The term ‘Latin America’ is ambiguous, as its connotations are various. As a more encompassing notion, it refers to a territory, and its concomitant nation states, stretching from Mexico in the north, through the Caribbean and Central America, to Argentina and Chile in the south. However, as a much looser term, Latin America evokes a series of associated images (not quite mythical nor quite stereotypical): Indian heritage and European dominance; macho men and stoic women; violent revolutions and ruthless dictatorships; agrarian reforms and urban congestion; dire poverty and sumptuous luxury; remote hinterlands and advanced industrial enterprises; Liberation Theology and dependency theory. It evokes the magical realism of their literature; the flair of their fiestas; the rhythms of tango and salsa; the flavours of their food; the temperament of their athletes; the caudillo of politics; the triumph of mapana. In this latter sense, Latin America connotes the culture of the mestizo – in contrast to the Native American, indigenous cultures, which have been seen to represent the pre-Columbian heritage.
Most importantly, the term ‘Latin America’ glosses those aspects of Latin American culture which are perceived to be the products of the particular process of transculturation which ensued as a result of the conquest (initiated in 1492) by the Spanish and Portugese of the indigenous populations, i.e. those historical processes which lend Latin America its singularity. The conquest not only established the invaders as the rulers, but also inculcated a perception of the rulers as radically superior to their subject people. Hence, the mestizo — born of Indian mother and Spanish father — was initially seen as a threat to the stability of the social order, and only much later did mestisaje come to symbolize a Latin American essence and thereby become the locus of contested national identity. This attitude of different but not equal was nourished initially by the conquistadores and the Catholic Church, and subsequently by the various new independent governments to be proclaimed in the first half of the nineteenth century.
In spite of the processes of mestisaje and religious and cultural syncretism, this initial creation of ‘the other’ has contributed to the construction of a pervasive dichotomy which permeates perceptions of Latin American society (Todorov 1987). Although the roots of this dichotomy can be traced to the original opposition between ‘Indian’ and ‘European’, it has over the centuries been transposed and come to encompass a series of oppositions: traditional/ modern; backward/civilized; rural/urban; underdeveloped/developed. These oppositions operate both internally in the structuring of relationships between groups and externally, positioning Latin America simultaneously, and hence ambiguously, at the core and periphery of the occidental world.
Since the time of colonization, Latin America was integrated in the world system, albeit on very unequal terms. Although there are many features which contribute to the shared cultural heritage of Latin Americans, the local conditions at the time of conquest were extremely varied, implying very different forms of articulation and hence different socioeconomic and political trajectories (Wolf and Hansen 1972). Any understanding of the complexities and heterogeneity of modern Latin America must take into account these differences.
Anthropological perspectives
The development of anthropology in Latin America has been affected by these perceptions, both with respect to the types of studies carried out and with respect to the theories that have guided the work. At a very general level it is possible to say that anthropological research in Latin America has fallen into two main categories: those dealing with Native American indigenous cultures, and those more concerned with the articulation of social processes that have come in the wake of modernization and industrialization. Whereas the former studies focus primarily on the internal structurings of indigenous communities and have a specific regional embeddedness (e.g. Highland and Lowland South America), the latter, often coined as ‘peasant studies’, are more concerned with the relations that obtain between local communities and the wider society. These studies are not limited to any particular region, but represent, rather, a perspective which seeks to reflect the complex processes that modernization implies with a specific interest in social change, often with an explicit applied intention. They focus on different forms of sociocultural integration, exploring forms of social differentiation, migration and urbanization in order to grasp the transformation of rural societies. Thus, one of the main contributions of anthropology has been to open the space and disclose the tensions that bridge the prevailing dichotomies.
Rural society – folk culture
The particular focus on rural lifeworlds was inspired by evolutionist theory and the notion that so-called traditional societies represented an impediment to change. The development of anthropology in Mexico is illustrative of this perspective. In the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910) there was a growing concern for the plight of the indigenous communities and their possible integration into the national society. Under the influence of Manuel Gamio (the founding father of modern Mexican anthropology) the policy of indigenismo — based on the notion that indigenous groups were culturally distinct from the wider society — was launched. This policy was to generate a major debate around the question of incorporation: assimilation versus autonomy, integration versus cultural plurality. Later the programme of indi-genismo was challenged by the concept of ‘internal colonialism’ and dependency theory, and converged in a debate about ethnic identity and inter-ethnic relations (Stavenhagen 1969). At issue was the nature of indigenous communities and, most importantly, their relation to society at large. Being neither ‘primitive’ nor ‘modern’, they defied the prevailing categorizations (see Hewitt de Alcantara 1984 for a full discussion on this issue).
