The Birth of Ciencias Antropológicas at the University of Buenos Aires, 1955-1965

ROSANA GUBER; SERGIO VISACOVSKY

Histories of Anthropology Annual II

University of Nebraska Press

Lugar: Lincoln; Año: 2006; p. 1 - 32

This paper analyzes the subordination of the academic field to the political domain in twentieth-century Argentina, an issue that has become common sense among scholars and intellectuals who work on the history of the social sciences. In fact the development of academia in Argentina is marked by abrupt political shifts such as right-wing military coups and democratic liberalizations of populistic or even left-wing leanings. However, the effects of the political sphere on academic and intellectual life are far from homogeneous. This aspect still waits for a systematic assessment of the translation of politics into theoretical perspectives, notions, and disciplinary topics. Thus, scientific fields?systems of objective relations constituted by the positions taken by the agents starting from their preceding struggles (Bourdieu 1975)?are crossed by trends and countertrends that affect each discipline and institution in different ways.