1. MODERNIZATION, CULTURE, HEGEMONY I
Jesús Martín Barbero: “From Nationalisms to
Transnationals”, in: Culture, Communication and
Hegemony
Section 1: A difference that is more than
underdevelopment

2. Latin America
1. Unity
Original unity imposed by the Spanish (colonial
times)
2. Dispersion and Fragmentation
As a result of the independence struggles and the
creation of the new nation states (19th Century)
3. Unity
Incorporation into the processes of industrial
modernization and international trade (1930s)

3. A capitalist economy
“After the 1930s the possibility of ‘becoming a nation’
in the modern sense of this term hinged on
establishing a national market, something that, in turn,
depended on adjusting to the needs and requirements
of the international market.”
(Jesús Martín Barbero: 150)

4. Consequences of capitalist development
1. Political-economic dependency
2. Unequal development
3. Basic inequality

5. Latin America discontinous modernity
Discontinuity or a “modernity that is not contemporary”
(Jesús Martín Barbero: 151)
Two meanings:
1. Backwardness is produced by historical
circumstances
2. Cultural differences are not related to backwardness

6. Latin America discontinous modernity
“Only in the tensions of discontinuities are we able to
conceive of a modernity that is not reduced to imitation
and of cultural differences which are not identified with
backwardness.”
(Jesús Martín Barbero: 151)

7. Adaption, not imitation
Which role do the ideas of Bolívar, Martí and
Mariátegui play in Martín Barbero’s argument?