The Popular Culture Turn

Abstract

In various works (Alabarces Nueve proposiciones en torno a lo popular; Introducci ó n: Un itinerario y algunas apuestas; Transculturas pospopulares), I have claimed that the study of popular culture in Latin America closed down during the 1990s, at the apogee of neoliberalism on the continent. Despite its centrality to discussions of the previous decade, the study of popular culture seemed to disappear from research agendas for more than ten years: a disappearance verified by conference panels, books, and articles published during the period. However, twenty years later, we are witnessing both the reopening of these agendas and the reappearance of displaced categories and subjects: the new political success of national- popular narratives, despite the criticism that they deserve, speaks of continuity and, more recently, return, rather than of dissolution and closure. Popular cultures always signaled and continue to signal the dimension in which the possibility of a democratic culture is discussed, negotiated and disputed and by extension, the possibility of fully a radical democratic society.