50TH: Curating Critical Progressive History for Latin American Studies Scholars: A Distinctive Journal and Archive

Latin American Perspectives was founded in 1974 with the intention of opening the field of Latin American Studies to new theoretical frameworks and perspectives. The journal founders critiqued the field’s early deference to the elder professor-statesmen who dominated the discipline with conservative and mostly descriptive approaches to research on Latin America (Chilcote, 2022). ¹ Recognizing that the long-established scholars’ traditional approach was inadequate, the founders of LAP laid out a radical and inclusive practice that included a new progressive intellectual path to understanding Latin America by conducting on-site original research; analyzing, amplifying, and publishing scholarship about Latin America by Latin American scholars; providing timely theoretical discussions on political economy and dependency vs development, class, imperialism and socialism; and uniquely, by leaving of legacy of original publications, distinctive archives and rich research collections.

Solidifying its openness, LAP prioritized recruitment of Latin American scholars, translation of manuscripts, inclusion of diverse perspectives in editorial and peer review processes, and the development of thematic prospectuses for planning future issues. In his article on the journal’s origins and history, “A Progressive Collective Intellectual and Its Social Knowledge,” Brazilian scholar Jawdat Abu-El-Haj notes that LAP “adopted a participatory editorial culture accompanied by a critique of both mainstream positivism and the orthodox Marxist politization of social research while seeking theoretical innovations and concrete analyses of capitalism” (Abu-El-Haj, 2013: 11). These principles and practices allowed the journal to engage more scholars from the region with on-the-ground research and analysis, and to better represent the autochthonous perspectives and realities of Latin America and its relations with the world.

In keeping with its innovative founding, LAP created opportunities to expand, support and preserve scholarship on Latin America. During travel, scholars routinely acquired valuable and unique research materials, including monographs, serials, research data, pamphlets and ephemeral items with social, political and cultural significance. Exchanges with Latin American journals were set up, making it possible to microfilm 65 select hard-to-acquire Latin American journals for subscriptions to several US libraries. ² Sales of the microfilmed journals partially financed the publishing costs for early issues of LAP, and also made available supplementary research titles to multiple library collections for future generations of scholars.

In an especially noteworthy gift to the University of California, Riverside Tomás Rivera Library, editors donated the journal’s complete business and correspondence archives. ³ The journal archive is a unique repository of progressive academic thought and action from the 1960s to today, and was an important addition to the large personal collection of Latin American research and teaching materials already donated by Ron Chilcote. ⁴ The journal records were closely examined by Participatory Editor, Jawdat Abu-El-Haj, to write his insightful piece about the purpose, vision and accomplishments of the journal and the commitment of the working collective of editors, honorary and contributing editors, reviewers and office staff. The article contextualizes the LAP editors’ urgency to advocate for radical changes to the professional norms of research, scholarly conference participation and academic publishing on Latin America.

Editors also contributed to library collections with the intention of preserving their archival treasures and research materials for use of future scholars. These efforts by LAP editors further contributed to building an engaged, activist community of like-minded scholars who then assisted in acquiring more hard-to-get archival as well as current informational materials. They shared their finds with libraries and archives to support scholars and teachers of Latin America as they exposed more students and faculty to primary and secondary research resources. The next step was to invite scholars to use the archive. This was accomplished by establishing the LAP Fellowship program, which, since 2007, has sponsored 11 scholars on campus to use the collections. ⁵

Whether through the intellectual tradition of the journal, the formation of in-depth archival and monograph materials collections, or the establishment of the Latin American Perspectives research fellowship, the LAP collective of editors has built broad support for learning and research on several college campuses and within several Latin American Studies academic programs. They have also produced a journal that is itself, as Abu-El-Haj describes, a “vast archive of studies on every imaginable form of resistance to neoliberalism and globalization, the root of ongoing social change in the continent” (Abu-El-Haj, 2013: 53). LAP can be commended for initiating the intellectual enterprise that produced a leading journal of critical thought and action, an archive of primary research resources, a fellowship program that supports scholarly research and libraries, and Latin American Studies programs and resources that support future progressive scholars.