# **Sociology in Mexico**

An Intellectual and Institutional History

Gina Zabludovsky

### Sociology Transformed

Series Editors John Holmwood School of Sociology and Social Policy University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK

> Stephen Turner Department of Philosophy University of South Florida Tampa, FL, USA

The feld of sociology has changed rapidly over the last few decades. Sociology Transformed seeks to map these changes on a country by country basis and to contribute to the discussion of the future of the subject. The series is concerned not only with the traditional centres of the discipline, but with its many variant forms across the globe.

Gina Zabludovsky

# Sociology in Mexico

An Intellectual and Institutional History

Gina Zabludovsky Faculty of Social and Political Sciences National Autonomous University of Mexico Mexico City, Mexico

ISSN 2947-5023 ISSN 2947-5031 (electronic) Sociology Transformed ISBN 978-3-031-42088-7 ISBN 978-3-031-42089-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42089-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2024. This book is an open access publication.

**Open Access** This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations.

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*With Love For my husband, for his company and solidarity. For Alan, Jonathan, Yvonne, Liel and Talya.*

### Acknowledgment

I express my gratitude to the sociology students of UNAM, Gerardo Hernández and Judith Chacón, and to my assistant, Leticia Trejo, for the invaluable support they gave me in compiling the bibliographic sources and in preparing the fnal details of the book. I also appreciate the support of Salo Grabinsky in revision of the manuscript and Stephen Turner for his invitation to write this book and the reviewing of the fnal text.

### Praise for *Sociology in Mexico*

"Gina Zabludovsky has performed a great service in managing to bring the long and diverse history of Mexican sociology into the covers of this well argued and succinct book. A work of prodigious scholarship, this is also an exercise in the sociology of knowledge, documenting how social change has affected social ideas. As the world changed, in Mexico, Latin America, and Europe, so did Mexican sociology, as it made made sophisticated efforts to understand them."

> —Jeffrey C. Alexander, *Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University*

"Mexican sociology has a distinguished intellectual tradition, insuffciently known in the English language world. This book by a leading Mexican scholar, brings a documented account of this tradition, together with original insights from the author. Indispensable reading to appreciate the rich diversity of sociology in the global academic culture."

> —Manuel Castells, *Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley*

"Offering an innovative and ambitious approach to the history of Sociology in Mexico, this volume gives the past a depth and breadth of contextual analysis not often found in a small volume. Moving across a vast and shifting landscape of entrenched tradition as it entangled with the forces of reform and change, readers will fnd insights into the complex relations between state and academy, politics and intellectual endeavour, and the church as it met with the plethora of social movements (including the feminist and student movements). This rich journey into history provides much thought about the evolving interconnections between the development of sociology and the material conditions of Mexican society in the many decades since the 19th century."

> —Fran Collyer, *School of Sociology, Australian National University and Department of Sociology and Social Policy/University of Sydney*

"An intellectually brilliant approach and a detailed cartography of the social sciences and sociology in Mexico, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Besides the well -known names, Zabluldovsky highlights the contributions of women, institutions, universities and social movements that have gone unnoticed until today.

A key work to understand the role of the intelligentsia and its institutions in Mexico and Latin America, in their relations with Europe and the United States." —Maria Ángeles Durán, *Consejo Superior de Investigación Científca, España*

"The social sciences have often developed through close engagements with local issues, and with the national audiences that are most concerned with them. They are, as a result, infected by the audiences that they aspire to address. Indeed, social science disciplines tend to develop local accents, and glossing these tendencies, and providing a critical apparatus that helps specialists interpret local innovation, is important. Sociology in Mexico is the frst English-language overview of Mexico's rich disciplinary development."

—Claudio Lomnitz, *Columbia University*

### Contents



**Index** 87

### Abbreviations



### Introduction

**Abstract** The chapter briefy describes the contents of the chapters of the book that follow a chronological order from the beginning of sociology in Mexico during the second half of the nineteenth century to the most current contributions and debates.

**Keywords** Sociology • Mexico • History • Universities • Intellectuals • Nationalism

The book presents a condensed history of sociology in Mexico from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Most of the research and publications on the subject has focused on a specifc historical period, the contributions of a reduced number of sociologists, a specifc concern, or a particular theoretical orientation. Moreover, to the extent that they are written in Spanish, most of the publications cannot be shared by academics beyond the Spanish-speaking world. This project aims to fll this gap. In comparison with the previous works concentrated on the analysis of short historical periods and a limited interpretation of history, this book will present a broader outlook and a different approach aimed at studying the constitution of sociology in Mexico in the long term. Therefore, the study provides a comprehensive account of the genesis and institutionalization of Mexican sociology and the main turning points from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

© The Author(s) 2024 1 G. Zabludovsky, *Sociology in Mexico*, Sociology Transformed, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42089-4\_1

#### 2 G. ZABLUDOVSKY

Although the frst institute of social sciences within a university was not created until 1930, since the mid-nineteenth century, sociological discourse played a fundamental role in the establishment of secular and public education, the recognition of the new role of science, and the political legitimization of the governments of the time.

The study shows how, until the mid-twentieth century, sociology in Mexico advanced in close relation to what was considered a "national project" linked to the political and intellectual interests of the ruling elites.

As sociology became institutionalized within universities, it also consolidated itself as an autonomous social science. In the 1970s, sociology was conceived rather as a critical social science against the existing political regime. Towards the end of the twentieth century, sociology in Mexico is characterized by a growing process of specialization in different thematic felds, while in the frst decades of the twenty-frst century, there is a tendency to an increasing interdisciplinary perspective and collective projects.

Considering the different facts that infuenced the creation, consolidation, and transformation of the discipline such as the interaction with the main social movements, the relationship between universities and the government, the foundation of most important scientifc journals and publishing houses, the main research institutions, the conception of sociology as a professional and academic career, and the changes in the curricula, the universities and its mains transformations, and other relevant factors for academic and professional life. The work also considers the infuence of European thought, and the search for a "national and/or Latin American sociology." From a feminist perspective, the work also studies the participation of women who have often remained invisibles in the history of sociology.

The book addresses the history of sociology in Mexico through four historical periods according to the university's programs, the different research felds, and the main economic, political, and social changes that had a decisive infuence on the development and institutionalization of sociology.

The second chapter "Sociology Precursors: From Scientifc Positivism to the 'Mexican Renaissance'" (1856–1930) addresses two different eras of Mexican history.

The frst era (1856–1910) analyses the reception of the ideas of Comte and Spencer in Mexico and the importance that sociology acquired in the second part of the twenty-frst century, as a discourse legitimizing science and the separation of church and state during Benito Juarez's government (1858–1872).

The sociology of Comte was frst introduced in Mexico during the 1850s, to stress the importance of science, criticize the religious manifestation across all areas of society, and defend the importance of secular and free education.

The chapter analyses the work and infuence of the key authors, the role that associations with a positivist orientation played in Mexico, and the most relevant publications being circulated at the time.

In the later part of the nineteenth century, during the administration of President Porfrio Diaz (1876–1911), Spencer's ideas, and the concepts of social Darwinism, started to grow in importance, informing the conceptual framework of the positivist discourse adopted by representatives and social thinkers of the new regime, who became known as *the Scientists*.

The second part of this chapter studies the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution when the incoming government adopted, as its main principles, a nationalist ideology which rejects the modernist philosophical discourse of Porfrio Diaz's "old regime." Since 1910, and under new infuences of a group of Mexican intellectuals established the *Ateneo de la Juventud*, whose members opposed the positivist interpretation of history as a scientifc knowledge.

This period was characterized by the promotion of cultural activities and the fourishing of the plastic arts led by the muralists, which re-created the images of the revolution onto the main public buildings. Mexico got worldwide attention and was visited by several intellectuals of different countries.

To strengthen the nationalist orientation, the new intellectual and political elites called attention to some of the social theories that privileged a conception of Mexican identity based on the racial composition, in particular the role of the indigenous groups, and the notion of the *mestizos.* The skepticism on the theories on modernity and the universality of progress as well the search for national expressions gave a new impulse to anthropology over sociology.

The third chapter, "The Institutionalization of the Social Sciences in Mexico," explains sociology development from 1930 to 1959.

The frst decade of this time period was characterized by the central importance of Lazaro Cardenas' presidency (1934–1940), his innovation on policies of social equality, and his support for the immigration of Spanish republicans into the country. The second decade, that coincides, was headed by President Manuel Avila Camacho (1940–1946) and Miguel Aleman (1946–1952) who launched new policies for the industrialization of Mexico.

The anti-positivist and post-revolutionary nationalism of the 1920s and 1930s also infuenced the realm of philosophy and led to an increasing importance of literature and social and political essays; some of them had to do with Mexican character and identity and would have a great infuence in Mexico and the world.

Because of the Spanish Civil War, Mexico received an important number of Spanish republicans. This intellectual migration had an important cultural impact and led to the creation of two institutions of central importance to the development of social sciences in Mexico: the publishing house *Fondo de Cultura Económica* (FCE) and *La Casa de España* en México (The Spanish House in Mexico), a higher-education social science research institute which later changed its name to *El Colegio de Mexico*. During this time, the institution offered a degree in sociology that did not last for long.

Meanwhile, in 1930, the *Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales-IISUNAM* (Institute of Social Science Research) was founded at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) with the launching of the *Revista Mexicana de Sociología* (Mexican Journal of Sociology) which, since 1939, has been published quarterly, without interruption. Other important journals were also published at the time.

In 1955, the frst Department of Social and Political Sciences was created to offer a degree of social sciences in the country that in 1966 was transformed into a sociology program.

The chapter also analyses some relevant journals and books published at this very prolifc and creative period.

Chapter 4 "The Expansion of Sociology in Mexico" (1959–1980) analyses a period characterized by the widespread infuence of development theory in Latin America, and by what is known as "Stabilizing Development" in Mexico, an epoch of economic growth and "social peace" which was often qualifed as the *Mexican Miracle*. Notions of Mexico's economy changed from what was considered as a predominantly rural country to an industrializing nation.

This time period also witnessed the creation of the publication of books written by Mexican authors that may be considered foundational for the new era of sociology in Mexico. Academics in the United States also published studies about Mexico translated into Spanish with an important impact on social sciences in Mexico.

During the end of the 1950s, there were different protest movements, led by railroad workers, medical doctors, and teachers. Together with international factors like the Cuban Revolution, they aroused a new concern for social inequality in Mexico and Latin America.

