Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

764 Eric Trist
LATIN AMERICA. Principal social research centres (1965)
Country Centres Centres No. of Centres with
circulated replying projects IO or more
research workers
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Venezuela
8 other countries
Total
28
29
17
IO
16
- 5
105
20
125
9
29
4
3
6
2 -
53
5
58
81
92
39
23
35
18
288
I4
302
-
4
2
3
2
2
I -
14
All but 20 of the centres are in the six countries which have made most headway
in social and economic development. In the other countries social research
scarcely exists. Apart from Peru, these are countries with very small popula-
tions - less than 5 million and sometimes less than 3 million, indigenous and
mestizo elements predominating, and illiteracy being high. In addition to eight
countries of this kind which were circulated, there were four others with which
the Centre had no contact. The larger and more advanced countries in which
social research has begun to develop are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Mexico and Venezuela, each of which possesses at least one centre with ten
or more active research workers and one or two others in which this number is
approached. These centres have links with world science in the setting of inter-
national cities. Provincial centres are out of touch with their own metropolitan
institutes as well as the outside world.
4. The greatest concentration of work is in Argentina and Chile, in which are
located some half of the centres carrying out two-thirds of the projects. Yet the
combined populations of these countries is only a third of that of Brazil - by far
the largest country with the widest diversity of resources and the greatest poten-
tial for industrial development. Somehow - perhaps because of the magnitude
of inter-regional disparity and persisting political instability - the social sciences
have not advanced as rapidly there as might be expected. In Mexico, though the
scale is small, roots are firmer. Developments in Colombia and Venezuela are
recent. Political stabilization has contributed.
5. As regards qualification and experience, information was obtained for
1965 from 38 centres in which were located almost all the more experienced
workers - 180 for the whole of Latin America. For 31 centres the disciplines of
the staff could be identified, sociologists being the outstanding category. The
overall range is wide. Most larger centres are interdisciplinary.
6. The preponderance of sociologists is surprising, except that the inquiry of
the Rio Centre did not include government or private organizations opera-
tionally involved in economic planning, regional development or industrial
modernization. These are user-organizations rather than research centres,
but a number of them employ investigatory staffs trained in applied eco-
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