Postmodernity and transnational capitalism in Latin America

Résumé

There is a curious-and thoroughly understandable-argmnent
that Latin America sets the precedent of postmodemity long before the
notion appears in the Euro-North American context. 1 This argmnent is
analogous to others that attempt to endow heterogeneous formations with
the cachet of mainstream postmodem rhetoric. Thus, La raison baroque,
according to Christine Buci-Glucksmann, anticipates a postmodemreluctance
to integrate numerous visual spaces into a coherent representation. 2
This idea, in fact, has long had currency in what critics call the Latin
American neobaroque.3 Minority writers and intellectuals in the United
States have also made similar claims for Black and Latino cultures.4 As
regards Latin America, the argument is as follows: the heterogeneous
character of Latin American social and cultmal formations made it possible
for discontinuous, alternative, and hybrid forms to emerge that
challenged the hegemony of the grand Ticit of modernity.