On Cultural Studies and Dances Studies in/from Latin America

Abstract

Since the 1980s, cultural studies have had an astonishing international diffusion and circulation. At the same time, different researchers in the field of dance observed not only that cultural studies allowed them to rethink many of the scope and traditional objects of study in the history of dance, but also that their research could make interesting contributions to said studies and, even, avoided some of the main critics. Taking into account the reception that cultural studies have had in Latin America, this work will try to account for an epistemological change in dance studies in Argentina that share this locus of “Latin American” enunciation. The article is structured in three parts, which go from the general to the particular (or from the –supposedly– “global” to the local): in the first, the emergence of dance studies is developed; in the second, the appropriation and main criticisms of cultural studies in/from Latin America; finally, in the third, from a limited corpus of texts, we will reflect on the aforementioned epistemological change that has promoted a historical, situated, critical and regional perspective in dance studies in Argentina.