The circulation of Raymond Williams' ideas in Latin America: approaches and methods

Abstract

I aim to analyze the diffusion of Raymond Williams' thinking in Latin America, through a concentrated study of works from notorious intellectuals located in Argentine, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico that references the Welsh critic and the mapping and data analysis regarding his translations for Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish, from the late 1970s until nowadays. Amidst the British left-wing intelligentsia of the second half of the twentieth century, new ways of analyzing society emerged, they proclaimed that culture could no longer be left in the hands of purely aesthetic studies, nor could it be seen as a mere reflection of the superstructure. In this context, Williams became a key figure by proposing a theory that conceives culture as a social and material productive process: Cultural Materialism. In Latin America, amid specific intellectual configurations, other developments have led to the enriching of methodological tools and the multiplication of objects of study. It is my understanding that, even though Williams' popularity in this region has not reached the same level as some of his colleagues from the New Left and Cultural Studies, it is a fact that a significant number of references to his work can be verified in the selected period. I propose, from Williams' "trail", to understand the transformations and complex movements in the Latin American intellectual field. By means of a sociologically oriented Intellectual History, this research is based upon methods proposed by Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice. The internship at Yale University Sociology Department, supervised by Professor Philip Gorski, provides the most fruitful environment for a deeper theoretical understanding of its uses and possibilities, enhancing my knowledge of this approach and enabling its refinement for this historical analysis. (AU)