Intellectual discourse and the failed nation in Mexico and Peru

Abstract

This chapter addresses the ambiguous role of intellectuals in Mexico and Peru in the construction of national identities. As this contribution hopes to demonstrate, intellectuals have continuously attempted to create their own vision of the nation and have repeatedly failed to do justice to the heterogeneities and border identities in Latin American countries like Mexico and Peru both in the interior and in the diaspora. Using the examples of diasporic Mexican American communities in Los Angeles and intellectual discourse models within Mexico and Peru, this chapter exposes the dynamics and tensions at work in the intellectual endeavors to build and reflect national identities. The argumentation here highlights the need to embrace multiple modernities more closely in order to understand the complexity of identity politics and the conflicted role of the intellectual in the Latin American context.