Dependency Analysis: The creation of New social Theory in Latin America

BEIGEL, FERNANDA

The ISA Handbook of Diverse Sociological Traditions

SAGE

Lugar: LONDON; Año: 2010; p. 189 - 201

Dependence has been a long-lasting concern within Latin American intellectual field. Starting with the “Second Independent Movement” towards the end of XIXth century, moving towards the debate over cosmopolitanism/nationalism in the 1920s, and again opening in the 50s and 60s, within development studies. A very intense process of cultural and social differentiation ocurred during this extended period: higher education and scientific research gained increasing autonomy from journalism and essayism. This is when Dependency became an analytical category in economics and sociology. The definition of Dependency Analysis’ boundaries has been a matter of discussion since its own birth (Bodenheimer, 1970; Girvan, 1973; Delich, 1974; Franco, 1975; Bath & James, 1976; Leys, 1977; Blomstrom & Hettne, [1984]1990; González Casanova, 1986; Kay, 1989; Hunt, 1989, Hettne, [1990] 1995; Larraín, 1989). Some authors tried to establish Dependency Analysis as a research field within Development Studies and pointed out internal currents, defined by it’s ideological or theoretical links with marxism or ECLA’S (Economic Comission for Latin America) structuralism. Dependentists themselves made their own intervention in these debates (Gunder Frank, 1991; Cardoso, 1995, Furtado, 1997; Faletto, 1999; Dos Santos, 2002) and, as a result, classifications have been at the core and historical conditions for the emergence of this social knowledge have been dismissed. Our paper starts by putting aside ideological classifications in order to situate Dependency Analysis within the frame of a very particular cultural and political experience placed in Chile, between 1964 and 1973. In this direction, we deal with the role played by nation-state in the creation of an autonomous academic structure. In the second part, we focuse into the production of knowledge that occured inside five work-groups located in different institutions and point out their dialogue and main debates. In  other words, we adress the set of complex conditions that gave birth to Dependency Analysis in order to describe it’s specific contribution to Sociology and understand the process of scientific paradigm-building.