Culture and Power

This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de los Andes], [Gregory Lobo] On: 10 January 2012, At: 07:29
Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Cultural Studies
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcus20
CULTURE AND POWER: INTERCULTURALITY AS A COMBINED POLITICAL, ETHICAL AND THEORETICAL PROJECT
Maite Villoria Nolla & Jeffrey Cedeo Available online: 16 Dec 2011
To cite this article: Maite Villoria Nolla & Jeffrey Cedeo (2011): CULTURE AND POWER: INTERCULTURALITY AS A COMBINED POLITICAL, ETHICAL AND THEORETICAL PROJECT, Cultural Studies, DOI:10.1080/09502386.2012.642600 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2012.642600
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages
whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Downloaded by [Universidad de los Andes], [Gregory Lobo] at 07:29 10 January 2012
Maite Villoria Nolla and Jeffrey Cedeno
CULTURE AND POWER: INTERCULTURALITY AS A COMBINED POLITICAL, ETHICAL AND THEORETICAL

PROJECT Interview with Daniel Mato
A very important part of your work has been thinking about what are called Studies in culture and power as a response to the hegemony of Latin American Cultural Studies. What are the core points of the debate? Is it a difference of strategy, or relocalization and adjustment of the global Latin-American debate? I find it very appropriate to start with this question, because I am especially concerned with the danger that the inclusion of this interview here in this volume may induce the readers to wrongly think that my work forms part of what is called Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos. I think the best way to start is by describing and analyzing cursorily the appearance, literal translation and institutionalization in Latin America of the idea of Cultural Studies. In an interview published in 1996, Nestor Garcia Canclini, one of the authors usually considered paradigmatic and pioneer in the field that the Englishspeaking academy calls Latin American cultural studies, and that in the Spanish speaking academy in Latin American some call Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos, claimed: I started to do Cultural Studies before I realized that was their name. The interview appeared in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, a journal edited and published in England since 1992, a time in which Im not sure how many Latin American colleagues used the expression. In 1997, Jesus Martn Barbero, in an interview performed by colleague and friend Santiago Castro Gomez, said: I did not start talking about culture because things from outside came to me. It was reading Mart, Arguedas that I discovered it. We had done Cultural Studies long before that tag appeared. I think both statements are very clear, almost too clear Id say. We should ask ourselves: Why were Jesus Martn Barbero and Nestor Garca Canclini interrogated in such terms and why did they see the need to clarify this?
Cultural Studies 2011, iFirst article, pp. 115 ISSN 0950-2386 print/ISSN 1466-4348 online # 2011 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2012.642600
C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S
Now then, lately in Latin America we have been going through an accelerated process of institutionalization of what some colleagues call Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos. This process occurs in relationship with the institutionalization of what our colleagues working in universities in the United States, England, Australia and other English-speaking countries call Cultural Studies, within the framework of which some of them use, in a complementary manner, the denomination Latin American Cultural Studies to refer to what they consider would be the Latin American branch of their field. Jesus Martn Barbero and Nestor Garca Canclini made the statements just mentioned when questioned in the context of such a process of institutionalization. It is a significant process in the configuration a system of values and ethical, political and epistemological assumptions, a system of categories of analysis, research questions and methods that are considered to be part of the field and those that are not, for the system of authors considered to be obligatory points of reference, etc. This transnational process of institutionalization happens in a historical context where there are significant power relationships between academic institutions and individuals in different areas of the world. In this context, the publishing of ideas in the English language exerts a particular influence on the configuration of the fundamental paradigms of the field on a world basis, way beyond the English-speaking world. In what senses is the English language a symptom of the way in which this process of transnationalization and institutionalization of Cultural Studies is undertaken? The use of the English language marks differences in the power to define the field and its paradigms, in comparison to the use of Spanish, Portuguese and other languages. Differences are also marked, on the other hand, in the use of these colonial languages (today official in the Latin