The Paradoxes of Latin American Arts et Research in their Quest for Autonomy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that the power dynamics between the Global North and the Global South that can be observed in the artistic world can also be seen in the academic world in general, and in the Latin American literary studies in particular. Multiple paradoxes are analysed: A first aspect is the importance of the human capital flight from the Southern universities to the Northern universities, and the consequent co-optation of the criticisms against the hegemony of the Global North academia by that same academia. Another paradox is to be found in the fact that the Latin American social sciences field it is imbued with Continental Philosophy and with theoretical frameworks originated in the North. Those contradictions end up generating a very delicate situation for the intellectuals of the Global North who pretend to develop a critical analysis of the Latin American cultural world, without getting involved in any form of coloniality.