Social Actors, Cultural and Political Representations & Practices (ACSOC)

Researcher in charge: Laura Giraudo

The general objective of the group is to consolidate collaborations with the other Americanist groups of the CSIC, to underline the value of Americanism as an inter- and transdisciplinary field of study, with an intrinsic internationalist vocation, placing it in a prominent place within the international scene, having as a key principle overcoming the the classic division between modern and contemporary times, and, likewise, between history and social sciences, from an integrating perspective and with a transversal and long-term approach.

Attending both the historical background and the current configuration of Latin American societies, overcoming the classic chronological divisions and assuming an interdisciplinary approach, the group’s research is carried out in the following axis:
Axis 1: Liberalism, indigenismo and multiculturalism: processes and concepts of contemporaneity.
Axis 2: Studies on culture, cultural studies: border narratives and diasporic narratives, and dissident imaginaries; cultural heritage.
Axis 3: Ideology, history and literary production: cultural policies, writers and politics, international cultural contacts.
Axis 4: Political imaginaries in the Atlantic world: utopianism, political cultures and construction of national states, transfers between Europe and America.

Within the framework of these axis of research, the following objectives are to be pursued:
—   To understand the processes of “ethnicization” and the implementation of specific policies, of inclusion/exclusion and preferential treatment, from the critical discussion of the paradigms of homogeneity and heterogeneity.
—   To study the historical configuration of the American indigenista field and its international diffusion (19th-21st centuries), through the analysis of social actors, networks, institutions and projects.
—   To reveal the re-signification in the contemporaneity of the “Indio”/ “indígena” categories up to the current fixation on the concept of “Indigenous Peoples” (18th-21st centuries).
—   To explore, from the perspective of the Cultural Studies and a transversal gender approach, various records on “border narratives and dissident imaginaries” as artistic-political expressions.
— To study cultural works linked to mobility trajectories (migration and exile): contacts and cultural transfers between Europe and America, and viceversa.
—   To address processes of traditionalization of the Transatlantic ethnohistoric heritage through the study of diasporic maritime and terrestrial cultures.
—   To analyze the relationships between literary creation, ideologies and contemporary Latin American history through issues such as the processes of literary canonization or the consideration of authors and literary genres in light of their ideological determining factors.
—   To reflect on the links between intellectuals, literary creation and cultural policies in Latin America and the Eastern Bloc.
—   To analyze the cultural relations maintained between contemporary Latin America and Andalusia.
— To assess the role of Latin American utopianism as engine of historical change, and the role of utopia in modernization processes.
— To analyze the transfers between Europe and Latin America in the construction of modern political cultures.
— To compare the processes of construction of the national states in Spain and Latin America, paying special attention to the crossed visions of the different state experiences.

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Social Actors, Cultural and Political Representations &amp; Practices (ACSOC)

Social Actors, Cultural and Political Representations & Practices (ACSOC)