American states) with respect to the use of Indigenous languages characteristic of the practice of not a few Indigenous intellectuals in various Latin American societies. It is necessary to emphasize that the differences of power are also related to how the academy uses writing as its main form of expression, while intellectuals outside it use other means such as orality, radio and diverse audio-visual media. Not only is it a matter of English versus other languages, it is also a matter of writing versus orality and other media. It seems plausible to postulate that the process of definition and institutionalization of the field of so-called Cultural Studies in the United States and England, exercises at least a certain influence on what happens in Latin America with the definition of the field of so-called Estudios Culturales. It could be argued that the opposite occurs as well. However, the amount and way in which one influence and the other present themselves are very different, and this is due to the reproduction of power relationships between the societies here discussed, their educational systems and academic
C U LT U R E AN D P OW E R
institutions, and likewise, the size of the editorial market. Thus, from a world perspective, the pre-eminence in Latin America of representations of the field produced in English is not at all surprising, neither is the influence of these on the current discourses, and (most importantly) on the automatic or compulsive representations of what Estudios Culturales are, what their history is, what they are about, what they include and exclude. As a consequence, there are those who bring up their reservations regarding and criticisms against the translation and incorporation of the denomination Cultural Studies, some of which make a reference to its transplanted character, while others also highlight its inscription in the framework of power relationships between society, the state and/or the American academy, and societies, states and Latin American academies. The significance of this is that some of our colleagues maintaining critical positions regarding the importation of this name are usually considered outstanding references of both Latin American Cultural Studies and of Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos, as is evidenced by the many articles and compilations that uphold and promote the validity of this denomination. This is the case, for example, of colleagues like Beatriz Sarlo and Nelly Richard. I find the words of Beatriz Sarlo when answering the Cultural Studies Questionnaire of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies significant, a questionnaire which our colleagues at the journal only apply to those that they consider to be specialists in Cultural Studies. In that context, when interrogated about the problem of the denomination, Sarlo answered: In Argentina we dont call them Cultural Studies. In fact, with Carlos Altamirano we have created a masters program [. . .] and have called it sociology of culture and cultural analysis, not Cultural Studies which is a term put in massive circulation by the American academy. On the other hand, Nelly Richard has dedicated numerous pages to a critical reflection about this problem in several of her papers. It is important to transcribe a fragment, somewhat extensive, of at least one of these papers: Cultural Studies are nowadays the novelty exported by the metropolitan network centered in the United States, and plenty of discussions in Latin America exist about the risks of transferring and reproducing this model in the periphery. The designation Cultural Studies not only refers to the antecedent of a project whose international circumstances are alien to the Latin American tradition, but also conveys the image of a hegemonic package due to the successful degree of academic institutionalization achieved in the United States. There is much suspicion and reticence at the mention of Cultural Studies in Latin America, where they are generally perceived as too subject to the horizon of metropolitan references that globalizes the use and validity of the terms put into circulation by a linguistic market of lectures and international conferences. For many, its enough that Cultural Studies have been institutionalized by the American
academys novelty factory to mark them automatically with the colonizing stigma of metropolitan domination and declare them guilty of only favoring the technologies of reproduction that expand the international academic market; the Cultural Studies trend would be seen to be wiping out the historical density of the local and its critical regionalisms. A pretty common position is, for example, one arguing that the hegemonic referent of Cultural Studies is silencing the tradition of the Latin American essay writing that, however, anticipated the various disciplinary border displacements currently so internationally celebrated. But not only those colleagues considered to be important referents in Latin American Cultural Studies have something to say about it. There are other authors who have for years been doing an important job in a field that, without any thought of copyrighting