US Foundations, Cultural Imperialism
and Transnational Misunderstandings:
The Case of the Marginality Project
MARIANO BEN PLOTKIN*
Abstract. This article analyses the failure of the Proyecto Marginalidad (Marginality
Project), which the Ford Foundation financed in the s, and the political and
academic conflicts that it provoked. It takes into consideration the viewpoints of the
principal actors involved (the director of the project, the Ford Foundation, and its
critics). The original aim of the Marginality Project was to study the conditions of
marginality of urban and rural populations in various Latin American countries, but it
generated few results. The article shows that this outcome resulted from a series of
‘structural misunderstandings’, due to the fact that the different actors did not share
what, in the words of Marc Angenot, might be called ‘social discourse’. In other words,
their assumptions about what was thinkable and sayable in the Latin American
context in the late s and early s diverged significantly, giving rise to a series of
conflicts about the objectives and conduct of the project.
Keywords: Argentina, Ford Foundation, sociology, marginality, cultural imperialism
The failure of the Proyecto Marginalidad (Marginality Project), which
originated in Chile in with funding from the Ford Foundation and
aimed to investigate the conditions of marginality of rural and urban
populations in several countries in the region, was, due to its international
impact and repercussions, a ‘defining moment’ in the development of the
social sciences in Latin America during the Cold War period. The project,
which had an initial budget of US$ ,, did not produce the results
expected, but instead generated serious political and institutional conflicts
among different actors in various countries. Those responsible for the project
found themselves in a very delicate political position. For the Ford
* Thanks are due to Lydia Sue Stevens for an excellent translation of this paper. I would also
like to acknowledge the suggestions and comments made by the four anonymous reviewers
and the editors.
Mariano Ben Plotkin is a researcher for the Centro de Investigaciones Sociales at the
Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social and CONICET, and a professor of history at the
Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. Email: mplotkin@ides.org.ar.
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. , – © Cambridge University Press
doi:./SX First published online November
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