Similar to what was happening in other countries, in 1968, Mexico had an important student movement. The violent reaction of the government towards it changed the perceptions of stability and development that distinguished Mexico according to the so-called Mexican Miracle. Beyond the possibilities of industrialization and economic development, the social demands were now focused on other priorities like the struggle for freedom of speech, and a focus on a new agenda to promote democracy.

Under the new social circumstances, the decade of the 1970s was characterized by the importance of Marxism in Mexican universities, and a belief in teaching and implementing a sociology which incorporates thoughts on social reform and utopia. During this period, there is a shift in Latin American social thought, where the criticism towards the "development theory" led to the expansion of "dependency theory" and the explanation of the unequal distributions or power based in the concentration of economic and social resources in the "the centre" and the exclusion of the "the periphery." The curricular profle of the sociology career was transformed several times.

Due to the rise of authoritarianism and the growth of military regimes in Latin America, during this period, academics and intellectuals were forced to leave their countries and many of them arrived at Mexico to teach at the Sociology Departments of the universities where they consolidated their work and infuenced students and professors.

As a consequence of the military coup headed by General Pinochet, the Facultad Latino Americana de Ciencias Sociales (Latin American Advanced School for Social Sciences FLACSO) in Santiago, Chile, was forced to close and, in 1975, a branch was opened in Mexico.

The chapter analyses the main journals and publications of these periods, both the research results and the pedagogical textbooks, the studies of Mexican academics, as well as the authors from other countries that had an important impact in Mexico's sociology.

Chapter 5 "From Particular Sociologies to Interdisiplinary Studies" addresses the important social and theoretical changes during the later part of the twentieth and the frst decades of the twenty-frst centuries.

As in other parts of the world, at the beginning of the 1980s, the end of the "orthodox consensus" (Giddens) sociology in Latin America was facing new theoretical and methodological challenges. Marxism and the theory of dependency lost the central role they had played in the teaching of sociology and other social sciences and sociology was infuenced by postmodern debates, and criticisms to the "grand social narratives" and a search for other proposals.

The time period was also characterized by a new interpretation of the classics and a process of an increase specialization, with more focalized knowledge in specifc felds like demographic studies, rural, urban, sociology, labour studies, historical and regional research, a growing interest on gender studies (1993); the search for new interpretative frameworks to understand nationalism, sovereignty, citizenship, globalization, and civil society; the infuence of contemporary European authors, and a renewed attention to the study of new actors, social movements, identities, and subjectivities.

In line with the transformation of Mexico's democratic institutions, one of the predominant themes of studies of the time were centred on the state, democracy, power, and the political system. In fact, during the 1980s and 1990s, the transition from authoritarianism was a focal point of Latin American social sciences, which explained the close relationship between sociology and political science at that time.

During this period, departments of sociology were established in various universities across the country, and new journals were created; there was an important increase in the number of women as students and academics of sociology. The government introduced new policies for fnancing and evaluating professors and researchers that shaped the procedures of academic world and infuenced the feld of social sciences in Mexican universities.

During the 1990s, the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the indigenous *Zapatista Revolution* in the state of Chiapas (1994) generated new sociological concerns.

The beginning of the new century showed that government policies in Mexico have not reduced social inequality and corruption. In addition, the country faced a growing wave of violence, and impunity in the face of organized crime. In face of this reality, sociology will focus on the study of the problems of violence, poverty, inequality, the exclusion of indigenous groups, and the growing importance of migrations.

To study the different causes of the national and international concerns, sociology abandoned the previous emphasis in specialization looking for interdisciplinary and more comprehensive research.

During the time, sociology in Mexico have similar interest to those of sociology worldwide, like the "cultural and affective turn" and the role of the growing interest on gender studies.

Sociologists intensify their various forms of participation in collective networks and Mexican sociology went through an internationalization process with an increasing number of publications in English, attendance at world forums, and collaboration with academics from other countries.

Given the content of this book, the author considers that it may be of interest not only for historian of sociology and social sciences but also for those interested in intellectual history, Latin American studies, social theory, relations between literature and social sciences, and other felds.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## Sociology Precursors: From Scientifc Positivism to the "Mexican Renaissance" (1856–1930)

**Abstract** The chapter analyses two periods. During the frst period (1856–1910), sociology and positivism acquired exceptional relevance as an intellectual and governmental discourse to legitimize science, the separation of church and state, and the importance of secular and free education. The second part deals with the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), the revolt against positivism, and the search of a new national identity through cultural expression and a new interest in anthropology over sociology.

**Keywords** Positivism • Sociology • Anthropology • History • Mexico • Sciences • Arts

Sociology and Positivism (1856–1910)

Sociology was frst introduced in Mexico in 1856 by the physician and jurist Gabino Barreda (1818–1881) who had attended Comte's lectures in Paris in 1851–1853 and then played a key role in the advancement of President Juárez's (1806–1872) liberal educational policies, the secularization of public life in Mexico, and the separation of church and state (Barreda Flores, 1877, p. 8). Barreda drew on positivist ideas on social progress to criticize what he perceived as an excessive role of religion in all areas of society and defended the importance of a secular, scientifc, and compulsory education (Barreda Flores, 1863, 1979, pp. 116–118).

According to Barreda's own interpretations of positivism, Mexican independence in 1810, and nineteenth-century historical transformations, were part of the universal road to progress. Upholding Comte's theories about social change, he considered that given the growing importance of science, there was no reason for the Catholic Church in Mexico to continue to have the overpowering infuence that it had during the three centuries of the Spanish colonial period.

These ideas were crucial for the foundation, in 1868, of the *Escuela Nacional Preparatoria* (ENP) (equivalent to the last three years of high school) as a public institution headed by Barreda until 1878. Beginning in 1897, sociology courses and general seminars were offered on an occasional basis and four years later "Sociology and Morals" was introduced as a regular subject (Barreda, 1901a, b, pp. 194–199; Hernández Prado, 1999, pp. 169–174; Murguía, 1993, pp. 11–23).

While carrying out his duties at the ENP, in 1877, Barreda called on his students to found the *Asociación Metodófíla*, which strove to apply the positivist method for scientifc studies. One year later, they founded the "Political, Scientifc and Literary Newspaper" *La Libertad* (Aragón, 1898; Covarrubias, 1880). One of the most important authors of this group was Porfrio Parra who also defended positivism as the basis for a practical education in Mexico, as a combative philosophy against "the old theological spirit" and for promoting progress (Manterola, 1898; Parra Hernandez, 1896; Zea, 1968, pp. 151–181; pp. 350–352).

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, during the administration of President Porfrio Díaz—a period known as *El Porfriato* (1876–1911), Spencer's ideas and social Darwinism began to have a special infuence for a group of Barreda's former students known as *Los científcos* ("The Scientists"), social thinkers, ministers, and public offcials that would have a central role in the new regime.

One of the most outstanding members of this group was the Secretary of Education and prolifc writer Justo Sierra who opposed any religious interpretation, and under the infuence of Spencer' sociology considered the new social order represented by the Díaz government as a "natural consequence" of Mexico's social evolution (Sierra, 1948, pp. 85–132; Sierra, 1991, p. 15).

In 1902, Sierra edited the book *Mexico: Its Social Evolution*, an initiative by the government to enlighthen the Mexican people and foreign countries about Mexican progress. According to Laura Moya (2003, 23–56), the work may be considered as the most comprehensive and systematic production of a group of modern thinkers who saw constitutional reform as the best road to achieve social and political change. Under the infuence of Comte's notion of progress and Spencerian social evolution, the twelve chapters, written by different authors—mostly lawyers who were also public offcers and members of the *Asociación Metodófla*, are works about different aspects of the Mexican people and their institutions, studied from a sociological perspective, with a secular, temperate, neutral objective, and scientifc interpretation of history that was also capable of making social predictions with a certain degree of accuracy (Moya, 2003, pp. 6–37). Since social phenomena were subject to laws, government decisions were supposed to rest on scientifc and rational foundations.

Since 1897, in collaboration with jurist Miguel Macedo, Sierra advocated the introduction of specialized sociology courses in the School of Jurisprudence. This proposal, however, was not put into practice until 1906, when general courses were offered for the frst time at some Mexican regional law schools, such as those of the states of Michoacán and Puebla, as well as at the National University. In 1907, the subject "Principles of Sociology," chaired for the frst time by Pereyra, was included in the National School of Law's regular curriculum (Hernández Prado, 1999, p. 170; Mendieta Núñez, 1955).

In 1900, Horacio Barreda (Gabino's son), Ezequiel Chávez, and Agustin Aragón founded the *Revista Positiva*, with a circulation of 500 copies. A total of 189 issues were printed from 1900 to 1914. Among the works published were articles about the relevance of sociology for the study of Mexico's central problems (Pereyra, 1903). Alberto Escobar (1902, pp. 1–118) published a preliminary version of his book *Principles of Sociology* (1902), where he presented an organicist interpretation of Mexican history in which Spencer's ideas concerning the general laws of evolution were explained (Alvarado & Bosque, 2009; González Navarro, 1970; Rovira, 1999).

*Revista Positiva* also published articles dealing with the "Mexican national character." Ezequiel Chávez (1901) explained the heterogeneous nature of the "Mexican organism," and the "distinct sensibilities of Europeans, mestizos and Indians." With a prejudiced view, he considered the Indian population as disdainful and "impervious in the face of progress," with greater interest in their own territory than in the "Mexican motherland," whereas Europeans were more rational and had "a greater ability for expressing emotions," while *mestizos* (classifed by him between the superior and inferior groups) had a shifting and more intuitive sensibility. In the same year, Julio Guerrero (2002, pp. 47–52) published a text in which he maintained that Mexicans were predisposed to sadness and melancholy (Bartra, 2002, p. 47). As will be shown in Chap. 3, these ideas would have a great infuence on well-known twentieth-century authors like Samuel Ramos and Octavio Paz.

In 1910, the year of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917) against the Porfrio Diaz regime, as Secretary of Education Justo Sierra founded the National University (that later became UNAM) offering a free, secular education for the careers of engineering, jurisprudence, medicine, and architecture. Since 1907, in collaboration with Pablo Macedo, Sierra presented a project to introduce the social sciences in the curriculum of legal studies which changed its name to "National School of Social Sciences and Law," as courses in sociology were incorporated (Moya, 2003, p. 43). However, due to the political situation in Mexico, although specialized social science courses were included in the new curriculum, they were not taught. Thus, at the turn of the twentieth century, the importance of sociology in Mexico lay not so much in the academic as in the public arena.

