Latin America: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Decolonial Studies

• Grant number: 24/07202-2
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of America
• Principal Investigator: José Alves de Freitas Neto
• Grantee: José Alves de Freitas Neto
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The meanings and historical issues attributed to Latin America are the subject of this research project. Through a dual macroscopic/microscopic approach, I aim to observe how the various names and identities assigned to the continent constitute an artifice that unifies historical experiences and, at the same time, distinguishes local projects and demands that dissipate the sense of unity on the continent. The study, spanning a broad periodization, updates a classic discussion and incorporates issues from decolonial studies and intellectual history to problematize the construction of imaginaries about Latin America and how historiography and widely disseminated sources assist in producing an almost natural and reactive mode of the Latin American continent reacting to external demands and draining its own tensions. The project aims to contribute to an understanding in which, on one hand, the globalizing discourse of the nation-state is duly problematized, and at the same time, questioning the infinite fragmentation of historiographical production may hinder the understanding of political, social, and cultural processes more broadly in Latin America. (AU)