The Production of Meaning, Economy and Politics. Intercultural Relations, Conflicts, Appropriations, Articulations, and Transformations

Abstract

This article offers a critical reading of the work of Nestor Garcia Canclini. This author's work articulates in a creative and fruitful way knowledge, research questions and methodological resources from various academic disciplines, especially the ones of sociology, anthropology, social communication, international relations, economy, political science and art criticism. But maybe something more interesting is that with this work he succeeded in linking the tasks of colleagues from all these fields, just as in practices of various social actors outside academia, including political and social leaders, journalists, public policies designers and decisions takers. This gave him an unprecedented impact on our field, culture studies and contemporary social transformations, and it placed us in front of new interlocutors, new problems, new challenges, significantly broadening our possibilities of creation, learning and findings, participation and influence. Another important aspect of his work is that it is Latin American in more than one sense. It is not only because his studies were mostly centered (whereas not exclusively) in analyzing proper issues of this part of the world, but especially because it takes and articulates contributions from various generations and orientations of theories and studies elaborated in almost all the countries of the region. I think I am not mistaken by emphatically affirming that nobody has done so at the same scale and this appears to me particularly valuable for two reasons. First, because it allowed thinking, theorizing and communicating interpretations on social dynamics at a truly regional scale, that is, he largely overcame the tendency to make references on ?Latin America? based on just one, two or three countries. Second, because his publications, in addition to bringing us original and valuable ideas on the processes he was studying, offer us an insight into the work of colleagues from various countries of the region. In that sense, his publications are a means of communication between colleagues.