Towards the end of the *Porfriato*, in 1909, Andrés Molina Enríquez (1895–1940) published his study *The Great National Problems* (Molina Enríquez, 1984), considered to be the frst thoroughly sociological book by a single author. He echoed the theses of positivism and evolutionism (Kourí, 2009, p. 302) and also introduced a new multicausal approach for the interpretation of Mexican society which included the distribution of agricultural property, social classes, and the racial composition of the population. Like many intellectuals of his time, Molina had studied jurisprudence, but he preferred to think of himself as a sociologist mostly interested in social groups, norms, and collectivities. In its frst editions, the book was published with the subtitle "Studies in Mexican Sociology" (Magallón, 2004, p. 83). As also stated by Durkheim, Medina considered the concept of social cohesion as the main object of sociology. Since Molina could hardly have known Durkheim's work, as it was being published in France at that moment, a more likely explanation for the coincidence between these two contemporaries is that they were both mainly concerned with sociology, and their ideas were heavily marked by the legacy of previous positivist currents.

Molina's book offered an analysis of social problems that had not received proper attention until then. Particularly noteworthy was his concern about the cultural situation of indigenous peoples, absent from many historical studies written both after the independence and during the *Porfriato*. When Sierra previously dealt with the matter (1899), he affrmed that the so-called social problem of indigenous peoples was mainly related to the lack of education and good nutrition, and what was needed was to reduce these inequalities (Kourí, 2009, pp. 281–282). In contrast, Molina's work presented a painstaking classifcation of indigenous groups based on a combination of ethnical, racial, and sociological elements, including the economic and symbolic signifcance of the ownership of what they considered as their "ancestral lands." Thus, in opposition to the views of certain *científcos*, who went so far as to affrm that the progress of Mexican agriculture would require European immigrants, Molina believed that the *mestizo* population took its strength from "its indigenous blood," and that the native people had been undervalued and subjected to countless injustices in Mexican history (Hernández Prado, 1999, pp. 169–174). Far from remaining isolated, since independence, they had mixed with the rest of the population to such a degree that their presence had diminished in the same proportion that the *mestizos* had increased. Thus, Molina (2006, p. 30) stated that Mexico's population "is on the way to becoming a single one."

Molina's book includes data about the different populations, with 50%, the largest segment, mestizo, followed by 35% indigenous peoples, and 15% *criollos*. In the author's view, only *mestizos* were in an adequate position to become fully integrated, and to continue being "the political class leading the population" (Kourí, 2009, p. 302), since they were not only the largest, but also the strongest and most patriotic of the three groups. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Molina's thesis had a strong infuence in governmental and intellectual circles, and the conception of the Mexican people as a unifed, patriotic *mestizo* population would become, in later years, a key argument in the legitimating discourse of the new regime (Molina Enríquez, 1984). Although in his book Molina extolled Porfrio Díaz's leadership, after the outbreak of the Mexican revolution, in 1911, he opposed the concentration of privately owned lands in a few hands during his government, and 1915, in collaboration with Luis Cabrera, he drew up an important agrarian law reform to redress this situation (Villegas, 1993. pp. 17–18).

Studies dealing with Mexico's intellectual history during the later nineteenth century and the early twentieth century do not usually include the role of women, and some authors of the time ignored them or talked about them showing their prejudices. Such was the case of Horacio Barreda, Gabino's son, who in 1901 wrote against feminism and advocated for the traditional roles assigned to women, arguing that these conditions were based on nature and that women's participation in politics may "destroy their femininity" (Barreda, 1901a; Ramos Escandón, 2001, 98–99). This was also the case for Molina who, under the infuence of social Darwinism and the theses of Schopenhauer, claimed that since there were scientifc grounds that proved men's organism was superior to women's, that women were unsuitable for leadership, and feminism was "mere nonsense" (Molina, 1984, pp. 363–364).

However, a few liberal thinkers appealed to positivism's scientifc discourse to question the traditional ideas associated with religious education and defended women's right to partake in professional training. Throughout the nineteenth century, there was a permanent dispute between the liberal and the conservative Catholic sectors over the social role of women, with the former in favor of social transformation and the latter calling for the reinforcement of traditions. Some Mexican liberals, like Melchor Ocampo, spoke in favor of allowing women to enroll in higher education studies (López Pérez, 2008, pp. 50–51), and considered their situation of social inferiority to be one of the mightiest obstacles hindering the progress of the humanity (quoted by López Pérez, 2008, p. 55). One of the intellectuals who most strongly advocated in favor of women was the historian and director of the National Museum, Genaro García, an outspoken follower of the ideas of Spencer, whose 1891 dissertation to qualify as lawyer was about women's inequality (Ramos Escandón, 2001, pp. 87–107).

These writings echoed the concerns expressed at the time by the pioneers of feminism in Mexico, a group of women writers who during the nineteenth century contributed to the country's intellectual life by publishing several articles in magazines they had themselves founded with the purpose of promotion of the presence of women in the public sphere, arguing that they should "educate themselves in the study of science, the arts and history," clearing the path towards social and economic progress (López Sánchez, 2012, pp. 608–613; Manresa, 1887, pp. 7–19).

Among the most outstanding women authors of the time was Lawreana Wright, a precursor of feminism in Mexico. She was the founder and director of the magazine *Las hijas del Anáhuac* (Daughters of Anáhuac) whose name was changed to *Violetas del Anáhuac* (Violets of Anáhuac) in 1888—a plural, progressive publication that was widely distributed across Mexico, and even in other areas and countries, such as Cuba, New Orleans, and the United States, and which encouraged the creation of networks between women from different regions (CNDH México, 2021). Among Wright's most signifcant texts are *The Emancipation of Women through Education* (Wright, 1891) and *An Erroneous Female Education and the Practical Means to Correct It* (CNDH México, 2021). In her works, Wright spoke about the importance of women's economic independence and of professional degrees to achieve emancipation. In 1891, in cooperation with Montoya, the frst female university doctor, she founded the frst nursery in Mexico, where women workers could leave their children during the day. Another outstanding woman was Antonia Leonila Ursúa, one of the 84 females who graduated from the Faculty of Medicine from 1887 to 1937. As a writer, she also highlighted the importance of women's emancipation and their right to study and enter the scientifc professions (Castañeda & Rodríguez, 2012). The frst suffragettes of the country also spoke out against Horacio Barreda's positions, among them Hermila Galindo (1896–1954), who elaborated a view of feminism in which the autonomy of women and the collective well being converge (Galindo, 1993; Escorcia, 2013).

As is the case in other parts of the world, the contributions of these women authors have remained invisible, and for the most part unrecognized, in the history of Mexican social and political thought. However, in view of their contributions, the present study considers these women should also be given a place as forerunners of sociology.

### "Mexican Renaissance" and the Institutionalization of the New Regime (1910–1930)

The present section analyzes the post-revolutionary Mexican thinking, focusing on the work and topics of three authors: Antonio Caso and the criticism of positivism, Manuel Gamio and the founding of anthropology in Mexico, and an incipient refection on Mexican culture carried out by Anita Brenner. This period was defned by the Mexican revolution and the consolidation of the new regime. The civil war took place during the frst stage (1910–1920), followed by intense infghting among the various factions involved in the confict. The offcial party, founded in the late 1920s, would go on to govern the country until the year 2000.

During this time period, there was a boom in the plastic arts, with a new narrative that dealt with the Mexican character and the country's political history as it was expressed, from an epic perspective, in the works of the muralist movement headed by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco, as well as a handful of women, including María Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo, who would receive no recognition until the twenty-frst century. During the 1920s, the worldwide perception was that Mexico's post-revolutionary era was highly attractive from the cultural point of view, as a kind of "romantic period." Foreign intellectuals and photographers (such as Edward Weston and Tina Modotti) were working in the country. André Breton visited Mexico and proclaimed it a surrealist country.

Under the infuence of a new national discourse that privileged artistic expression over science, the younger generation launched a crusade against positivism to restore´ imagination and a narrative closer to essay writing and philosophical discourse than to scientifc works. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were set up against Comte and Spencer (Henriquez Ureña, 1914, p. 212; Zea, 1968, pp. 438–439). New magazines with an emphasis on literature were established, such as *Savia Moderna*, published from 1906 to 1914 (Murguía, 1993, p. 13; Sefchovich, 1989, p. 22).

One of the most important intellectual movements of the time was the *Ateneo de la Juventud* (Youth Athenaeum), founded in 1909, as a response to the nationwide political and social interest in renovation, and dissociation from the old regime. Among its members were renowned politicians, artists, writers, and social thinkers, such as Alfonso Reyes and Diego Rivera. One of its most prominent members was José Vasconcelos, who at a conference given in 1910 stated that positivism killed spontaneity and freedom and nullifed non-scientifc forms of expression (Vasconcelos, 1910, p. 22; Zea, 1968, p. 443). The positions expressed by Vasconcelos gained impetus from 1921, when he was appointed Secretary of Public Education and supported and called for a new attention to Mexican history and pre-Hispanic monuments (Zapata, 2014, 19–20).

A stand out among the members of the *Ateneo* was Antonio Caso (1883–1946), a man of great oratory gifts who became a sort of unoffcial spokesman for the anti-positivism movement, Under the infuence of European authors like Bergson, Dilthey, and Spranger, he questioned the validity of the positivist model and claimed that the conception of social sciences in Comte, Mills, and Spencer, and even in Marx, were philosophies of history with an inaccurate emphasis on causativeness over social understanding (Florescano, 1963, p. 358). According to Caso, both positivist sociology and historical materialism failed to understand the multiple aspects of social realities. In opposition to these theories, he considered that what was relevant for the study of society were psychological, anthropological, and cultural values, and a better understanding of religious, artistic, linguistic, and political phenomena (Caso, 1980, pp. 6–10; Caso, 1985, p. 7; Caso, 1999, pp. 152–153; Hernández Prado, 1990; Manterola, 1898).

Caso became director of the ENP in 1909, and he taught the course "Principles of Sociologie" for a long time (1909–1940). He also lectured sociology at the National School of Law and was frst secretary and later president (1920–1923) of the National University (Hernández Prado, 1994, p. 36; Kozlarek, 2012, p. 11), where he defended the freedom of ideas and the respect and encouragment of different theoretical and political approaches to knowledge. As a university professor, Caso introduced a heterodox, anti-organicist strain of sociology, infuenced by his professor at ENP, Alberto Escobar (1902), whose sociological teachings were published as a book. Caso also introduced in his classes the work of the Peruvian thinker Mariano Cornejo's *General Sociology*, and later his own *Genetic and Systematic Sociology* (Caso, 1927) that two years later was incorporated as a textbook by most curricula that included sociology as a subject matter. First published by the Ministry of Public Education, the book went through several revised and expanded editions. The last to be published during the author's lifetime was the 1945 version titled *Sociología* (Caso, 1980; Gardia, 1980; Hernández Prado, 1994; Murguía, 1993, p. 13).

