Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

34 reframing latin america
continue a covertly imperializing practice of assimilating Latin American
or postcolonial culture itself to critical canons that the latter have had no
hand in establishing?” 32
The wording of this question raises a number of issues at the core
of the debate. One of them concerns the historically unequal relationship
between Latin America, the United States, and Europe. Scholars like Larsen
wonder to what extent academic communities in the United States and
Europe are able to escape this broader imperial ethos, however critical of
it they might be. For instance, Larsen identifi es cultural studies in the
United States and Europe as a “critical canon.” His doing so is, of course,
ironic because cultural theory supposedly rejects canons as modernist
hierarchies. But Larsen is trying to draw attention to the fact that, from
the perspective of Latin American scholars, the academic system in the
United States and Europe can seem quite imperial and exclusive. Scholars in
the United States and Europe, compared with their Latin American colleagues,
have disproportionate access to the fi nancial resources necessary
for research and publication. Thus, much of the academic dialogue about
cultural studies and Latin American studies occurs in the United States and
Europe and excludes Latin American scholars and their ideas. Furthermore,
as cultural studies has moved more into the academic mainstream in the
United States, allowing it to function “canonically,” Larsen’s question suggests
that its adherents are wrapped up in broader institutionalized issues
within the academy in which preserving intellectual authority assumes
priority.
Larsen is something of an opponent of cultural theory, and his observations
about U.S. cultural studies fi t into his broader belief that modernist
frameworks retain some liberating qualities for Latin America. But a large
contingent of those scholars who share Larsen’s critique of U.S. cultural
studies do not share his faith in modernism and believe that cultural theory
offers valuable insights on Latin American identity. They do, however,
point out an additional problem for U.S. cultural studies: It ignores a long
and well-developed tradition of cultural studies in Latin America.
Daniel Mato is one of these scholars. Argentine by birth but now working
as an academic in Venezuela, Mato says he fi rst came to the United States
in 1991 on a faculty exchange program and was surprised to discover that
his North American colleagues defi ned him as a cultural studies scholar:
“The research I [had] been recently doing received here a name that was
new to me, ‘Cultural Studies.’ Surprisingly for me, I began being introduced
as a ‘Cultural Studies scholar.’” Mato was disturbed by this experience. He
believed that his intellectual training in Latin America was organic, but in