it, we could call culture and politics, whose voices must be taken into account. If they were not, we would be left enclosed in the circle pre-defined by our English-speaking colleagues and we would be accepting the implicit system of exclusions associated with this. This is the case, for example, of Pablo Davalos, professor and researcher at the Universidad Catolica of Quito, advisor for the Universidad Intercultural de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos Indgenas and for the Confederacio de Nacionalidades n Indgenas del Ecuador (CONAIE, Latin Americas most powerful Indigenous peoples organization) who, in an article about the subject claims: The fact that Cultural Studies are generated in Anglo-Saxon universities reveals an atavistic practice of the relation knowledge-power: to exist one must be named, and the prose in which one is named is always the one of power. Cultural Studies done from Anglo-Saxon universities proceed to name the world, and due to this act of thaumaturgy, the world, or the Other, exists. Before they are named, they were a world to be created, to be discovered or conquered; in any case the violent roots of modernity survive intact in the epistemological formulations of the Cultural Studies of the Anglo-Saxon universities. It is as if a foreign Melquades came to our reality amidst a plague of forgetting and put labels on all the things and in a language strange to us, in order to remind us they exist. Hence, the abstruse semantics generated by a semiotic field of enunciation and taxonomy: subalterns, hybrids, etc. I believe it useful to comment on how and when, to my surprise, my work started being labelled as pertaining to the field of Cultural Studies and how, shortly after, and at first without trying to, I started doing participant observation of the processes of institutionalization of this field. It was in 1991 when I began being named as part of Latin American Cultural Studies. Those who saw me this way were colleagues from the United States and their students from all over the world, including some from Latin American countries. This
happened during my first visit to that country, a visit extended for a semester, during which I was a visiting researcher with the Anthropology department of the University of California, Berkeley, with a Fulbright scholarship. During that period, besides occupying myself with my project in that university, I also offered lectures in six other universities, in several of which I was also interpelated in this way. I find it interesting to note that I found the definition applied to me strange, I did not quite understand what they were talking about, I had never before heard of that expression. But at the same time, this denomination also rang some bells, because in November 1990, when I had never heard or read of something called Cultural Studies, I organized a symposium with an anthropologist colleague, also Venezuelan, which we called the First Venezuelan Symposium on Cultural Research: New Epistemological and Theoretico-methodological Perspectives in Cultural Research, that brought together a small group of Venezuelan anthropologists and sociologists in the city of Cumana, as part of the 40th Annual Convention of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science (ASOVAC in Spanish). In that symposium nobody made a reference to the Cultural Studies, and I think none of us had heard by then, news of the development of this trend. You have linked yourself to the debate as a participant observer. What forms has this participation taken? How did you formulate your core preoccupations about the institutionalization of Cultural Studies? I started doing participant observation of these processes, and as I was saying, at the beginning this happened without trying. I became more aware and began participating actively and critically in the field of the Cultural Studies I say it like this, in English, because I specifically allude to those done in English without any special reference to Latin America. The thing is, although reluctantly at first and then with doubts and tensions, I have become, at least partially, a participant in the institutionalization processes of that field. It is true I am a critical participant, but anyway I recognize I am a participant. Not only have I published articles in Cultural Studies journals, but I have also managed to become part of the editorial committee of some of them edited in the United States, Australia and Taiwan. However, for this participation not to be interpreted as some sort of inescapable sign of identity, I must say I also form part of the editorial committees of several anthropology, sociology and communication magazines, some published in English, some in Spanish. My critical and conscious participation in the world of Cultural Studies (those done in English) is linked with my several visits as researcher and visiting professor in universities of that country. Regardless, I want to be clear: I am reluctant to be grouped in what is called Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos, as I am also resistant to the use of this expression and the institutionalization of the name.
