Postcolonial Strategies in Latin America’s Literary and Cultural Discourses

Abstract

Postcolonial Studies has had considerable impact upon Comparative Literature. Its challenge to the ethnocentric character of the discipline, that bases production on a dichotomy focused on uneven and hierarchic perspectives, has caused a rupture in Comparative Literature's main axis. By refusing to approach the literary and cultural production of former European colonies as extensions of what was produced in the metropoles, postcolonial critics have raised important questions regarding Western academic assumptions that have resonated in recent international scholarly debates. In this paper, I will examine some of these issues, especially those based on appropriation, and discuss the role they play in Latin America, where, although political independence from Europe was achieved almost universally by the mid – nineteenth century, cultural and economic dependence is still a heavy burden.