From its frst edition, Caso's book received some radical criticism. One of his most brilliant students, the young philosopher Samuel Ramos (1867–1960), argued that the author's "irrational intuitionism" confused positivism with science itself, without considering the risks of "vindicating intuitionism in a nation that needed to give more impetus to science." Since Caso's main arguments were closer to a philosophy of culture than to sociological concepts—the book would be widely read by philosophy students in Mexico—the future social scientists hardly regarded it as a reference work. Despite its editorial success, the ideas could not easily be applied to social research projects and, therefore, had no signifcant impact on the practice of sociology in Mexico (Florescano, 1963, p. 361; Hernández Prado, 1994, pp. 169–193; Murguía, 1994–1999; Ramos Magaña, 1946).

Sociology was more infuenced by the Anthropology of Manuel Gamio than by Caso's philosophy of history. Like many authors of his time, Gamio had been educated as a liberal-positivist lawyer at the ENP. From 1906 to 1908, he took courses in archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology at the National Museum, where he later became a history teacher and afterwards conducted excavations in the state of Zacatecas which aroused the interest of academic sectors in the United States. Between 1909 and 1911, he was awarded a scholarship to study at Columbia University. He met anthropologist Franz Boas there, who was undertaking a project to initiate an anthropology school in Mexico and had asked American ethnologist and archaeologist Zelia Nutall to help him look for a Mexican that was up to the task (Kourí, 2009, p. 60). Once Gamio concluded his professional preparation in the USA, he joined an archaeological expedition to Ecuador, and upon his return to Mexico, in 1913, he was appointed the inspector general of Archaeological Monuments for the Ministry of Education.

Recognizing the rich linguistic, cultural, and racial heterogeneity of indigenous peoples, and in line with the offcial ideology of his time, Gamio defended the need to integrate them to the nation (Murguía, 1993, pp. 12–13). As Molina Enríquez had done before, focused on *mestizaje*, Gamio (1916) claimed that "the fusion of races" and linguistic unifcation would promote the "economic and social equilibrium of the country." Such arguments revealed the close ties between applied anthropological research and the post-revolutionary offcial national narrative: indigenous groups would be integrated in the country along with the other sectors of the Mexican population, giving shape to "a powerful homeland and an articulated nationhood" (Castillo, 2014, pp. 176–178; Gamio, 1960, p. 325). Gamio's arguments would have a strong infuence on Vasconcelos's well-known book *The Cosmic Race* (1925), considered a "manifesto" of Mexican identity at the time.

In 1916, Gamio headed Mexico's delegation to the Second Pan-American Congress in Washington, where his proposal was that each country should create its own Anthropology Department. The Mexican one, founded by Gamio, would be the frst in the continent and later became the Department of Indigenist Studies (Olvera, 2004, p. 84). In 1920, Gamio founded and directed *Ethnos*, a journal devoted to the study of indigenous communities and social conficts in rural and urban areas, and published diverse works dealing with anthropological, sociological, juridical, and philological issues. Among the authors were Lucio Mendieta y Núñez and Pablo González Casanova, all of whom would play key roles in the institutionalization process of sociology (Comas, 1993).

In 1922, Gamio's research, *The Population of the Valley of Teotihuacan* (Gamio, 1922), was published. It became a landmark in social studies by introducing a conception of social science with close link with social policy and social practices. Backed by the government, the project may be considered as a turning point, as a model of collective intellectual enterprise with a signifcant effect on the formation of future social scientists. Among them was Mendieta, who worked in the project as an assistant to Gamio (Mendieta Nuñez, 1955, 1961; Olvera, 2004). The research, conducted in the Teotihuacan valley, 50 kilometers away from the country's capital, was done through as a multifactorial analysis including political and juridical practices, land distribution, housing conditions, and a general social diagnosis of the inhabitants. Through the Directorship of Anthropology, Gamio conducted an "integral census." In accordance with the results, inhabitants were classifed whether they belonged to "indigenous" or "modern civilization" (the latter included non-indigenous and mostly *mestizo* inhabitants). In this comprehensive study, Gamio disclosed data in relation to schooling, marriage, mortality rates, health conditions, economic and social inequalities, and other adverse circumstances (Gamio, 1922).

Given that Teotihuacan had received less attention in comparison to other cultures, such as the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula, the study focused on archaeological fndings, architecture, plastic arts, religion, "regional folklore," and other practices considered by Gamio as constituents of their "moral education." The research also included different proposals for the improvement of salaries and access to economic and cultural resources, including a new program to reinforce "national identity"—a new education plan that included attention to the special needs of indigenous children and adults and teaching methods with flms and audiovisual techniques that were very advanced at the time (Gamio, 1922, pp. 55–57). In collaboration with the government, the project also made policy proposals for reforestation, farming construction plans with regional supplies, and training programs to develop skills for handicraft and industrial production, (Gamio, 1922, pp. 156–165).

In his work, Gamio criticized the role played by certain sectors of the Catholic Church and its "fanatical prejudices" and stated that "despite all the diseases suffered by the population" in the Teotihuacan valley, no priest could be found there to "heal the sick, assist the hungry and comfort the outcast" (Gamio, 1922, p. 48). On the other hand, concerned about the spread of the Russian Revolution's ideology to other countries, he also warned that Mexico's improvement programs should keep away from any projects linked to the "Soviets," because despite all the abuse and scarcity in their lives, "indigenous peoples have gained nothing out of Bolshevism" (Gamio, 1922, p. 72).

Gamio may be considered as the frst intellectual whose major role was as an academic scholar with no interest in a political career. Besides his responsibilities in the Anthropology Department, the only other government position that he held was the deputy minister of education, in 1924 (President Elías Calles 'Government), which he resigned after he publicly decried the corruption and servility of offcialdom. Gamio was compelled to leave the country, and after a short stay in the United States he was commissioned by the *American Archaeological Society of Washington* to head a research project in Guatemala (González Gamio, 2003; Villoro, 1987, p. 9).

In the mid-1920s, Gamio began to study Mexican migration to the USA, at the request of several American foundations and the *Social Science Research Council*, whose director, Dr. Charles E. Merrian, thought of him as "the most qualifed person for the job, given his outstanding academic career." For this project, Gamio and his team conducted some 60 interviews of migrants, the results of which were published in the Englishlanguage books *Mexican Immigration to the United States* (1930) and *The Mexican Immigrant. His Life and Story* (1931). Unfortunately, these publications were scarcely known and circulated in Mexico, since in those times migrants to the US were regarded as "traitors to the homeland," and the books would not be published in Spanish until 1969 (Alanís, 2019; Douglas & Hansen, 2002, p. 172; Gamio, 1931; Zapata, 2014, p. 14).

Another student of Franz Boas who wrote important texts on Mexico's cultural life was Anita Brenner (1905–1974), born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, to a family of frst-generation Latvian Jews who had migrated to Mexico. Anita's early political awareness probably resulted from her origins as a Jewish woman who had been displaced, and her affnity to a Mexican culture she nonetheless felt as her own. There were periods in her childhood in which the family were expatriated from Mexico, because of the revolutionaries' efforts to oust US citizens, a situation that forced them to migrate to San Antonio, Texas, in 1916. At 18, however, Anita took the decision to reclaim what she saw as her inalienable roots. Returning to Mexico on her own, she enrolled in the university. In 1925, she went to New York to pursue a degree in anthropology at Columbia University, where she graduated with a doctoral thesis project on Mesoamerican culture, under the direction of Boas himself.

When Anita went back to Mexico in 1927, she took notice of how American media contributed to a negative view of the country, and became convinced that she had a major role to play in promoting the new Mexican identity abroad. Out of this concern, and as a result of her research, in 1929, she published her book *Idols behind Altars* in the USA which included images from the renowned photographers Weston and Modotti, who had been invited by Anita to visit Mexico and were to have a lasting impact on the country's cultural life (San José Vázquez, 2009, pp. 71–76). As Alan Grabinsky (2017) notes, "As journalist and anthropologist, cultural promoter and traveler, Anita helped the cultural movement called Mexican Renaissance to fnd a place in the United States; her hybrid identity allowed her to crisscross national boundaries, earning her an important role as some sort of cultural diplomat."

According to Brenner (1929, pp. 31–32), nowhere as in Mexico has art become a constituent part of life and national identity. Like many mural paintings of the time, the author stresses the unfavorable conditions of indigenous groups throughout the country's history. With this publication, Brenner initiated the study of Mexico's eclectic religious celebrations as an expression of the historical heritage and the fusion of universal and particular cultures in the celebration of unconventional festivities, like the *Day of the Dead* (Brenner, 1929, pp. 11–19). Brenner's analysis would be crucial for subsequent books on this matter, including those by Samuel Ramos or Octavio Paz which will be examined in Chap. 3.

*Idols behind Altars* thus offered the earliest synthesis about the political, intellectual, and artistic movement of 1920s Mexico known as the "Cultural Renaissance" (San José Vázquez, 2009, pp. 71–82). The book was an instant success. Anita was only 24 years old when she received congratulatory letters from European writers like Miguel de Unamuno and Richard Hughes (Grabinsky, 2017). A few years later, the Russian flmmaker Sergei Eisenstein traveled to Mexico to flm a movie he never fnished, *¡Que viva México!* (1932), with a script that was an adaptation of Anita's book. Years later, in 1943, Brenner published *The Wind That Swept Mexico. The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910*–*1942*, "the frst book to present a broad account of Mexican Revolution in its different phases."

Notwithstanding her success and the signifcance of her anthropological and cultural insights, Brenner's studies have received no recognition as an antecedent of sociology and the social sciences. This may well be due to her background as a Mexican American woman who mainly wrote in English, spent a good part of her life on both sides of the border, taught no classes at Mexican universities and belonged to no academic or intellectual group of the time, other than the muralists and other groups of artists.

### Bibliography


Barreda, H. (1901a). La Escuela Nacional Preparatoria: lo que se quería que fuera este plantel de educación y lo que hoy se quiere que sea. *Revista Positiva., VII*, 411.

Barreda, H. (1901b). Estudio sobre "El feminismo". *Revista Positiva. Orden y progreso, 103*, 182–217.