Having clarified how I became involved in the field of Cultural Studies, I would like to return to my thesis regarding the influence of Cultural Studies done in English on what has been occurring with respect to Latin America, and add that the idea of Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos is not a historical exception. This is not the first time in the history of ideas, disciplines or theories that paradigms are produced under the strong influence of hierarchical relations between diverse academic and intellectual communities. But, in this historical period, which I believe we could characterize as the time of globalization, as I have argued in some publications, the strength and modes in which these hierarchical relations operate have some particularities I will refer to later. What I have been able to observe in regard to the transnational production of representations of the field usually known worldwide as Cultural Studies, as well as its institutionalization, is that the voices that have more power to establish what this field is (and therefore what isnt), the system of inclusions (and exclusions) of subjects, of its focuses and authors, are the ones expressed in publications in English. That is how a canon has been configured, which although expressed in different languages turns out to be basically written in English. That is, written in any or whatever language, it is still produced in the context of the American, English and Australian academic institutions or in some sort of relationship with these. And it is legitimated, disseminated and reproduced through their respective editorial industries and postgraduate studies market. The need to take these contextual references into account is due to the fact that one way or another discursive production is conditioned by the contexts of production. Nobody is blind to the fact that the challenges, problems, conditioning and intellectual traditions marking the practice of those who theorize and teach in some of Americas economically most powerful universities, from where the main discursive orientations about this and other subjects are established, are significantly different from the ones marking the lives of those working in any Latin American university, and in particular in the big public universities, the context in which most professionals there are educated. Of course, there are also differences between institutions in the United States, just as there are between Latin American countries, as well as inside all of these. The thesis upheld here does not mean one can assume that we Latin American intellectuals would constitute an homogenous group that could be easily mistaken for the popular masses of the respective countries, nor that our colleagues would form another homogenous group to be mistaken for the CIA. Obviously, it is not about simplifying or dichotomizing in that sense. It is about recognizing the existence of heterogeneity and conflicts inside each one of those two groups, as well as their very different contextual demands and conditions. Therefore, it is not about thinking of the existence of two pure types of intellectual practices, but about the wide variety of cases, including superimpositions, transitions and mixtures.
How have you thought, then, about these superimpositions, transitions and mixtures? Where do the difficulties in thinking about them lie? In the specific case of Latin American Cultural Studies the context-discourse relation is a more complex affair and at the same time more delicate politically than the one of Cultural Studies which have no place in their name. More complex because in the constitution of the canon of this subfield voices participate that speak from Latin America, or at least originated in Latin America even if they currently speak from English-speaking academic institutions. It is even more politically delicate because Latin American Cultural Studies is not only conceptually linked with Cultural Studies; it is also linked with what is called in English area studies (studies of areas or regions of the world), and this adds new ingredients to the issue. Specifically, we must remember that area studies have their origin in imperialistic projects and/or other forms of domination or control between nations, and in knowledge production for use by the metropolis against dominated or soon to be dominated peoples and nations. This heritage, confronted and criticized by many of our American and English colleagues, marks, nonetheless, the founding system which constructs objects of study, as well as questions and research methodologies in area studies. The point is, given these transnational relationships of a hierarchical character which involve power relations, the question as to the nature of the canon and/or the paradigms of what is and what is not Cultural Studies and even Latin American Cultural Studies, as to the research orientations (ethical, epistemological and political) that are included (and which are not) in the forming of the field, etc. is answered mostly in the United States and/or in the context of diverse relations with the American academy. The American academy has canonized specifically some work of Jesus Martn Barbero and Nestor Garca Canclini, as fundamental references of the field. But the really interesting thing about this is that even some of these authors works, which have been translated into English and are used in several classes throughout the United States, are subalternized, to use an expression in fashion in some circles of Cultural Studies. So, for example, Nestor Garca Canclini, in more than one forum, has been asked to explain the relation between his famous book Culturas Hbridas and Homi Bahbhas idea of hybridity but as far as I know, the latter has never had the same question asked of him with respect to Garca Canclini. The existence of hierarchy and power relations between the American academy and the ones from several Latin American countries has other kinds of consequences. Something occurs which has been already explained by some Latin American colleagues: A lot of the people working in American academic institutions frequently do not take into consideration the theoretical approaches done from Latin America, or
