Latin american sociology's contribution to sociological imagination: analysis, criticism, and social commitment

This paper tackles the role played by sociology in the analysis of the transformation processes in the Latin American societies, in following the construction process of both State and Nation, and in questioning the social issues in Latin America. Six periods of sociology in Latin America and in the Caribbean Islands are analyzed: (i) sociology's intellectual inheritance; (ii) the authoritative-teaching sociology; (iii) the "scientific sociology" period and the configuration of the "critical sociology"; (iv) the institutional crisis, consolidation of the "critical sociology", and the diversification of sociology; (v) the sociology of authoritarianism, of democracy, and of exclusion; and (vi) the institutional consolidation and the worldization of sociology in Latin America (from the year 2000 on). It can be said that the distinctive features of the sociological knowledge in the continent have been: internationalism, hybridism, critical approach to the processes and conflicts in the Latin American societies, and social commitment on the part of the sociologist.