THE CULTURE OF THE LATIFUNDIA

Alexandra Mulino Giannattasio

doi:10.52459/josstt3210103

Abstract

Researching for socio-educational transformation implies elucidating the hegemonic cultural, political and economic problems of a social formation; in this case, of the Venezuelan social formation. In the field of education, the dominant approaches obfuscate the political stance of teachers by minimising their potential as organic intellectuals capable of transforming their environment. Both naïve empiricism and idealism permeate the sociological and pedagogical reflections that legitimise the colonial and neo-colonial phases established by the culture of the latifundia. This article takes a look at the culture of the latifundia as a structural and cultural remnant of Spanish colonialism as found in the novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Social and educational changes must start with an analysis of the roots; that is, the epistemic-theoretical and cultural foundations that constitute the processes of institutionalisation of Venezuelan education, with the ultimate purpose of discovering the conceptual and methodological devices that hinder the qualitative leap needed in the socio-educational task, which is mainly political-ideological.

Highlights

From the 1930s until well into the 1960s, a group of Venezuelan intellectuals investigated the problem of the latifundia on a Marxist theoretical basis
The main concern of these social scientists was to characterise land tenure in order to propose a longed-for agrarian reform with the aim of reversing the miserable conditions of peasants degraded to the status of day labourers, illegal farmers, conuqueros, peons, etc., who were far from leading a dignified life according to the genuine ideals of the Federal Revolution under the motto of General Ezequiel Zamora: Land and free men
In the words of Miguel Acosta Saigne: What do the Venezuelan left-wings express when they pronounce, as they have done, for an agrarian reform? The following: the distribution of land to the peasants, for whom, as we have indicated, the immense properties confiscated from Gómez are available; the promulgation of a Mulino Giannattasio, A. 2021

Summary

SOME PRELIMINARY NOTES

From the 1930s until well into the 1960s, a group of Venezuelan intellectuals investigated the problem of the latifundia on a Marxist theoretical basis. The main concern of these social scientists was to characterise land tenure in order to propose a longed-for agrarian reform with the aim of reversing the miserable conditions of peasants degraded to the status of day labourers, illegal farmers, conuqueros (small farmhands), peons, etc., who were far from leading a dignified life according to the genuine ideals of the Federal Revolution under the motto of General Ezequiel Zamora: Land and free men. In this connection, Maza Zavala has pointed out:. In relation to the above, we may ask: Did pre-capitalist relations of production generate any cultural substratum? Did the political struggles of the scholars of the time intend to reverse the value structure, the imaginary, the social representations (re)created by the latifundia? Could this latter question be addressed to the intellectuals of the late 19th century? In this respect, I think it important to unravel some socio-pedagogical indications by the sociologist, historian, and jurist José Gil Fortoul. (Mulino, A. 2017)

THE SOCIOLOGICAL PROPOSAL OF JOSÉ GIL FORTOUL

Some partial judgements