El latinoamericanismo despues de ＂9/11＂

Abstract

In his well-known essay on “the clash of civilizations,” Samuel Huntington characterized Latin American states as “torn countries,” split between the desire for progressive integration with North America, or the prospect of developing themselves as a separate “civilization” with its own identity, values, and projects, in competition with US hegemony. This is an old question in US/Latin American relations, but also a new one, that has to do with the cultural identity of both the United States and Latin America in the new century, under conditions of globalization. The paper argues that the immediate future will involve an increasing affirmation of Latin America against US hegemony at all levels -economic, cultural, perhaps even military. That affirmation will require in turn a redefinition of Latin America as a “civilization.” But is not the discourse of “civilization” itself, founded in Latin America on an “Arielist” conception of Latin American alterity as aesthetic difference, precisely what recent developments in social and cultural theory(postcolonial and subaltern studies, feminism, cultural studies, concepts of multiculturalism/“interculturalidad”) put into question. The paper argues, nevertheless, that it is in relation to the task of reimagining Latin America in the coming century that there is an unexpected and unexpectedly productive link between an emerging Latin American geopolitical thinking and the new perspectives social and cultural theory.