XII CONGRESSO INTERNACIONAL ABRALIC

XII CONGRESSO INTERNACIONAL ABRALIC

Resumo:61-1

Oral (Tema Livre)

61-1	Deep Undercurrents: Forms of Antagonism in Latin American and National Identities.
Autores:	Paulo Moreira (YALE - Yale University)

Resumo

The more one consistently focuses the gaze on the idea of Latin America, the more it becomes elusive, hovering tenuously above and beyond (or below and before) ethnic, national and linguistic allegiances. This slippery identity has furthermore been put to question from the inside as well as from the outside. From within, Latin Americans themselves have managed to discredit it several times; not only those who wish to identify themselves primarily with centers of prestige in Western culture, but also those who have insisted on the grand and empty rhetoric of continental solidarity. From outside observers there is sometimes the temptation to turn Latin America into a perfunctory, Hollywood-inflected smorgasbord, piling up enticing clichés to amused tourists in the globalized cultural supermarket. Whether pejorative or patronizing representations, whether malicious fabrications or innocent misunderstandings, this accumulation of stereotypes points to lazy, parochial oversimplifications that tend to smooth over diversity and overlook an obvious but important fact: we are first and foremost Argentines, Brazilians, Cubans, Mexicans, Peruvians, etc who also happen to be Latin Americans, the result of a long, sustained investment in national identity as cultural hegemony. Fugitive and vague when approached as a homogeneous, stable identity; marred by post-colonial inferiority complexes and modern political hypocrisies; rejected as a colorful label used for opportunistic commercial purposes, the idea of Latin America nevertheless holds together as an interesting form of cultural antagonism. It looms behind sedimented ethnic, regional and national identities and endures even in the linguistic divide that sets Brazil apart from the many nations that comprise the Spanish-speaking Latin America, as a vital, deep cultural undercurrent.

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