The culture of the Latifundia*

Abstract

Researching for socio-educational transformation implies elucidating the hegemonic cultural, political and economic problems of a social formation; in this case, of the Venezuelan social formation. In the field of education, the dominant approaches obfuscate the political stance of teachers by minimising their potential as organic intellectuals capable of transforming their environment. Both naïve empiricism and idealism permeate the sociological and pedagogical reflections that legitimise the colonial and neo-colonial phases established by the culture of the latifundia. This article takes a look at the culture of the latifundia as a structural and cultural remnant of Spanish colonialism as found in the novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Social and educational changes must start with an analysis of the roots; that is, the epistemic-theoretical and cultural foundations that constitute the processes of institutionalisation of Venezuelan education, with the ultimate purpose of discovering the conceptual and methodological devices that hinder the qualitative leap needed in the socio-educational task, which is mainly political-ideological. 

* This work was inspired by the works of Rodolfo Quintero: Antropología del petróleo and Cultura del petróleo [Anthropology of Oil, and Culture of Oil]. The author has called the socio-anthropological norms and values generated in the context of outward development in Venezuela the "culture of the latifundia".

CITE THIS PAPER:

Mulino Giannattasio, A. 2021. "THE CULTURE OF THE LATIFUNDIA" JOSSTT 1(01):03. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.52459/josstt3210103

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandra Mulino was born in La Victoria, Aragua State, Venezuela. She is a  Sociologist by the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and holds a degree in Education, specialised in Social Sciences, a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Human Sciences, and a PhD by the University of Salamanca. She is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Education, and Head of the Centre for Educational Research of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, where she researches on the History of Ideas in Venezuela and on Social, Human, Natural and Philosophical Sciences of the 19th – 20th Centuries. Postgraduate lecturer at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela in the area of Development Theories. Researcher at the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Rómulo Gallegos (CELARG) for a Reconstruction of the General Social Memory and Venezuelan Education from Late 19th to Mid-20th Centuries. Former Head of the Chair of Sociology of Education and former Director of the Revista de Pedagogía (Journal of Pedagogy), UCV. Former editor and researcher at the Centro Rodrigueano de Investigación Social para la Latinoamericanidad (CRISOL).

Some of her books include Lecturas disidentes [Dissident readings] (author and editor), which received the Premio Municipal Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico (Critical Thinking Municipal Award) in 2017, and Cartas a Miguel de Unamuno (Letters to Miguel de Unamuno), 2019. She was conferred the Order José María Vargas, Third Class, by the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 2019. She has published a number of articles in specialised journals.