when they do, they are placed in a subordination position with regard to the ones written in English. This ignoring, this non-recognition, in not few cases happens simply due to the inability of some English speaking colleagues to read Spanish or Portuguese. In others, it is due to some sort of institutionally cultivated arrogant ignorance associated with power relations on a world scale, the same relations some of these colleagues criticize in a general way, sometimes referring to states, international organisms, etc. but they do so without extending their reflection to their own tactics and those of the institutions they belong to and/or eventually run. Luckily, there are numerous exceptions, and those are the ones giving substance to some ongoing transnational dialogues. The point is, this practice of non-recognition affects the potential circulation of Latin American researchers working in Spanish or Portuguese. Worse, due to the existence of colonized attitudes in Latin America, this practice negatively influences the possibilities of recognition and incorporation of these researchers in Latin America. What must be recognized is that up until now, the coming of the name Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos in Latin American universities has been due to the intersections between the practice of intellectuals and academics in Latin America with those of colleagues, universities, academic associations, editorials and academic journals from the United States and Great Britain. This cannot and should not be qualified in terms of good or bad, but must be analyzed very thoroughly in the diverse contexts where it takes place and from the point of view of different intellectual communities and their interests. How to explain, then, those differences in orientation perceived as obstacles that form, nevertheless, part of the tapestry of disciplinary problems? I think some of the differences regarding the strategic importance given to this name by various colleagues can be explained, at least partially, by the history and present situation of the disciplines and/or the institutional affiliation of the respective authors. What I have talked about with several colleagues in literature departments, in several Latin American universities, has lead me to think that for many of them the adoption of the idea of Cultural Studies supposes a rich widening of the analytical field and therefore of the professional practice. However, not every colleague in the area of literature sees this widening with benevolent eyes. Some argue it affects negatively the specialization and quality of work, others maintain it underestimates the potential of research traditions generated from Latin America. On the other side of the spectrum, I have found few anthropologists who believe that this denomination, and the work traditions that come with it, widens the field and instead they criticize the consequences associated with this current of underestimation and/or banalization of ethnography and fieldwork, so
significant for this discipline. Between sociologists and communication theorists I have found a less homogenous position, but in general criticism of the appearance of this field seems to dominate over appreciation. Personally I value the fact that the irruption of this idea helps to debilitate disciplinary stiffness and the power of its guardian institutions (professional societies, schools and departments) and to favour the development of transdisciplinary initiatives, as well to defy the discourses of the supposed objectivity of the social sciences (as we know, there is nothing more subjective than this pretended objectivity). On the other hand, I am worried about the lack of interest for fieldwork and in general for the production of empirical referents in many studies sheltered by the idea of the Cultural Studies. I am also concerned that this idea and the transnational relations system associated with it tend to stimulate the overestimation of the intellectual tendencies produced in English and the need to relate to these, while at the same time, understimulating the connection with the critical practices in culture and power developed by local intellectuals from the many Latin American universities (less internationally appreciated than the more famous and cosmopolitan ones), as well as from an ample diversity of social movements and other non-university environments. This fascination for the metropolitan, common in Latin American history, is now facilitated by the increasingly global practices of our Northern colleagues and institutions, by the postgraduate studies done in the United States and England, by the increasing use of digital and electronic technologies applied to communications, as well as by the greater scarcity of local resources to carry out research, like scholarships, etc. and the restrictions applied to public universities resulting from the politics of public spending cuts from the last decades (it is necessary to point out this reduction of resources also affects public universities in English speaking countries, but even so, there it is based on much bigger budgets and includes federal funds that cannot be compared with what is available in Latin America, and this in the few countries that have them). It concerns me as well that this fascination of some Latin American colleagues and students for Cultural Studies in some cases entails directly or indirectly more or less subtle modes of self intellectual colonization and completely unsubtle consequences like the dis-articulation of local intellectual collaborative networks, as well as the seductive possibility of a merely rhetorical politicization of academic discourse, while not being accompanied by practical initiatives to build relationships with local social actors. However, the situation is polyvalent and I recognize there are plenty of different cases. So, do you think there is a risk of depoliticizing Latin Americas cultural terrain? Put another way, I believe it is necessary to avoid the naturalization of the idea of Estudios Culturales as simply the translation of the idea of Cultural Studies. I think the use of this name not only encourages a dependent
10
