After All, Regional Development makes to what? reflections from sociology of Liberation by Fals borda and from Sociology of Exploitation by Casanova

Abstract

Both the history of development and the history of social theory in Latin America are immersed in the Eurocentric paradigm, in covering up the “other” (the great majority exploited in the subcontinent), in the exploitation of nature and in the predominance of speeches from outside. The theory of regional development, a medium range theory, derives from the theory of development, and brings imported approaches that promise progress to the underdeveloped regions of the periphery. Social theory, in general, and the social theory of the European core, in particular, are parts if this paradigm and this speech. In this sense, we bring in this article the peripheral sociology of Orlando Fals Borda and Pablo González Casanova in dialog with the regional question as possibility of a counter-speech. This sociology contains the criticism of both the Eurocentric social theory and the development process took place in Latin America by discussing the commitment of science in “thinking with the region” and “acting to transform/free the region”.