Chapter 22 - Doreen Massey and Latin America

Summary

INTRODUCTION

“Learning from Latin America”. This is the title chosen by Doreen Massey for her article published in Soundings in 2012. In the context of the neoliberal crises in Europe and North America, when competition and subordination among countries was deepening, Massey noticed the construction of other kinds of relations in Latin America during the first decade of the twenty-first century. These relations challenged the geometries of power within states and in the world-system as well. Massey thus invited European countries to look at and learn from the Latin American experience.

From her perspective, governments in the region were striving to expand democratic practices. Some examples are, first, the advancement of social self-organization mechanisms that channelled social demands towards the state; second, the passing of rules aimed at ending the monopolistic control of mass media and opening spaces to a diversity of expressions, mainly the voice of communities; and third, the establishment of cooperation and solidarity bonds through organizations such as UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) or CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean American states including Cuba but excluding Canada and the USA) (Massey 2012b).

It is not common for European intellectuals to show interest in the Latin American experience and to reflect upon it as a model for developing a different kind of relation between European countries themselves. Even critical perspectives have labelled Latin American governments populist, and disqualified them on the grounds that they did not conform to European modes of governance (regarded as the model of civilization and rationality).

The purpose of this chapter is to understand the significance of Latin America in Doreen Massey’s professional trajectory, while outlining some ties between her view of space and discussions and practices in countries where subaltern sectors became protagonists after their conception of space and territorial claims were voiced and heard.

In Latin America, new forms of thinking are being born all the time.

(Román Velásquez & García Vargas 2008: 340)

Doreen Massey developed a peculiar sensitivity to the third world and, particularly, Latin America. She understood that conquest and colonization processes across the region in the sixteenth century showed the dark side of modernity (Mignolo 1995).