Latin American Critical Enquiry and the Nature of the Political in the Era of Globalization

Abstract

Along with essential political activism such as the emergence of the Zapatistas in 1994 and the World Social Forum in 2001, there has been a significant increase in research in the field of critical theory in the global South and especially in Latin America. This has generated new forms of knowledge production and contributed to a growing body of research on the changes in world politics. For many this has meant serious questioning of the capacity of the conventional social sciences to respond to the demands of the contemporary world. Latin American critical enquiry reflects the need to call attention to the shortcomings of the mainstream social sciences and to extend the understanding of the political.