García Canclini, Néstor (1939–)

Néstor García Canclini is a prominent author and researcher on Latin American culture. His work in the 1970s is a Marxist sociology of art, responding to innovative and radical art of the period. His later work, which has been translated into English, is part of an ongoing debate on postmodern culture and stresses the active role of users of media and culture. The key concept is cultural hybridity. García Canclini argues that culture in Latin America is both traditional and modern, boundaries between art and popular culture are eroded by mass media, and the concepts of hegemonic culture and resistance are no longer valid. In his widely read book Hybrid Cultures, he makes this case mainly using examples from art and literature rather than lived culture (agriculture, food, clothing, popular speech). His main intention is to argue for government policies for mass media and to make culture more widely available. His work is a response to developments in an increasingly urban continent and has been welcomed by some writers, but others see it as part of a conservative shift in Latin American intellectual life in the 1990s.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

García Canclini, Néstor. Transforming Modernity: Popular Culture in Mexico. Translated by Lidia Lozano. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.

García Canclini, Néstor. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. Translated by Christopher L. Chiappari and Silvia L. Lopez. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.

García Canclini, Néstor. Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts. Translated by George Yúdice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

                                     Alan O'Connor