The debate about external financing to Latin American Social Sciences: the scandal of Project Camelot

NAVARRO, JUAN JOSÉ Y QUESADA, FERNANDO

Umea, Suecia

Conferencia; Perspectives from the Periphery: ISA RCHS Interim Conference; 2008

International Sociological Association (ISA)

The debate on the external financing to the Latin-American Social Sciences: the scandal of the Project Camelot   The Project Camelot, social research orientated to measuring, predicting and controlling internal conflicts tending to the social destabilization of countries of the periphery, arose in the Special Operations Research Office, SORO, belonging to the American University and was contracted by the Department of Defense of The United States, to be applied in Chile within four years. From the irruption in the public sphere, in 1965, it was constructed around the Project Camelot, a myth with regard to the flow of money for espionage across sociological researches. In the present work, without detaining in the different fields that intervened in his conformation, we refer to the characterization of the Project, to the itinerary of arrive at Chile and to the impact that had on the Latin-American social sciences in relation to the external financing.