Religion in Contemporary Latin American Social Science

No account of social science in Latin America over the past twenty, even thirty, years can fail to take notice of the extremely difficult institutional and financial conditions in which our colleagues work. The institutional conditions in many countries were dealt severe blows by military government: in Chile and Argentina hundreds, even thousands, of professionals were forced or pressured into leaving, often officially sent into exile, and government-funded research, and even teaching, of sociology and social anthropology were almost brought to a halt. Once electoral rule was restored, things got even worse in Argentina because of the disastrous finances of universities and research institutions, while in Chile, although the financial position may have been less parlous, the market-obsessed political culture has simply ignored the uses of social science, save for basic statistical information. In Colombia social scientists have also been a preferred target for death squads. Neither social science nor the humanities are a promising profession anywhere much in Latin America: university salaries are low and in some cases simply do not provide a livelihood. In Brazil it is still possible to gain a tenured position in state and federal universities, but elsewhere the doors seem largely closed, and although in Mexico the universities employ large numbers, salaries and conditions are very poor and certainly not research-friendly. To survive, a professional social scientist who has neither private means nor a highly paid spouse, must engage in multiple employment, and the research which is undertaken is usually under contract to one or another branch of the international development community, whether multilateral, bilateral or non-governmental, leaving little space for professionals to pursue more analytically and independently defined research agendas.