The Impact of British Socialism on Latin American Studies

Abstract

THE IMPACT OF BRITISH SOCIALISM ON LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES GORDON BROTHERSTON Stanford University Towards the end ofthe Second World War, Churchill and the Conservative element in the Coalition Government that then ruled Britain came to contemplate the prospect of the defeat that they in fact sustained in the first post-war election, in 1945. In a vain populist effort to ward off this defeat, they passed the famous EducationAct of 1944, which effectively was the first to give most people in Britain access to higher learning. As such, it was enthusiastically implemented by Atlee's Socialist government, after the Labour Party won that election (Britain then being economically punished by the US for their democratic choice). Over the next ten to fifteen years, despite Churchill's eventual victory in 1951, the ideals of this Act were carried through into the planning for and founding of the new Universities, which more than doubled the national total. Only with the emergence of New Toryism under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s were radical attempts made to turn the clock back to pre- 1944, Thatcher herself having ironically been perhaps the Act's most conspicuous beneficiary: she gained two doctorates entirely at public expense, only then to deny that possibility to any one else. The 1944 Act and the New Universities of the 1960s brought with them new understandings of academic mission, discipline and subject area, and these proved especially relevant to readings of Latin America. This was thanks also to the setting up ofthe Parry centres, likewise in the 1960s, to encourage research and teaching in that area. Local twists were given to the general notion ofarea studies. As the main Parry Centre, the London Institute diverged from the traditional City alignments of Canning and Chatham House, and the Bank of London and South America (BOLSA). At Sussex, Latin America became the focus of 'development' theory, while at East Anglia Gunder Frank promoted his ideas of Dependency. In some cases these trends went so far as to raise a definite challenge to the implicit hegemonic model typical ofthe US and the metropolis. At Warwick, a hemispheric framework was set up, thanks to Alistair Hennessey, which presupposed as superfluous Lewis Hanke's question: "Do the Americas have a common history?", especially insofar as that common history could be understood to antedate the European invasion. In this arrangement, the United States itselfwas treated as an© 2002-2003 NUEVO TEXTO CRITICO Vol. XV-XVI No. 29-32 122_________________________________________GORDON BROTHERSTON "area" comparable to LatinAmerica, as it was at the University ofEssex. At Essex, Paul Thompson, Ernesto Laclau, Carlos Fortin, DawnAdes and many others worked within Schools that dispensed with departments ofhistory and lang./lit., in favour ofSociology, Government, Art Theory and Literature, an overwhelmingly productive arrangement. The interface between Art and Literature, for example, allowed for pedagogical analysis ofthe Mexican codices that simply was not practicable at that time at other institutions; while that between Sociology and Literature resulted in a series ofinternationally influential conferences, in which Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall (ofCultural Studies fame) were hallowed names. The proceedings (Barker et al. 1 986) became a main reference for Latin Americanists, not least those who would later take up similar approaches in the US (Doris Sommer and José Rabasa, for instance). In all, the growth of Latin American area studies in Britain showed up the importance ofacademic structures as such and promoted strategies ofoccupying available space, in the sense discussed by Beatriz Sarlo in "Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism at the Crossroad of Values" (1999). Further local specifics ofthe British situation are worth noting. Like most ofthe West, Britain belonged to NATO ofcourse. But it had no Joe McCarthy, and by 1947, with the loss ofIndia, knew itselfat heart to be no longer imperial. Under Churchill especially, it bowed meekly to the US, turning Neruda back at Dover in 1952 (Neruda's exile having been prompted in the first place by the US's collusion with González Videla). Yet it certainly had nothing like the McCarren-Walter act of that year, which kept an impressive array of Latin Americans out of the US. Indeed, under Labour's Harold Wilson, the UK later welcomed Neruda, along...