Bourdieu in Latin America Through the Eyes of Néstor García Canclini

Abstract

Néstor García Canclini, in his consideration of Latin American culture and, especially, its artistic production, has bridged a sociological approach, emphasizing structural conditions of production, and an anthropological approach, considering the view from the perspective of the actors and agents involved in such processes. Pierre Bourdieu’s effort to straddle a similar span has long served as a pivotal point around and against which García Canclini has developed his own theories about the functioning of Latin American cultural fields (art, cinema), institutions (museums, the state, non-profits, and private companies), actors (different publics, brokers, producers), and circuits (high, popular, middlebrow.) More generally, Bourdieu has been crucial to Canclini’s evolving thought on cultural production and consumption, and on their relations to culture in a Latin American national and globalized context.