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### The Institutionalization of the Social Sciences in Mexico 1930–1959

**Abstract** The frst decade of this time period was characterized by the central importance of Lazaro Cardenas's presidency (1934–1940), including his reforms that sought to promote equality in land ownership in the countryside and his support for the immigration of Spanish republicans, which would have an important intellectual infuence in the development of social sciences and humanities in Mexico. The second decade, during the presidential periods of Avila Camacho (1940–1946) and Miguel Aleman (1946–1952) saw economic policies that promoted the industrialization and urbanization of the country, which was often described as the "Mexican Miracle." Sociology went through an institutionalization process with the founding of research institutions, editorial houses, specialized journals, and bachelor's programs.

**Keywords** Sociology • Research • Curricula • Mexico • Journals • University

### The Contributions of the Spanish Republicans

One of the most relevant events in the intellectual history of the period was the immigration of Spanish Republicans, who received the active support of President Lazaro Cardenas to immigrate to Mexico because of the rise of Franco's dictatorship. The refugees, or *transterrados*, had a prominent cultural role in the feld of the social sciences. Manuel Pedroso, a renowned professor at the University of Seville who stood out as a university lecturer, taught a seminar on political theory at UNAM's School of Law which would be of great importance for future social scientists, such as Víctor Flores Olea, Enrique González Pedrero, and Cecilia Diamant, one of the frst woman professors of political and social theory.

In the discipline of sociology, Luis Recaséns Siches and José Medina Echavarría (both educated as jurists in Europe) were some of the outstanding intellectuals of the Spanish Exile in Mexico Recaséns joined the UNAM as professor in 1940; he taught a course in Philosophy of Law and, from 1943, held a chair in sociology. Since no social sciences specialization existed at the time, his contributions had a signifcant infuence on jurisprudence students, but not on the education of future sociologists. Medina (1903–1997), who arrived in Mexico in 1939 at the age of 36, had studied law at the universities of Valencia and Paris, and later taught this subject at the University of Murcia. An enthusiastic scholar of German philosophy, he translated into Spanish several texts by authors like Gustav Radbruch and Robert Michels. In Spain, he was actively involved in politics, but as a refugee, in Mexico, he focused only on intellectual pursuits (Zabludovsky, 2002).

At UNAM, from 1939 to 1945, Medina gave lectures in general sociology to law students, a social psychology course to future philosophers, and a research methodology class to students at the School of Economics, where his plans to hold an international seminar on Max Weber were rejected (Alarcón, 1991, pp. 60–67; Lida & Matesanz, 2000, p. 229; Soler, 2015, p. 135). As an "outsider" (Elias, 1994), Medina was largely excluded from some of the already established academic circles, such as those led by Mendieta Núñez, who, as will be seen later, was the founder of UNAM's Institute of Social Research. During his residence in Mexico, Medina published several articles and the book *Overview of Contemporary Sociology* (1940), in which, to advance in his own sociological proposals, he displayed the main contributions of Durkheim, Simmel, Tönnies, Weber, and other authors.

In collaboration with Mexican intellectuals, the refugees created pivotal institutions for the advancement of the social sciences. Among these, the most outstanding are the following:

1. *La Casa de España en México* (The House of Spain in Mexico), founded in 1938 by Mexican economist and historian Daniel Cosío Villegas, was initially conceived as a working place for the most prominent of the Spanish refugee intellectuals, including Medina, Pedroso, Recaséns, and the woman philosopher Zambrano. In October 1940, its name changed to *El Colegio de México* (COLMEX), that is to date one of the most remarkable institutions for education and research in the social sciences. From 1940 to 1950, COLMEX's president was the wellknown Mexican writer and intellectual Alfonso Reyes, although much of the decision-making was in the hands of General Secretary Cosío Villegas who was also one of the founders of UNAM's School of Economics and professor at UNAM's School of Law, where he lectured Sociology for a brief period (1923–1924) at the chair previously occupied by Antonio Caso (Moya & Olvera, 2006, pp. 11–138; Soler, 2015).

2. The *Fondo de Cultura Económica* (FCE), founded in 1934, also by Cosío Villegas, became one of the most prestigious publishing houses in the Spanish-speaking countries, and the frst independent Latin American publishing company with a global impact. Previously, most Spanish books in the region were printed in Argentina, through local branches of the main publishing companies from Spain. With the rise of Fascism in Europe, these were banned or censured, and the FCE began to play a central role in the dissemination of major social sciences works (Krauze, 1984, p. 15).

The FCE initially published books dealing with economy, followed by collections focusing on politics and law (from 1937), and later philosophy, anthropology, and sociology (from 1939). From its early stages, the sociology collection was directed by Medina, who, in collaboration with other refugees, achieved outstanding results, with the publication of 41 works from 1939 to 1946, many of which were translations of the most important classical authors (Alarcón, 1991, pp. 60–220). One of the most remarkable was the 1944 complete edition of Max Weber's *Economy and Society*, edited by Medina, who regarded this author as the greatest sociologist of his time (Medina Echavarria, 1944). It was the frst full translation from the German ever; the frst complete English edition, by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, did not come out until 1968.

The sociology collection included other books originally in German, like F. Tönnies (1931) *Principles of Sociology*, Alfred Weber's *Historia de la Cultura* (translation by Recaséns,) and various books of Karl Mannheim, including *Ideology and Utopia* (1942). Later on, texts from other languages would also be translated, including books by Comte, Durkheim, Linton, Pareto, and Veblen (Lida et al., 2000, pp. 230–231; Moya, 2007, pp. 765–779). In addition to his task as an author, at UNAM and the FCE in 1943, Medina founded COLMEX's *Centro de Estudios Sociales* (CES, Center for Social Studies), which included a sociology division chaired by Medina, an economics area with a Keynesian orientation presided by the Mexican former student from the London School of Economics Víctor Urquidi, and a political science division directed by Manuel Pedroso.

From the beginning, two opposing viewpoints about the role of the social sciences were at stake in this project. Cosío Villegas encouraged a research and teaching program correlated with the national public agenda, whereas Medina's aim was to endorse social theory and methodology for academic purposes (Medina Echavarria, 1944). Thus, the CES's initial conception was far from UNAM's juridical orientation with respect to the social sciences, and from COLMEX's most relevant task, which was to prepare diplomats and historians. For the curricula contents, Medina explored some of the social sciences programs in US universities, particularly those in which sociology, economics, and political science were correlated, as was the case in the University of Chicago (Giorguli & Ugalde, 2020, pp. 116–117).

Included in the sociology curriculum were introductory courses on sociology, political science, and economics. The statistics course followed the University of Chicago's program, whereas the economics courses were infuenced by UNAM. The courses on methodology and social research had been designed by Medina to support students in their own scientifc projects. The academic program prioritized theoretical contents, with courses like "Theory of Social Change" and "Sociology of Religion" with a mostly Weberian orientation (Morcillo, 2008; Moya, 2007, p. 782).

Courses were supplemented by open seminars addressing the most relevant topics of the time, like *World War II* (1943) and the situation in Latin America. That was the subject of lectures by Raúl Prébisch (1944), founder in 1948 of the *Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean* (ECLAC), a United Nation's institute that would become an important "think thank" in the region, with infuential proposals for economic policies and social change. The proceedings of these widely disseminated meetings were published in the series *Jornadas del CES*, with 56 editions issued from 1943 to 1946. Renowned international scholars who were invited by Medina to collaborate as authors included Leopoldo Zea (1945), Renato Treves (1945), Florian Znaniecki (1944), and Otto Kirchheimer (1945) (Morcillo, 2008, p. 161; Reyna, 2005, p. 439).

Unfortunately, the CES sociology program had a low graduation rate, and by 1946, it had been completed by only 18 students. This was considered as a critical situation by Cosío Villegas who, as mentioned above, in opposition to Medina's theoretical and academic orientation, considered that COLMEX's main mission was not to prepare future researchers, but graduates with pragmatic skills in foreign relations. As a result, the CES was closed after only three years of its founding. This was a real loss for sociology in Mexico and in Latin America, since the only graduate program that could compare to it at the time was the one established in 1941 at the School of Sociology and Politics in Sao Paulo by Florestán Fernández with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation (Reyna, 2005, p. 438).

Given these adverse circumstances, in 1946, Medina left Mexico for Puerto Rico, where he lived until 1952; from there he moved on to Chile, where he was appointed coordinator of the ILPES (Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning), the ECLAC entity that was responsible for research, planning and technical cooperation, and a catalyst for the frst generation of social scientists with original proposals for the development of the region (CEPAL, 2022; Moya, 2007, pp. 768–790).

### The Institute for Social Research IISUNAM

During the 1940s, university courses in sociology were taught as part of the School of Law curricula. It was here that social science degree programs emerged, both those with a professional profle, such as economics (which took off as a university degree program in 1929), and those with a more practical approach, such as social work, frst created in 1940 when a group of lawyers and doctors working in juvenile courts saw the need for new professionals to support in the rehabilitation of indicted individuals. As will be seen later on, offering sociology as an independent professional degree did not become a possibility until 1951. Nevertheless, its institutionalization at UNAM began in the late 1930s, when Lucio Mendieta y Nuñez (1895–1989), a former collaborator in Manuel Gamio's research team, with important links to the governmental administration of the time, founded the *Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales* (IISUNAM, Institute of Social Science Research).

Mendieta (1895–1988) graduated in 1920 from the School of Law, where he worked as professor of agrarian law from 1929 and earned his doctorate degree in 1950. He was an advocate of then-president Lazaro Cardenas's land distribution policy, and an author of several books on ethnic and indigenous questions in Mexico (Benítez Zenteno, 2008, pp. 15–30; Mendieta Núñez, 1938, p. 21; Olvera, 1999, 2018, p. 69). As head of the IISUNAM, the aim of Mendieta was to differentiate its projects from the philosophical and cultural movements of previous decades. The new institute was not intended to become a "conclave of intellectuals," but rather a center for training future scholars, a "sociological laboratory" for studying social facts and suggesting new social policies to be applied in collaboration with the government as well as trade unions and employer organizations, eliciting their willingness to commission and fnance university projects designed to improve the conditions of workers, the community, and society at large (Mendieta, 1939, pp. 4–15). However, as shown by Moya and Olvera (2015, p. 83), the results of research at the IISUNAM during the next year did not fulfl the expectations of the original project.

