modern Western Democratic thought. By utilizing his own reformulations of political philosophy, what he sometimes called Amautic thought, he offers a way out of the violent dilemmas of Western Liberalism in the twentieth century. Building on ideas from historical actors presented throughout the following pages, this thesis seeks to illuminate the possibilities for that alternative political philosophy in an attempt to move towards what philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls 'the beautiful day of life'

In this paper, I critically examine a number of notions about
interdisciplinary research approaches to the challenges posed by the world
today. I juxtapose this critique with a discussion of interdisciplinary
developments in Pacific studies, raising questions as to how deeper
dialogues between academic disciplines and the worldviews of Pacific
Islanders may be reached. While interdisciplinarity is widely seen as
a politically correct agenda for contemporary research on processes of
globalization and development, caution is needed against prevailing
optimism about the potential for solving multidisciplinary problems
through interdisciplinary innovation. Such optimism may overrate
the potentials of broad (as opposed to deep) research approaches
and may reflect disregard, if not arrogance, toward the complexity
of the matters addressed. The drive in some European countries for
research on "sustainable development" indicates close ties between
interdisciplinary aspirations and the bureaucratic ambitions of
research administrators. Under such circumstances interdisciplinarity
becomes an object of institutional conflict and internal debate
between institutions, as well as between bureaucrats and scientists,
more than a question of creative epistemological contact between
plural knowledges in and beyond academic disciplines in a search for
increased knowledge more generally. The avoidance of such pitfalls in
the further development of Pacific studies requires close attention to
and appreciation of initiatives from within Oceania, coming from beyond
the domains of conventional disciplines. In this paper, such paths toward
interdisciplinarity are exemplified in a discussion of epistemological
encounters between Oceanic and western knowledges, and with reference
to the emerging currents of "Native Pacific Cultural Studies."

This Survey of Latin American Studies in France was Compiled in the fall of 1967 and early 1968 with the aid of correspondents at the major universities in France, and from scholarly journals and bibliographies. The survey includes a brief discussion of the French news media's coverage of Latin America, a listing of the more important academic periodicals in the field, and a description of the universities and institutes supervising the area studies. Also, an attempt has been made to enumerate the larger research projects now in progress and to comment on general trends in all of the current research in Latin American studies in France.