Session Abstract

Historians of Latin America are rediscovering the ‘economic’, not least as part of a growing interest in the history of inequality.  Once the bread and butter for (Marxist) social historians of Latin America, (socio-)economic questions and approaches became increasingly marginal to the historiography under the cultural turn.  Economic history has remained a small but vibrant subfield within the historiography on Latin America, but now a new generation of social and cultural historians is rediscovering economic questions as part of their research.  This opens up an opportunity for a conversation about the methodological and theoretical place of the ‘economic’ in Latin American history.

This panel brings together social, economic, and cultural historians whose work on a range of subjects (the middle class, consumption, gender, industrial labor, public administration) raises economic questions in different ways.  Each panelist will present original research and embed that in a discussion of how, historiographically and/or methodologically, the ‘economic’ figures into the specific area of research.  Anne Hanley analyzes the taxation of everyday life and the provision of municipal public services in her examination of the local determinants of socioeconomic development in 19th century Brazil.  Susan Gauss focuses on consumption, citizenship, and alcohol taxation in postrevolutionary Mexico.  Oliver Dinius places the rulings of Rio de Janeiro's Regional Labor Court within the economic context of Brazil's post-WWII industrialization to analyze the impact of Getúlio Vargas’s welfare reforms.  Louise Walker examines an increasingly sophisticated consumer economy in Mexico during the 1970s and 1980s, through the window of the Value-Added Tax.

The presenters hope to initiate a conversation between historians of different methodological backgrounds about how to incorporate economic questions into the writing of Latin American history, in ways that move beyond the rather artificial division into historiographical camps.  The discussant is Heidi Tinsman, a social historian who uses gender analysis in her work on labor, consumption, and politics in post-WWII Chile.  The panel chair is Joseph Love, who has worked extensively on the history of economic thought in Latin America.

Now is a propitious time for this conversation, with a renewed interest in economic questions among the broader public—which is reflected in a growing number of graduate students in Latin American history trying to incorporate the ‘economic’ into their work.