Although the IISUNAM was envisaged as a research institute that would encompass different disciplines (such as economics, law, anthropology, psychology, and mental health), Mendieta from the outset encouraged sociological research, with a special focus on urban and rural studies and criminal and legal sociology. This emphasis became evident with the launching of IISUNAM's *Revista Mexicana de Sociología* (RMS, *Mexican Journal of Sociology*), a journal that has been published tri-monthly without interruption since 1939, and which, decades after its foundation, continues to be regarded as the most important journal of its kind in Latin America, with a great impact on the Spanish-speaking world. Lacking a defned editorial plan, during the 1940s, the RMS published miscellaneous articles including both empirical studies and essays inspired by the philosophical and hermeneutic traditions. Since Mendieta was wellacquainted with authors from both the United States and Europe, the journal included texts by Pitirim Sorokin, Robert Redfeld, William Ogburn, Georges Gurvich, Raymond Lenoir, Alvin W. Gouldner, Thomas M. French, Ralph Linton, Ruth Benedict, Leopold Von Wiese, George A. Lundberg, and Gino Germani (Mendieta Núñez, 1939, pp. 7–11). However, most of the articles were by Mexican and Latin American authors who, according to Sefchovich (1989, pp. 18–26), may be classifed into three main areas: (1) history of the social sciences, and the goals and methods of sociology, (2) articles on Latin America "as both an entity and an utopia" with social and political ideas of its own, and (3) indigenist studies, with more than 50 articles that offered a broad description of the various ethnical groups and their cultural expressions.

As head of the IISUNAM, Mendieta attended and took part in several international sociology congresses. In 1941, at the Congress of the American Sociological Society, he spoke in favor of "founding an inter-American sociological association to promote the organization of conferences and programs and the formation of research institutes in several countries." Indeed, under the auspices of the IISUNAM (and with Mendieta as its chairman), the Mexican Sociological Association was founded in 1949, as part of UNESCO's International Sociological Association. The frst congress of the Mexican association was held in 1951, the same year as the frst World Congress of Sociology took place in Zurich and the frst congress of the Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS), the frst regional sociological association in the world, was held in Buenos Aires (ALAS, 2022; Pereyra, 2007). In Mexico, the frst two congresses (one in Mexico City, the other in Guadalajara) dealt with general sociology; the third, in 1952, focused mainly on criminal sociology, the fourth on the sociology of education; and the ffth embraced economics and the state of the world. These congresses, most of which were organized by the IISUNAM while Mendieta was its director, were held regularly in different regions of the country until 1972 (Morales, 2017).

In addition to publicizing the work done at the Institute, Mendieta had his own books printed abroad and translated to several languages. Among them was a study of social classes with a prologue written by Sorokin (1947). He also wrote more than 30 articles about diverse topics, such as land ownership and indigenous people, the European classics, analyses of the contributions of Gamio and other Mexican authors, political parties, bureaucracy, and sociology of art (Benítez Zenteno, 2008, pp. 13–33). In addition to these academic publications, Mendieta played an important role as "public sociologist" writing opinion articles in newspapers from 1934 to 1968. To educate the new generations of social scientist, Mendieta founded IISUNAM's *Collection of Sociological Essays* and the series Sociological Studies where the proceedings of the 18 national sociology congresses (1950–1965) were published.

In the 1930s and 1940s, there was still no teaching program for a degree in sociology; therefore, IISUNAM members came from other professions. In fact, during its early years, sociology was the competence of only a very small community of practitioners, whose role was more discursive and symbolic and, therefore, provided few opportunities for professional practice outside the UNAM (Olvera, 2013, p. 83). Thus, the process of the institutionalization of sociology in Mexico differs from that of other countries, where it was more common for a research institute to be created at the behest of an existing undergraduate teaching department. In Latin America, this was the case in Brazil, where by 1930, there were two schools with undergraduate sociology programs, as well as in Peru, where the institutionalization of research and teaching took place at the same time. In Mexico, the process was more similar to what happened in Argentina, where the *Instituto de Sociología* (in which Levene and later Germani worked as researchers) was created in 1940 by the University of Buenos Aires, but it was not until 1958 that degree programs were formally institutionalized at the sociology department (for which much credit must be given to Germani, who as an exile from Italian Fascism had arrived in Argentina in 1934) (Bada & Rivera, 2020, pp. 4–5; Blanco, 2006; Fernandes, 1970; Mejía, 2005; Tanaka, 2014).

### The Social Science Degree Program and the School of Political and Social Sciences

In 1949, Mendieta was invited by UNESCO to attend a meeting in Paris to establish the International Political Science Association, and another in Norway to create the International Sociological Association, in which it was agreed that the formation of corresponding associations in different countries would be encouraged. With the inspiration of these international projects, Mendieta promoted the foundation of the National School of Political and Social Sciences (ENCPyS), which was inaugurated in May 1951 at the UNAM, offering degrees in diplomatic sciences, journalism, political sciences, and social sciences. With the new social sciences curricula, sociology was fnally able to overcome its subordinate status at the School of Law (Garrido, 1984, p. 105; Mendieta Núñez, 1955).

Conditions were favorable, for the country was then ruled by Miguel Alemán (1946–1952), the frst civilian president after the revolution, which meant there was a growing need for new professionals to occupy offcial and government positions. In the private sector, the ongoing industrialization policy also required experts with new technological skills. The demand for new professionals led to the construction of *Ciudad Universitaria*, UNAM's main campus (Careaga, 2008, pp. 128–139), which would be classifed by UNESCO as a world heritage site.

The impulse for creating the social science degree program responded to UNESCO's commitment to generate a corpus of universal scientifc knowledge. The curricula were predominantly infuenced by the programs of the University of Leuven, Belgium, as well as the social and political departments of the of the universities of Florence, London, Madrid, and Paris (Colmenero, 2003, pp. 34–41). The program began with two years of common core, followed by a sociological orientation in the next year with courses on general sociology, social research methods, and statistics. In the fnal years, there were options to focus on art, law, labor, criminal, family, or religion. The program included instruction in European and North American and Mexican Sociology and social thought.

Some outstanding professors who were originally lawyers, anthropologists, historians, and philosophers included Raúl Carrancá y Trujillo, for criminal sociology; Pablo González Casanova and Manuel Germán Parra, for Mexican sociology; Horacio Labastida, for history of sociology; Eusebio Castro and Jesús V. Vázquez, for general sociology; Ezequiel Cornejo, for ethnography. However, degree programs in the social sciences did not receive enough institutional attention during the early years as the main ENCPyS's concern was to prepare new diplomats (Colmenero, 1991, p. 61).

Nevertheless, despite the low number of graduates, the social sciences program opened new opportunities for incorporating some of its graduates as researchers at the IISUNAM, as was the case of Raúl Benítez, Jorge Martínez Ríos—a researcher dedicated primarily to the study or rural problems in Latin America (Ruiz de Chavez, 1972)—and, shortly after, María Luisa Rodríguez Sala, a woman student of the frst ENCPyS generation who went on to participate in a project directed by Mendieta. In 1957, she published, as a sole author, research on child protection institutions.

The second director of the ENCPyS (from 1953 to 1957) was Professor Raúl Carrancá y Trujillo, a graduate from the School of Law who, "with the objective of educating social sciences professionals with a sound culture and a comprehensive understanding of the social reality," complemented the study programs with research seminars, colloquia, and conferences. In 1955, the ENCPyS launched the *Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales* (RMCPyS, *Mexican Journal of Political and Social Sciences*), which has been published quarterly ever since. Although it had separate sections dedicated to political science, journalism, and diplomacy, in practice most of the articles dealt with the "social sciences from a sociological point of view (Colmenero, 2003, pp. 66–112).

With the intention of consolidating the social sciences and reducing the prevalence of jurists and philosophy professors, the ENCPyS gradually incorporated specialists from other professions, such as anthropologists, historians, and internationalists. Among them was Catalina Sierra, granddaughter of Justo Sierra and editor of his complete works; she had studied Social Sciences at COLMEX and took up postgraduate studies at Columbia University in New York. Essayist, historian, and editor, she was the author of the book *El Nacimiento de México* (The Birth of Mexico) and several studies on nineteenth-century Mexican writers and politicians. She held public posts and was the only woman to belong to the distinguished group of government offcials who founded the National Institute of Public Administration.

### From Social Sciences to Sociology

From 1957 to 1965, the ENCPyS was led by Pablo González Casanova (the only director to have served for two terms until then), who introduced important changes in the curricula and gave greater importance to the political and social sciences degree programs. González Casanova had taken an interest in the social sciences under the intellectual infuence of his father, who had pursued degrees in anthropology and linguistics. It was through him that he got in contact with Mendieta and completed an academic internship at the IISUNAM. He began his professional studies at the National School of Anthropology (ENA), and then studied a master's degree in historical sciences, an interdisciplinary program centering on the history of ideas and political institutions that was jointly designed by COLMEX, UNAM, and ENAH with the collaboration of Mexican intellectuals and Spanish exiles, including Pedroso and Medina Echavarría. The latter's general sociology course was considered excellent by Gonzalez Casanova and had a considerable impact on his intellectual development. After concluding the program, Pablo Gónzalez Casanova undertook postgraduate studies in France, taking sociology classes with professors like Gurvitch, Georges Friedmann, and Gabriel Le Bras (González Casanova, 2017, pp. 53–83; Pozas Horcacitas, 1984).

Upon returning to Mexico, P. G. C. worked as a researcher at both IISUNAM and COLMEX, where he was invited by Cosío Villegas to work in a Mexican history project with a text on the period of the revolution. In the end, due to a lack of understanding between the two, the collaboration did not prosper. In 1954, P. G. C. began giving lectures as sociology professor at the ENCPyS and joined UNAM's Faculty of Economics, as its frst full-time researcher and at the same time studied statistics with Felipe Montemayor, who was lecturing on the subject at the ENCPyS (Colmenero, 2003, pp. 81–82; González Casanova, 2017).

During the period in which P. G. C. was ENCPS' director, the social sciences degree program changed its name to "sociology," and plans were made to cut the number of professors specialized in law and to hire more lecturers with a background in the social sciences, such as historians and anthropologists. Among the latter were Ricardo Pozas Arciniegas and Isabel Horcasitas de Pozas, the frst professors to introduce feld research practices in the curriculum, which had a lasting infuence on several generations of social scientists. Pozas Arciniegas also launched the journal *Acta Sociológica* (1969) that was initially conceived to publish students' feld practice experiences (de Dios, 2008, pp. 116–118).

