Latin America According to the Economists

The third encounter of the Latin American Identities cycle will bring Ricardo Bielschowsky, professor at the Institute of Economics of the Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UFRJ), to discuss “The Latin America of the Economists.” The event will be held on August 18, at 4:00 pm, at the IEA Events Room.

The panelists will be Fabio Santos, Ph.D. in Economic History from the São Paulo Federal University (Unifesp), and Márcio Bobik Braga, professor at USP’s School of Economics, Management and Accounting of Ribeirão Preto (FEA-RP). The event will be moderated by sociologist Bernardo Sorj, visiting professor at the IEA and creator of the cycle.

Bielschowsky will summarize the evolution of the thinking of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), an organization created by the United Nation in 1948 to promote economic development in the region and stimulate cooperation between Latin American countries and the other nations of the world. In the lecturer’s assessment, ECLAC is the “main center for formulating ideas about Latin America since its founding.”

He will address the similarities and differences between the two phases of thought at ECLAC – the structuralist, running up to 1990, and the neo-structuralist, covering the last two and a half decades – and will point out the current problems of Latin America from the Commission’s current viewpoint.

The cycle

The cycle aims to understand, from the perspective of different disciplines, how the idea of ​​Latin America was and continues to be built and disseminated by social scientists, intellectuals and artists.

According to Sorj, the aim is to reflect on the multiple connotations that Latin America has acquired over its historical process, as they relate to specific political, cultural and economic projects.

“Generalizations about Latin America that emphasize unity demonstrate unawareness of the region’s diversity, but we also cannot fail to recognize that the winds that blow in one country, although finding diverse national geologies along the way, affect with particular force the region as a whole,” he stresses.

The first two meetings took place in April and June, and discussed, respectively, the outlook that historians and sociologists have of Latin America. The last event of the cycle, to be held in November, will address the point of view of political science.

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