Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Latin American studies is an interdisciplinary field of research relating to the people, cultures, and natural environment of the Americas to the south of the United States, including the islands of the Caribbean. The field incorporates as well studies relating to people of Latin American descent living in the United States or Canada. The area of Latin American studies embraces a wide variety of disciplines, including art, archaeology, film, history, linguistics, literature, and music in the humanities, anthropology, economics, geography, political science, and sociology in the social sciences, and biology and environmental research in the natural sciences. In keeping with the scope of this dictionary, the current entry will emphasize C ultural and C ritical theory in Latin American studies during the twentieth century. The term “Latin America” is generally accepted by scholars in the Americas and throughout the world. Scholars are quick to qualify the overarching conceptual unity the term suggests, however, by calling attention to the diversity of nationalities, ethnic groups, languages, histories, and geographical conditions that exist in the huge expanse between Tierra del Fuego and the United States-Mexico border. This entry will reflect the emphasis placed on Spanish America (the 18 nations in which Spanish is an official language, as well as Puerto Rico) within Latin American ... log in or subscribe to read full text