In collaboration with Felipe Montemayor and other professors, Pozas Arciniegas proposed a new curriculum for social and political sciences degree programs. To this purpose, a series of conferences were held with the participation of Mendieta y Núñez and other ENCPyS professors, including Horacio Labastida and Francisco López Cámara. The debates centered on the relationship with the state, the need for greater professionalization and the importance of the study of national problems (González Casanova, 1984, 2017, p. 54). The new curriculum, valid from 1959, increased the number of courses in methodology, statistical techniques, demography, studies about Mexico, and feld practices. Electives and specialization courses and seminars were also introduced (Colmenero, 2003, p. 87). By 1956, ENCPyS' number of students grew to 384 (three times the initial enrollment). Among the frst graduate theses in social sciences presented in 1956 were "Sociology of Hunger," by Roberto Monsivaís; Statistical Study on Middle Class Families, by Emma Peralta (D'Aloja & Gómez, 1960); and "The protestant movement in Mexico," by Cassaretto (1956).

### Leading Publications and Research Topics

In addition to the RMS, there were other important social sciences journals like *Trimestre Económico* (founded in 1934) with articles written by different authors including Gamio, Mendieta, and Recaséns (Olvera, 2013)*.* Another relevant publication was *Cuadernos Americanos* edited by Mexican economist Jesús Silva Herzog and published bimonthly from 1942. Like the magazine *Sur* (South), published in Argentina during the 1940s, *Cuadernos Americanos*, recognized its cultural heritage from the Spanish journal *Revista de Occidente*.

One of the most important Mexican publications, printed from 1946 to 1959, was *Problemas Agrícolas e Industriales en México* (Agricultural and Industrial Problems in Mexico), founded by agronomists Manuel and Enrique Pardiñas to publish studies about Mexico written by social scientists, economists, and philosophers. Due to its critical stance against the government of President Miguel Alemán, the journal was discontinued from 1946 to 1948 (Guerrero Mills, 2012). The impact of this publication on the national and international debate was far greater than that of the RMS which, according to Olvera (2013), was due to the RMS' absence of an editorial policy and the dominant role of Medina's decisions as an editor. Within the UNAM, another journal launched in 1953 was *Medio Siglo* (Mid-Century), published at the School of Law, with young authors that included the two future ENCPyS directors, Víctor Flores Olea and Enrique González Pedrero.

The period was also fruitful for the publication of books, such as *Mexico's Demographic Policy*, written by economist and vice-president of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography-INEGI Gilberto Loyo González (1935) and *Juan Pérez Jolote* (Pozas Arciniegas, 1948), a study on an indigenous community written by Pozas Arciniegas which was translated into 17 languages (de Dios, 2008, pp. 120–121).

An interest in understanding the idiosyncrasies of Mexico was expressed in different essays. One of the most important authors was the philosopher Samuel Ramos, who in his work *El perfl del hombre y la cultura en México* (published in 1942) (*Profle of Man and Culture in Mexico*) claimed that, since the Spanish conquest, Mexicans have been distrustful, resentful human being whose "many faces" and "feeling of inferiority" led them to question European cultures and values (Ramos Escandón, 2001, pp. 143–146). Following Ramos's thesis, several authors have conceived of the Mexicans as reserved, distrustful, and suspicious. In a text published in 1946, César Garizurieta states the Mexican "acts fearfully, unwilling to do the things he has committed himself to do." Three years later, Emilio Uranga (1949) considered the Mexican as sentimental, enigmatic, passive, melancholic, and fragile "trapped in his interior abode." With similar arguments, in his works the playwright Rodolfo Usigli (1947–1952) used the metaphor of the many masks when talking about the distrustful nature of Mexicans (Uranga, 1949).

In 1950, Mexican writer Octavio Paz, winner of the1990 Nobel Prize for Literature, published his famous essay *The Labyrinth of Solitude*, which amalgamated the ideas of Samuel Ramos and other previous authors giving a portrait of the Mexicans as an insecure people who hide themselves behind a "different mask" (Bartra, 2002; Paz, 1970, p. 43)*.* In spite of its enormous worldwide success, the book was questioned from the very year of its publication by Marxist writer José Revueltas, who stated that Mexicans must not be considered as "a single type," and that besides the so-called "Mexican character" and personality, also the material conditions of social life should be taken into account. Octavio Paz's theses were also criticized by Eric Fromm's disciple, Michael Maccoby (1967) (Revueltas, 2002, pp. 215–234).

From a sociological point of view, it has been pointed that in their literary and philosophical essays about Mexicans, Ramos, and Paz, displayed levels of generalization unsuitable for a social scientifc diagnosis. Nevertheless, *El laberinto* had an extraordinary impact, and its ideas were taken up in many later texts, like *The Mexican: A Psychology of His Motivations* written by psychoanalyst Santiago Ramírez (1959). Despite what could be regarded as a lack of academic precision or accuracy, the works of Ramos and Paz contain important and innovative arguments that were absent from the social sciences of the time. Such is the case of their references to the aggressive masculinity and virile practices associated with "Mexican *machismo*" and the role assigned to women in history, as described in Paz's vindication of Hernan Cortés's female translator, known as *La Malinche*. Moreover, *El laberinto* also includes a section on the *pachuco*, which provides a depiction of Mexicans in the United States.

From the perspective of social scientifc analysis, one of the most relevant books of the time was *Mexico's Economic and Social Structure. Sociology, Economics and National Politics* written by historian José Iturriaga (1950), which was the frst accurate sociological study that, in contrast with the philosophical and literary essays, carried out quantitative and qualitative research based on institutional analysis. The book is divided in two parts. The frst, "Society," focuses on the countryside and the city, families, social classes, ethnic composition of the population, and nationalities. The second section, "Culture," examines education, religion, the diverse language and dialects of the population, the infuences of foreign cultures, and also the character of the Mexican people. Unfortunately, this book has not been given enough credit in the history of sociology in Mexico*.*

Studies on Mexico were also published in the United States: Franz Tannenbaum's *The Struggle for Peace and Bread* (1950), and Robert Mosk's *Industrial Revolution in Mexico* (1950), which offered an innovative analysis of business organizations. Both studies, translated and published in Spanish in *Problemas agrícolas e industriales*, were discussed among the country's intellectual and political circles as part of the debate concerning Mexico's road to progress. An admirer of President Cárdenas's agrarian policy, Tannenbaum believed that Mexico should hold on to the agrarian society model as an exporter of raw materials. He considered that modernization could lead to urban concentration, excessive consumerism, and an inequity between agricultural and industrial production.

In the opposite direction, Manuel Germán Parra, a professor of sociology and economics at the ENCPyS, who also worked in the public sector, wrote a book explaining how the country's industrialization that begun during World War II was driven by the absence of competitors and the emergence of a new, large domestic market. However, given the slowdown that could be expected to take place after 1946, due to the rise in manufacturing production in several Latin American countries, he argued in favor of the implementation of a new public policy to protect national producers from foreign competition. With a comparative statistical and historical analysis, he explained the process of industrialization in United States and Mexico and the role of special economic policies to promote the transformation from an agrarian to an urban society. Appealing to a theory of human progress and scientifc planning, Parra argued that industrialism was part of an unavoidable historical process (Careaga, 2008, pp. 54–68; Parra, 1967, pp. 4–28).

Parra's book was written in an epoch where Mexico was going through an industrialization process with a substantial emigration from the countryside to the city, resulting in an unprecedented urban growth (by 1960, the population of the country's capital already reached 45% of the total population) (Parra, 1967, p. 56). Along with the newest architectonic projects and the notorious infuence of television (which was inaugurated in Mexico in 1951) as a mass communication medium, a new "urban mythology" was expressed in the language and customs as an "industrial utopia" centered on the possibilities of leaving behind the rural culture of Mexico's historical past, and venturing into the values of a modern society with new economic sectors and higher productivity rates (Careaga, 2008, pp. 54–70).

Among the texts used in university classrooms, one of the most important of the time was a book written by Recaséns Siches (1991) frst published in 1956, with a third, renewed and enlarged edition in 1960. Dealing with the most diverse sociological topics, the book included references to different felds, such as sociology of law, culture, language, and technology. Despite its great editorial success, since the book was consulted mostly by law undergraduates with a minimal distribution among social science students, it had no signifcant impact on the education of future sociologists.

One of the most important academics of the time was Raúl Benítez, who studied Social Science at the ENCPyS before he entered the IISUNAM (and later became its director) where he collaborated with Mendieta and Fernando Holguín on a project to study the consequences of public policy on agrarian communities. As a professor, Benítez taught the course "Economic, Political and Social Problems in Mexico" at the ENP, as well as classes on statistics, social structures, and sociology theory at the ENCPyS. In 1958, Benítez was the frst Mexican to study at the newly opened Latin American Demographic Center (CELADE) in Chile, from which he graduated with a work about Mexico, published later as a book. This study provided important statistical data on fertility, mortality, migration, and life expectancy (Andrade Carreño, 2008, pp. 91–94; Benítez Zenteno, 1961; Welti, 2006, p. 583). Benítez (1961) was an innovator in the analysis of population survival data from a historical perspective, using future scenarios, at a time when Mexico had reached its highest fertility rate in history (Benítez Zenteno, 1961).

In 1963, he was appointed a full-time researcher at the IISUNAM, and in 1964 he co-founded the COLMEX's Center for Economic and Demographic Studies, in which he served as a professor and an advisor until 1970. In collaboration with Gustavo Cabrera, and commissioned by the Bank of Mexico, he made the country's frst population forecast as a key input for economic planning (Welti, 2006, pp. 583–585). Benítez also promoted the Comparative Fertility Surveys in Latin America, a groundbreaking program of global studies and a cornerstone in the interpretation of statistical information to aid in population policies.

Oscar Uribe Villegas was another highly productive IISUNAM researcher, who published 42 titles between 1952 and 1965. His early interests centered around methodological and conceptual questions (Uribe, 1958) and the importance of mathematics for social science research (Uribe, 1957). He was also the editor of the RMS, and for 15 uninterrupted years played an important role in organizing the National Sociology Congresses (Paulín, 2017; Uribe, 1961). In 1958, he published the book *Social Causation and International Life*, becoming one of the frst authors to defend the thesis that social phenomena ought to be understood within a global framework. Without abandoning his early concerns, in 1965 he began a project dealing with sociolinguistics and semiology (Camero & de la Vega, 2015; Jiménez, 2009, pp. 35–39).

Another important intellectual of the time was Mario de la Cueva, a Mexican researcher with postgraduate studies at the University of Berlin, and UNAM's president from 1940 to 1941. With a global impact, his contributions to the social sciences revolved mainly around theory of the state and studies about labor law that included a vision of social justice he also translated several books (UNAM, 1981; Zarza, 2006).

In addition to these publications, in 1959 the Stanford University researcher Richard Hancock published the book *The Role of the Bracero in the Economic and Cultural Dynamics of Mexico. A Case Study of Chihuahua* (Hancock, 1959).

