Latin Americanisms, Regional Integration and Transnational Relations in the Fields of Sociology and Social Sciences in Brazil
We explore indicators of processes of internationalization and transnational relations considering the social, political and institutional contexts of Brazilian Latin Americanist academic initiatives in the fields of Sociology and Social Sciences of different institutional formats (such as institutes, graduate programs, observatories, research groups and academic journals) that have been created in the last four decades in public and private institutions of high education in the country. Their research agendas comprehend a considerable diversity of approaches and themes. At the same time, they have in common regional cooperation and integration as both their object of knowledge and as an institutional mission.
From a comparative perspective, we emphasize similarities and differences between potentials, limits and challenges faced by these academic initiatives regarding the current policies of internationalization in Brazil. Considering the actual scenario of multidimensional crises, that operate in multiple interrelated (global, regional and national) scales, we argue that these policies aggravate the impacts of conjunctural and structural conditioners that affect the production and diffusion of Latin Americanist knowledge in the country, especially as far as public federal universities situated in socio-economically peripheric regions are concerned.
Thereby, we aim to contribute to the development of new internationalization strategies and mechanisms more favorable to the strengthening Latin Americanism in the 21st century, the production of specialized knowledge about Latin America and from Latin America and, in this sense, in rescuing the critical tradition in Brazilian Sociology and Social Sciences to face a series of problems experienced in the country, the region and the world.