association with what happens in English but it also naturalizes the exclusion of very valuable practices in culture and power (by putting them actively or passively outside the borders of the field), which bear significant political and epistemological relations with Latin American social contexts and social movements. This last occurs, among other reasons, because the project of Cultural Studies, those done in English, has been going through a process of academization as well as depoliticization. This is even pointed out by some of the most important leaders of this field. The increasing academic importance of Cultural Studies in the United States and Great Britain has come combined with the loss of the political character which was supposed to be proper to them. Its political character has been dissolving in a rhetoric of politics and questions of power that invisibilizes the practice of the social actors, or it only pays attention to them when they pertain to the nineteenth century. That way, a good portion of Cultural Studies done in English does not analyze the practice of actors; it is a mere matter of text and discourse analysis, put in contexts where no account of specific social practices are given. But even more, one of the problems of the field, particularly in the United States, is that a good number of our colleagues have not found effective ways to get over the division of labour that separates academic practices from those other practices in culture and power outside the academy. Perhaps, they have found ways to include the work done in some arts and media, or in the so called culture industries. But they have not found a way to integrate into their project what many intellectuals do outside the academy (feminists, Chicanos, AfricanAmericans, human rights activists, etc.), to the point where in interviews I have done with some of them, they have referred to Cultural Studies as a reactionary project. The problems entailed by the decontextualized translation of the idea of Cultural Studies and the unthinking adoption of the name Estudios Culturales in Latin America are not limited to the relations between the English-speaking academy and the ones who speak other languages. The undisputed hegemony of the idea of studies in defining this field of intellectual practices whose political character has been underlined by those today self-identified as active participants in the field, as well as frequently remarked in the hegemonic narratives of its history which unavoidably tend to trace their origins to the group of Birmingham intellectuals should not surprise us: Does a proclaimed political field only give place to studies? What happens with other forms of intellectual practice? Where are the non-written practices left in social movements and the arts? Are the extramural practices of Birmingham left in oblivion? One of the characteristics of the team you worked with for CLACSO (Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales/Latin American Council of Social Sciences) was the strong focus they have in social sciences. In other words, one perceives a locating of the
11
project of Cultural Studies at the edge, or even outside, of humanities. Whats the efficacy of this strategy? Is it part of an ideological and theoretical face off with Latin American Cultural Studies, or on the contrary an affirmation of difference in tradition? It is not about localizing the project of Cultural Studies in a particular place, because, as I was saying before, my project is not a Cultural Studies project, but a trans-disciplinary project oriented by a perspective of culture and power, or if you prefer of culture and politics, or, perhaps more explicitly, of culture, communication and social change, nurtured by, and at the same time influencing the working traditions of several disciplines, including some usually classified as social sciences and others as humanities. Therefore, it is not about an ideological face off, a theoretical one, nor a statement of difference. Respectfully, I believe the formulation of this question to be imbued with what I would characterize as culturalstudiescentrism (estudiosculturalescentrismo), such that it is difficult to perceive that the other, in this case myself, could possibly define his project other than with this line of thinking in mind. One of the features that seems to predominate in Cultural Studies in Latin America is precisely the interest in epistemological aspects (we think, for example, about Garca Canclinis reflection on the hybrid, Sarlos notion of value, of eurocentrism in Castro). Why is this reflection in Latin America placed in the territory of knowledge instead of politics? Should we assume that knowledge by definition is constituted politically? I find this a very important question. To start, I wish to affirm that I think politics and knowledge do not belong to two autonomous territories, separated from each other. And even when, for analytical and communicational purposes they are separated, it turns out that knowledge and power are still always related in very complex ways. I would like to relate this to a reflection resulting from my increasing involvement during the last few years collaborating and exchanging experiences with Indigenous intellectuals from Ecuador. The leadership of the organizations of Indigenous nationalities and peoples of Ecuador has been working for long time on these subjects, and has done so through the key ideas of culture, knowledge, and intercultural collaboration, leading to, among other things, the creation of Amautai Wasi, the Intercultural University of the Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador. Now then, in several social and institutional contexts referring to the supposed existence of two kinds of knowledge is frequent. One of these kinds of knowledge would be science, as a mode of knowledge production, and scientific knowledge, as the accumulation of knowledge produced
12
