A (Strong?) Voice from the South: Latin American Sociology Today

Abstract

This article discusses, first, the strong institutionalization process in sociology as a discipline in Latin America in recent decades, with an increasing number of undergraduate courses, as well as a large and successful development of high-level training within MSc and PhD graduate programmes. This community has a large and diversified production, published mainly in regional journals. Second, the author uses the example of sociology of work, her own field of research, to show how Latin American sociological production can and should make an important contribution to the mainstream debate in the area. Of this large body of work produced by sociologists of work in the region, the article discusses two examples: research on gender and work in Latin America, and more recent research on flexible production, showing how the findings and analysis of Latin American sociology of work are important in making concepts richer and more complex and in understanding many recent phenomena in developed countries. Finally, the author outlines some of the challenges that remain to bring this large body of work to the attention of the international sociological community. How to integrate and to tap this large body of knowledge of great quality and interest is one of the challenges faced by the International Sociological Association.