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The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?
Author(s) -
Morton Adam David
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
bulletin of latin american research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1470-9856
pISSN - 0261-3050
DOI - 10.1111/1470-9856.00063
Subject(s) - hegemony , modernization theory , civil society , latin americans , state (computer science) , sociology , agency (philosophy) , opposition (politics) , shadow (psychology) , function (biology) , political science , political economy , social science , law , politics , algorithm , evolutionary biology , computer science , biology , psychology , psychotherapist
This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.