scientifically. It is frequently assumed that this knowledge has some sort of universal validity, that is, that it would be true and applicable in any time and place. From this point of view, the other kind of knowledge would correspond to an ample diversity of knowledges, to modes of knowledge production and their results which tend to be characterized as local or ethnic, in any case as particular knowledges, that is, as not universal. Thus, for example, one talks of local knowledge, or also of ethno-science. The problem with these names is that both strengthen the centrality of science as the mode, par excellence, of knowledge production, such that it does not require adjectives (local) nor prefixes (ethno). It is usually assumed that the different kinds of knowledges grouped together under the second type are only locally valid and have only a local use, at least until they are proven to be valid with the methods proper to science. An example of this is the evaluation and validation of ethnic and local knowledges of the therapeutical uses of plants by scientific methods, which, it should be said, is closely followed by their appropriation and patenting by scientific institutions and/or pharmaceutical laboratories. The idea that a certain type of knowledge, science, would have a universal value, while others would only have a particular validity, does not come from a remote place of the cosmos, nor from some sort of interplanetary agency dedicated to the certification of the universal validity of knowledge. On the contrary, this idea comes from the historical period starting with the military and economic expansion of some of Europes civilizations, their world visions and legal, economic and political institutions, over the rest of the planet. European expansion gave rise to the establishment of relations between diverse peoples and civilizations, relationships that have and have been intercultural; it is just that historically these relations have been characterized not by collaboration but by domination. During centuries these relations have had a colonial character. Since the end of relations of colonial subjection, which occurred in the XIX century in most of the countries of what we call today Latin America and in the XX century in Asia and Africa, politico-military forms of domination, in most cases, have lost their place to the development of cultural and economical subordination in the ex-colonial countries with respect to the US and some European countries. In Latin Americas particular case, the rupture of colonial relations and the founding of the republics, did not completely end the subordination and/or exclusion of the Indigenous people of America, nor of the large groups of African populations brought to America. Even though there have been some changes and advances since then, this situation is not only the source of several forms of social injustice; it has been and continues to be a motive for organization and struggle and, consequently social and political conflicts, that continue to mark the life of these societies. The hierarchical relations between these two types of knowledge are part of these dynamics. The disqualification of the forms of knowledge of Indigenous people and of the descendants of enslaved Africans, is part of the colonial inheritance and one more form of the type of relations that are
13
intercultural; but they are not of collaboration, but rather of subordination and therefore, of conflict. Another consequence of this colonial inheritance are the relations of subordination that link a good amount of Latin American scientific institutionality with some Western European and American societies. I would not go any further into this subject, but I will point out the depreciation of the non-academic knowledges by important sectors of the Latin American academy tends to be associated with the admiration of, and subordination to, paradigms generated in the US and Occidental Europe. You will notice my criticism of the translated idea of Cultural Studies is directly related with the kind of problems I am talking about here. The fact is that all of this affects not only the African descended and Indigenous populations in Latin American societies, but the respective national societies in their totality, including both the populations of European origins, as well as those characterized as mestizs, both those who have achieved some positions of privilege and power and those who have not. The conscious or unconscious denial of the multicultural condition of all of Latin Americas societies constitutes a significant shared historical burden (well beyond the quantitative and qualitative differences among them), due to what it implies in terms of our ignorance about ourselves. This burden affects not only the possibilities of building more inclusive and fair societies, but also the possibility that each of these societies might use all the knowledges and talents it possesses to build its present and future. Working like this, negating aspects of ourselves, self-mutilating with respect to our condition as complex and wide societies, is like walking with just one leg, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say with our heads down, or with the head of someone else. This rejection is not solved with the folkloric celebration of diversity, nor with the nationalization of rituals, dances and customs of these populations, incorporating them into the festivities, monuments and rituals of the state. Solving this profound and ancient historical problem demands, in the first place, recognition of its existence, and of the conflicts associated with it, and second, the tireless and prolonged work of the reconstitution of our societies based on this fact. The contemporary configurations of this problem varies a lot from one Latin American society to another, but in all of them this conflict and disassociation affects also the production, circulation, appropriation and application of knowledges. Therefore, regardless of the specific ways these conflicts are solved, in all of them dialogue and intercultural collaboration between the diverse knowledge forms are a must. The possibilities of advancing in this intercultural dialogue and collaboration are good thanks to the fact that in the very heart of the West some currents of thought encourage critical thinking about its pretensions to civilizational superiority. Every day although it is still a minorit the number of scientists grows that understands not only of the value and reach of the scientific knowledge, but also its limitations, no longer believing in its supposed universality. This is particularly so in the field of social sciences.
