The term ‘Latin America’ is ambiguous, as its connotations are various. As a more encompassing notion, it refers to a territory, and its concomitant nation states, stretching from Mexico in the north, through the *Caribbean and *Central America, to Argentina and Chile in the south. However, as a much looser term, Latin America evokes a series of associated images (not quite mythical nor quite stereotypical): Indian heritage and European dominance; macho men and stoic women; violent revolutions and ruthless dictatorships; agrarian reforms and urban congestion; dire poverty and sumptuous luxury; remote hinterlands and advanced industrial enterprises; Liberation Theology and †dependency theory. It evokes the magical realism of their literature; the flair of their fiestas; the rhythms of tango and salsa; the flavours of their food; the temperament of their athletes; the caudillo of politics; the triumph of mañana. In this latter sense, Latin America connotes the culture of the †mestizo—in contrast to the *Native American, †indigenous cultures, which have been seen to represent the pre-Columbian heritage.
Most importantly, the term ‘Latin America’ glosses those aspects of Latin American culture which are perceived to be the products of the particular process of transculturation which ensued as a result of the conquest (initiated in 1492) by the Spanish and Portugese of the indigenous populations, i.e. those historical processes which lend Latin America its singularity.
The conquest not only established the invaders as the rulers, but also inculcated a perception of the rulers as radically superior to their subject people. Hence, the mestizo—born of Indian mother and Spanish father—was initially seen as a threat to the stability of the social order, and only much later will mestisaje come to symbolize a Latin American essence and thereby become the locus of contested national *identity. This attitude of different but not equal was nourished initially by the conquistadores and the Catholic Church, and subsequently by the various new independent governments to be proclaimed in the first half of the nineteenth century.
In spite of the processes of mestisaje and religious and cultural *syncretism, this initial creation of ‘the other’ has contributed to the construction of a pervasive dichotomy which permeates perceptions of Latin American society (Todorov 1987). Although the roots of this dichotomy can be traced to the original opposition between ‘Indian’ and ‘European’, it has over the centuries been transposed and come to encompass a series of oppositions: traditional/modern; backward/civilized; rural/urban; underdeveloped/developed. These oppositions operate both internally in the structuring of relationships between groups and externally, positioning Latin America simultaneously, and hence ambiguously, at the core and periphery of the occidental world.
Since the time of colonization, Latin America was integrated in the *world system, albeit on very unequal terms. Although there are many features which contribute to the shared cultural heritage of Latin Americans, the local conditions at the time of conquest were extremely varied, implying very different forms of articulation and hence different socio-economic and political trajectories (Wolf and Hansen 1972). Any understanding of the complexities and heterogeneity of modern Latin America must take into account these differences.
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