Arturo Escobar, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina and Wayne Morse Center Chair of Law and Politics. His book Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton University Press, Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History 1994) focused on how the industrialized nations of North America and Europe came to be seen as the appropriate models for post-World War II societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and how the postwar discourse on development actually created the so-called Third World. Since the later 1980s, he has been part of a research group on Latin American social movements which has resulted in two well-known anthologies on the subject, The Making of Social Movements in Latin America (1992), co-edited with Sonia Alvarez, and Cultures of Politics/Politics of Culture: Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements (1998), co-edited with S. Alvarez and Evelina Dagnino. He is a founding member of the Project for a World Anthropology/ies Network, a network of scholars and activists that questions current patterns of knowledge production, opening up anthropology to a plurality of styles, modes of thinking, practices, and inquiries about culture world wide. He co-directed, with Wendy Harcourt of the Society for International Development in Rome, an international project on “Women and the Politics of Place.” This project brought together intellectual-activists and activists-intellectuals working with place-based movements in various parts of the world, particularly involving women. He recently co-edited book the book World Social Forum: Challenging Empires (2004), focused on this important site of alternative models of public life. He is a member of the Latin American Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality network, a group of academics and activists exploring the meaning of decolonial projects in relation to modernity and globalization. Finally, he just completed a book manuscript, Territories of Difference: Place ~ Movements ~ Life ~ Redes (Forthcoming, Duke University Press), based on over twelve years of collaboration with the social movement of black communities of this region.

“Left Turn? Right Turn? Where is Latin America Going? Perspectives from Development, Implications for Democracy”

Is Latin America undergoing an “epoch of changes’ or, rather, a more radical ‘change of epoch,’ as Rafael Correa wagered in his presidential inaugural speech of January 2006?  Where are Latin America and the Caribbean going?  The answer to this question hinges, in great part, on the extent to which the recently elected “Left” regimes are able to transform the undemocratic development models of the past.  The lecture will discuss dominant and alternative trends in development thinking and policy, identifying useful elements to asses the character of the recent transformations.

Abstract

In his inaugural speech as President of Ecuador of January 2006, Rafael Correa stated that his country is not facing a mere ‘epoch of changes’ but, rather, a more radical ‘change of epoch.’  This lecture takes this pronouncement as a point of departure in order to ascertain the character of the transformations currently in vogue in a number of South American countries.  Latin America and the Caribbean seem the only region in the world where some counter-hegemonic tendencies might be taking place.  The lecture examines some of these tendencies; it argues that their fate might hinge on the extent to which the recently elected “Left” regimes are able to transform the undemocratic development models of the past.  Among to the questions to be addressed are: What are the main processes and actors leading to the emergent trend? Are these changes spearheaded by established political actors (State, political parties), or by novel social movements and civil society organizations?  To what extent are the development models introduced by the regimes really different from those of the previous decades?  What are the implications of these trends for conceptions and practices of the economy, democracy, and the State?  What is the role of culture in the cases under consideration?  What lessons, if any, can be learned from these trends for alternative development models that are socially, culturally and environmentally sustainable?  Finally, what is the relevance of the Latin American cases in the context of current global ecological, social, and economic problems and trends?