14
However, beyond the growing number of individuals conscious of this, the institutionality of science still provides plenty of challenges to the realization of the necessary changes. And by saying the institutionality of science I refer to a very diverse group of factors that secure its reproduction, for example, the pretensions to objectivity of scientific knowledge and the supposed neutrality of the values of the researchers. There is no universal knowledge. All knowledges are in some sort of way particular and relative to the conditions in which they are produced, to how they are produced. That is why dialogue and collaboration between different forms of knowledge are essential. In some cases we may find they are complementary, but in others they might find themselves in conflict. Intercultural collaboration in knowledge production is not the panacea, but when there are conflicts, it is better to see them, analyze them and find ways to face them. In any case, to make possible the development of such ways of intercultural collaboration it is necessary to begin by examining the conditions and forms of production of the different knowledges. This is an essential first step, I would say. The thing is, the problem that those who encourage academicist conceptions do not seem to understand that both ones own research questions as well as the modes of producing research ultimately depend on epistemological options which are associated with visions of the world, and ethical and political positions that depend on, among other factors, the type of relations one keeps or aspires to keep with extra-academic social actors. Ethical and political positions are constitutive of the epistemological foundation and of the theoretical perspectives of our investigations and of our questions and methods. They are constitutive also of the results of our research, of its content as well as its form: publications addressed to colleagues, printed in ink and on paper, or lately in digital-electronic format, although keeping all the characteristics of those printed in ink and paper. Research questions are not the same, neither are the methods, if what one intends to write are studies, supposedly objective or at least distanced, compared with when one tries to produce some sort of knowledge useful to the interests of an extra-academic social actor. The answers to the questions For what and for whom do you investigate? determine what to investigate, how, with whom, within what kind of relationships, with what purposes. The answers determine decisions as to whether the research will end in a printed paper or in some other thing (a video, a communicational or educational programme, a social organization experience, etc.). I hope you can forgive the detour I have taken, but I did so because I found it to be the best way to tackle the question, and I hope you can see it that way as well. Caracas, Venezuela, 2006 Translated by Benjamin de la Pava and Gregory Lobo
15
Notes on interviewee
Daniel Mato received his doctorate from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), 1990. He is a full professor at the Centro de Investigaciones Postdoctorales, Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Sociales, Universidad Central de Venezuela and Chair of the Programa Cultura, Comunicacion y Transformaciones Sociales, also of the Grupo de Trabajo Cultura y Poder del Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) between 2001 and 2002, and of the Section Culture, Politics and Power de la Latin American Studies Association (LASA) between 1997 and 2001. He has written widely on culture and power and on cultural studies.

Culture and Power

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Culture and Power

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de los Andes], [Gregory Lobo] On: 10 January 2012, At: 07:29

Downloaded by [Universidad de los Andes], [Gregory Lobo] at 07:29 10 January 2012

Maite Villoria Nolla and Jeffrey Cedeno