The global influence of "Dependency and development in Latin America"

Abstract

Since the publication of Development and Dependence in Latin America (DyA) in 1967, countless texts have been written on dependency theories and the role of that book in them. In this article we analyze how DyA has traveled to contexts outside Latin America and ask: What has been the impact of DyA on the global academic field? How has DyA been interpreted and contextualized by scholars outside Latin America?  Answering these questions is important for two reasons. First, beyond the importance that DyD played -and still plays- in Latin American social sciences, its reception in other parts of the world allows us to better understand the aspects that turn a book of Latin American social theory into a work of global scope. Second, due to the social and economic changes that took place since the 1980s, DyD was relegated to the margins of dominant currents in social and political sciences that questioned both its explanatory capacity and its methodological and epistemological bases. In this context, the current rediscovery of DyD arguments in other regions of the world, at a time of reconfiguration of global capitalism, allows us to revaluate its postulates in historical perspective and urges us to update them in the light of these changes.