The dialectics of social sciences and theory of social classes in Latin America

Abstract

This article is a literature review on the role of social sciences in the production of knowledge and their critical readings of social class theories in Latin America. It has two main parts. First, it revisits the debate on the dialectics of social sciences from a Latin American critique and its Marxist reinterpretations. In doing so, it defines a theoretical positionality that views social sciences as a field of contention. Second, it analyzes the conceptualizations of social classes in Latin America from the critique of the forms of capital reproduction. Throughout the text, different positions on social sciences in Latin America, materialist analyses, and social class theories are connected and confronted. This expands conceptual readings, opens the analytical borders of Marxist studies, and highlights other experiences of association from manual labor and care work. This responds to the need to consider theoretical frameworks that allow us to understand contemporary forms of proletarianization in our region.