The studies of Robert Redfield, George Foster and Oscar Lewis, all influenced by the culture and personality school, insert themselves in this debate. Through his concept of ‘folk society’ Redfield developed a model of local communities as distinctly integrated and different from urban communities. He considered urban values and lifestyles to be a threat and disintegrating force on local value-systems. He subsequently modified his initial views, developing his folk-urban continuum and the notion of the peasant communities as ‘part cultures’. Through his concept of ‘great and little traditions’ and his focus on the social organization of tradition (1955), he recognized more explicitly the embeddedness of rural communities. With Red-field, peasant studies became an important focus in Latin American anthropology. The criticisms that his work inspired — the romantic view of peasant communities, the functionalist assumptions, and his emphasis on cognitive categories to the detriment of economic factors in explaining change — led to a continued interest in the forces underpinning the transformation of rural society.
In contrast to Redfield, Foster, in his study on Tzintzuntzan (1967), found a community permeated by mistrust and fear. He introduced the notion of the ‘image of limited good’ to explain the prevailing worldview. Although he related this to the historical and ecological forces that worked to shape the community, he nevertheless stressed psychological factors as the basic impediment to raising standards of living. Oscar Lewis’s restudy of the village of Tepoztlan (in the 1940s) challenged Redfield’s original findings along similar lines, stressing the prevalence of conflict over harmony. However, Lewis was also interested in the historical processes that linked the community to the nation state, as well as the social processes that linked the rural to the urban. His focus on migration led him to do fieldwork in the urban slums of Mexico City, which resulted not only in innovative ethnographic accounts (e.g. Lewis 1961) but also laid the basis for his controversial theory of the culture of poverty and many subsequent studies of poor urban communities.
Peasants and relations of power
These studies were not particularly concerned with the issue of power. Thus, the social organization of peasant communities was largely explained in functionalist terms and with reference to values. This necessarily had implications for the views held with respect to incentives for change. With the work of Juhan Steward (in Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico) a new approach, cultural ecology, was given to research concerned with rural development. Most importantly this involved a focus on regional developments in a historical perspective and assigning a first priority to material conditions and socioeconomic relations.
"Eric Wolf and "Sydney Mintz developed this perspective within a Marxist framework. Their work was to have a profound influence on the subsequent development of Latin American anthropology. The shift in the analytic thrust implied a view of the peasant/indigenous community as intrinsically integrated in (as well as a product of) national political and economic relations, but on unequal terms: they were not only dependent but also exploited. The concept of surplus as well as that of domination became central to the analysis of the structural constraints on peasant action. Moreover, particular attention was given to the different social relations that sustain the peasant community, giving weight to both the vertical (patron-client) and horizontal (compadrazgo) ties which permeate the community.
The impact of the works of Wolf and Mintz must be seen in the light of both the agrarian unrest which prevailed in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, and the prominence of the dependency theories which dominated Latin American social sciences at this time. Countless studies of rural society and processes of rural transformation were informed by these frameworks (e.g. Johnson 1971; Warman 1976), and represent the culmination of the rural—urban problematics. The importance of these studies lies in the consistent effort to relate historical processes, ecological and macro-economic conditions to the everyday organization of social life.
Contemporary perspectives
Whereas earlier studies developed in a context of modernizing projects, with the dual focus of discontinuity and integration, contemporary perspectives, seeking to transcend the former perspectives, recognize Latin America as representing modern, plural and basically urban societies. Other issues of research are brought to the fore, such as the focus on the various articulations of modernity and identity. One significant development in this direction has been the growing interest in the construction of gender relations and the meanings attached to gender. As elsewhere, the forerunner to a focus on gender in Latin America was the concern for the position of women, and the central issues were framed in terms of class and oppression (Nash and Safa 1980 [1976]), production and reproduction (Deere and Leon 1987) in line with prevailing Marxist perspectives. However, the narrow ^materialist approach has yielded to a more sensitive analysis of the complex meanings of gender in Latin American society, as these are disclosed both in the practice of everyday life, the sexual division of labour and in symbols and values. Thus such themes as football, tango and the notions of honour and shame are all brought to bear on the construction of masculinity and femininity as expressions of particular moralities (e.g. Archetti 1991; Melhuus and Stolen 1996).
Recent research also attends to the intertwined issues of increasing activism among indigenous groups, urbanization, democratization, and the effects of neoliberal economic policies. World Bank and IMF liberalization policies were experienced particularly sharply in Latin America, leading anthropologists to engage critically with these policies, continuing and refining the earlier materialist emphasis (Phillips 1998). As democratic regimes were established in several states, inequality continued and political and social movements expanded (Paley 2001). Of particular interest has been the increased democratic participation of previously marginalized groups that has accompanied urbanization and economic change in the early twenty-first century (Yashar 2005; Holston 2007).
