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Rise and Demise: Latin American and Hispanic Studies

by Robert Austin on May 19, 2016

Rise and Demise: Latin American and Hispanic Studies

Robert Austin | May 19, 2016

Tags: Latin America
Latin America
| 0 127

A spectre is haunting Latin American and Hispanic Studies (LAHS). Their Australasian elite has made it possible, as Marx once said of Napoleon, for “a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part”. Whilst this demise has its roots in the malaise of the late capitalist academy, LAHS’ path from rebelliousness and integration with the Left intelligentsia to a comfortable chair at the summit of the new conformism also has unique characteristics, which explain the paradox of its once-unthinkable subordination to the corporate managerial model.

Replete with elements of philanthropic interventionism and cultural imperialism, presumptions about the deaths of Marxism and the emancipatory metanarrative, as well as the exoticisation of Latin America as a laboratory at the service of stellar Western careers, the elite’s de-coupling of intellectual work from international solidarity work has been accompanied by direct collaboration among the LAHS elite with the dual projects of imperialism in Latin America and neo-colonialism at home. Whilst we agree with E.P. Thompson that there is never a Book of Answers, this study offers some modest insights into this rise and demise, and explores where the discipline might begin to recover its academic autonomy and develop an intellectual practice which confronts capitalist globalisation, rather than meekly acceding to TINA dictates and proliferating a springtime for sycophants.

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Author: Robert Austin

Robert Austin holds a Ph.D in History & Latin American Studies (La Trobe). His books include The State, Literacy and Popular Education in Chile, 1964-1990 (2003); (ed.) Diálogos sobre Estado y Educación Popular en Chile: de Frei a Frei, 1964-1993 (2004); (ed.) Intelectuales y Educación Superior en Chile: de la Independencia a la Democracia Transicional, 1810-2001 (2004, 2005); and (ed.) Imperialismo Cultural en la Historiografía Latinoamericana: Teoría y Praxis (2007). Over the past decade and with invaluable collaboration from Viviana Ramírez, he has been developing, inter alia, a history of Australian-based solidarity movements with Latin America since the 1970s.

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  • Home
  • About
  • Manchester University Press Book Series
  • Past & Present Reading Group
  • A Political Economy of Australian Capitalism
  • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • JAPE Issues
    • JAPE Submission Guidelines
    • JAPE Young Scholar Award
  • Australian IPE Network (AIPEN)
  • Forums
    • Forums
    • Debating Anatomies of Revolution
    • Debating Debtfare States
    • Debating Economic Ideas in Political Time
    • Debating Making Global Society
    • Debating Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India
    • Debating Social Movements in Latin America
    • Debating The Making of Modern Finance
    • Debating War and Social Change in Modern Europe
    • Feminist Global “Secureconomy”
    • Gendered Circuits of Labour and Violence in Global Crises
    • Scandalous Economics
    • The Military Roots of Neoliberal Governance
    • Politicising artistic pedagogies
  • Literary Geographies of Political Economy
  • PPExchanges
  • Pedagogy
    • IPEEL Of The Environmental Crisis
    • Five Minute Honours Theses
    • Piketty Forum
    • Radical Economics Pedagogy
    • Unconventional Wisdom
    • Journal Club
    • Marxism Reading Group
  • Wheelwright Lecture
  • Events
  • Contributors
  • Links
    • Political Economy At Sydney
    • PHD in Political Economy
    • Master of Political Economy
    • Centre for Future Work
    • Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ)
    • Climate Justice Research Centre (UTS)
 

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