Latin American cultural critique

The history of Latin American cultural critique begins with the national independence of the majority of nation states on the continent in the early 19th century. According to the postcolonial situation, it aims to define the national identities of postcolonial societies and tries to achieve social and cultural modernity (modernization – modernity) according with the ideological project of the Creole literati. From the beginning, men of letters play a major role in this process because of the extraordinary importance of the lettered city during the colonial era. A bigger part of Latin American cultural critique until the end of the 1970th is based on a literary perspective. One of the most interesting problems is its creation of binary concepts which dominate the production of theories on Latin American culture(s): universalism versus regionalism; hispanoamericanism/latinoamericanism versus universalism, modernity versus tradition; the indigenous / autocthonus versus the modern/occidental; land versus city etc. It is only in the 1980th that the interests of cultural critique change to other media and artistic representation such as popular culture, handicraft, cinema, and generally the mass media. Due to the auto-representation of emerging social groups, the social and cultural function of men of letters decreases more and more, and they stop representing the “Other”. Globalization, migration, nomadism, transnational communities, strategic identities, migrant subjects and desterritorialization confront us with the need for thinking about Latin American cultural critique in a new way and using new concepts. At the same time, we have to historicize it and make it more democratic without abandoning it.