Problematizing Modernity and Modernization In Latin America

Abstract

The article proposes a meta-theoretical study of Latin American modernity and modernization theories in order to address the analytical logics from which both phenomena have been problematized in the region. It distinguishes three major periods based on the social sphere that is analytically privileged at each moment. At first, in the nineteenth century, it was from the political sphere that both modernity and the process of modernization were thought, undescoring the limits of one and another. In the twentieth century, the privilege was granted to economic modernization, but this failed, given various shortcomings, to shape a consistent theory of modernity. Finally, in the 21st century, theories are produced about cultural modernity and effective processes of cultural modernization that do not manage, however, to penetrate other areas of the social structure. Each moment of the study of modernity and modernization in Latin America is marked by the diversity of the articulations between both terms and the analytical predominance of one social sphere (politics, economy, culture).