In 1957, the frst Latin American Conference on Social Sciences was organized, at the initiative of UNESCO, which would lead to the foundation of the *Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales* (FLACSO), a leading institution for graduate studies and research (Bobes & del Castillo, 2020, pp. 60–61). In the same year, also at the initiative of UNESCO, and with the support of the University of Chile (which a year later created a sociology degree), the Economic Commission for Latin America was created, and one year later it launched a sociology program (Blanco & Jackson, 2017, pp. 3–4; Bada & Rivera-Sánchez, 2020, pp. 3–4).

### Bibliography


UNAM. (1981) , Libro en Homenaje a Mario de la Cueva, .


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### The Expansion of Sociology in Mexico (1959–1980)

**Abstract** At the end of the 1950s, Mexico faced unfavorable economic conditions, and the protest of different labor movements, which aroused a new concern for social inequality in the country. In 1968, the violent governmental reaction to the student movement changed the vision of a peaceful progress according to the so-called "Mexican Miracle." Under the new social circumstances and the expectations generated by the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution, the decade of the 1970s was characterized by the eruption of Marxism in the universities. Due to the rise of authoritarianism and the growth of military regimes in Latin America, many South American intellectuals arrived at Mexico as professors in the social science departments. Sociology experienced a process of expansion both in student enrollment and in the founding of journals and new academic institutions. The chapter analyses these transformations together with the changes to the sociology curricula, in the main journals, and publications, in the studies undertaken by Mexican sociologists, as well as the contributions from foreign authors that had an important impact in Mexican social science.

**Keywords** Sociology • Marxism • Sociological curricula • Social movements • Latin America

© The Author(s) 2024 47 G. Zabludovsky, *Sociology in Mexico*, Sociology Transformed, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42089-4\_4

### The End of the "Mexican Miracle"

Towards the end of the 1950s—in the context of the "Cold War" and of national liberation struggles in several countries and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959—the so-called "Mexican Miracle," the postrevolutionary political establishment, and the country's model of economic development began to be seriously questioned. By the end of 1957, the several labor movements in Mexico, including railroad workers, teachers, and doctors unions, which claimed autonomy and internal democracy, ended up being repressed by the government. Charged with the crime of "social dissolution," based on the existing regulation that prohibited antigovernment protests in the streets, some leaders and intellectuals were imprisoned, among them the well-known painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. Certain intellectuals and politicians, including former president Lázaro Cardenas, created the *Movimiento de Liberación Nacional* (MLN, National Liberation Movement) that expressed its solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and demanded that the Mexican government liberate the political prisoners in the country and enforce freedom of expression (Beltrán, 2000).

The new political national and international situation had a strong impact on the social sciences in Mexico. The same year of the Cuban Revolution, the Center for Latin American Studies (CELA) was founded at the ENCPyS (Holguín, 1990) and Professor Enrique González Pedrero (director of ENCPS from 1965 to 1970) published a book about the Cuban Revolution (González Pedrero, 1959). The Cuban Revolution had a deep impact on Mexico, particularly in regard to interest in Latin American studies. This is a period in which important institutions for studying the region were created, in addition to those previously existing, such as the *Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales* (FLACSO), founded in Chile in 1957, and the *Centro Latinoamericano de Pesquisas en Ciencias Sociais* (CLAPSC), which was created in Brazil in 1957.

In 1960, C. Wright Mills visited Mexico to give a seminar on Marxism and Liberalism at the IISUNAM, when González Casanova was the director. The upshot of these conferences was the publication of a book, *The Marxists*, in which the author acknowledged ideas received from Mexican intellectuals Carlos Fuentes, Pablo González Casanova, and Enrique González Pedrero. As a result of his contact with Latin American and Mexican academics, Mills became interested in the Cuban Revolution.

### Academic Production in the 1960s (1960–1965) or the Emergence of <sup>a</sup> Critical Social Scienses

Mexican academics gave a new importance to quantitative analysis due to the frst-hand available offcial statistical data for the country—Ifgenia Martinez, a Mexican woman who was the frst to obtain a master's degree in Economics at Harvard University, published a study about Mexico's distribution of income. With a critical analysis of the 1950–1957 data, she showed that the economic policies of the country had benefted a new thriving wealthy class and the population employed in industry, but not those groups working in agriculture and the more traditional sectors that were impoverished. In order to promote economic progress and human development, it was necessary to endorse a policy oriented towards a more equitable income distribution (Martínez de Navarrete, 1960, pp. 93–98).

Another book of the time written by a woman was María Luisa Rodríguez Sala's *El suicidio* ("Suicide"), published in 1961, which was the frst research to analyze the topic from a sociological point of view in Mexico, since the only few previous studies had been carried out by physicians working in clinics (Rodriguez Sala, 1963). The latter included psychiatrist José Gómez Robleda who as a member of IISUNAM played a signifcant role in endorsing the project and the research of other members of the institute interested in psycho-social and Criminalogical Issues. Based on press releases and INEGI's demographic data, the author analyzed suicide rates, from 1934 to 1950, and their correlations with sex, age, marital status, occupation, nationality, place, and life cycles. In another book on the subject, published in 1974, she also studied the links between suicides and social status.

Among the authors who also made important contributions to the social sciences was Arturo González Cosío who graduated in law at the UNAM before studying for his PhD at the University of Cologne, Germany (1954–1957), where he became acquainted with sociology through the lecture classes of Leopoldo von Wiese and René Köning. González Cosío was infuenced by Marxist humanism, as well as by several authors of diverse backgrounds, including Ralf Dahrendorf, Gurvitch, Herbert Marcuse, Maurice Halbwachs, Frank Tannenbaum, Samuel Ramos, Octavio Paz, C. Wright Mills, Ortega y Gasset, and Max Weber. Upon returning to Mexico, in 1957, he worked for the federal government, and from 1962 to 1970, he taught sociological and political theory, at the COLMEX and UNAM. He was the author of the book social classes and strata in Mexico, in which he applied the upper-, middle- and lowerclass taxonomy introduced by Iturriaga, adding a new historical interpretation for a dynamic analysis. Using data published in the 1956 offcial survey on income, occupation, and family spending, González Cosío proposed a social class taxonomy which considered, in addition to economic status, other cultural and political variables, including attitudes, aspirations, trust indices, and relationship with government offcers (Arreola, 2008, pp. 78–83; González Cosío, 1961).

Among books published abroad, Howard Cline (1964) published the statistical data-oriented study *Mexico. Revolution to Evolution, 1940*–*1960* considered at the time an indispensable book with "the single most important source of information on Mexico since 1940" (MacAlister, 2018). Cline described the post as an "Institutional Revolution" an expression that from then on will be widely used to refer to the Mexican political regime.

Outstanding among the studies by foreign authors is the book *The Children of Sanchez* by anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1964). First published in English in 1961, it was a great success and was acclaimed as the best foreign book in France in 1963 (Collado, 2017, p. 33). The work is based on the testimonies given by the members of a family from a downtown neighborhood in Mexico City, which depict their daily life, values, and customs, by which poverty becomes a way of life and a condition for survival. The testimonies also spoke about domestic violence, and the neighborhood as a space of identity (Semo Groman, 2010). The book exposed the desolation and the stark reality of a Mexican family, showing the "other side of the coin" of an offcial narrative that extolled prosperity, economic development, and the achievements of the "Mexican Miracle."

Published for the frst time in Spanish by the FCE in 1964, in a short time several re-editions had been made, and the text gave rise to conficting arguments. The author had previously published two books on Mexico (Lewis, 1960, 1961) but neither of them matched the success and controversy aroused by *The Children…* Some of the country's anthropologists and academics criticized what they perceived to be the author's "ethnographic subjectivism," and questioned his innovative research practices that replaced feld notes with magnetic tape recordings—letting the characters speak while the anthropologist seemed to hide (Bautista, 2011; Lomnitz, 2012). The discrediting went so far that, the same year it was published, in an unusual act of persecution and censorship, the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics fled a complaint against the author, accusing him of being "anti-Mexican" and of having written a book that, on account of its "obscene, defamatory and subversive" nature, "was offensive to public morals," and therefore "the demand was made that it be withdrawn from circulation and that criminal proceedings be instituted" (Semo Groman, 2010).

In the end, the case was legally released. However, in November 1965, the government of then president Díaz Ordaz forced the Argentinian Guillermo Orfla to resign his position as director of the FCE, which he had held since 1948. Orfla had edited several works that were identifed with the Latin American left and critical thinking. Among these was Mills's book *Escucha Yankee*, another best-selling book that was printed in Mexico three months before Lewis's, prompting a backlash of disapproval from the US Embassy in Mexico (Bautista, 2011; Lomnitz, 2012; Nova, 2013, p. 115) (Servín, 2020). This was not the frst time that the government had taken action against an FCE director: in 1948, Orfla had replaced Cosío Villegas after President Aleman requested that the latter step down for having written an article criticizing the Mexican government (Cossío, 1947; Nova, 2013, p. 129).

Lewis' text is one of the few in Mexican history that gave rise to a real scandal. According to Lomnitz (2012), more than 500 news articles were published on the subject, and an important group of intellectuals responded by standing up for the publication, arguing that it "depicted the conditions of poverty such as they were perceived by its victims" (FCE, 1965; Benitez Gutierrez, 1965; Collado, 2017, p. 37). Among Lewis's defenders were some ENCPyS professors and other intellectuals who pleaded for freedom of expression. However, unlike what happened at UNAM's School of Economics, where a panel discussion on the book was conducted in 1965 (Hernández Puga, 2010), at IISUNAM and the ENCPyS there were no such events. After the FCE discontinued publication, Lewis's study was published by the new Mexican publishing houses (Joaquín Mortiz and Grijalbo) and was even staged as a play in Mexico and made into a flm in the USA. Moreover, several intellectuals supported Orfla in creating the publishing house *Siglo XXI*, an independent company conceived as "a Mexican publishing house for Latin America," which would have a signifcant role in the publication of social science texts in the region. Among the academics and earliest shareholders of the new publishing house were Ifgenia Martínez, Pablo González Casanova, Pozas Arciniegas, and other professors from UNAM, including Francisco López Cámara, and future ENCPyS directors Enrique González Pedrero and Víctor Flores Olea (Nova, 2013, pp. 177–184).

One of the most important editorial events of the time was the publication of *La democracia en México* (Democracy in Mexico), a book written by González Casanova when he was director of the ENCPyS. First published in 1965 by a newly created Mexican publishing house, Editorial Era, its infuence and reception was such that it came to be regarded as a classic work of sociology in Mexico and Latin America. Like some previous texts, including those by Iturriaga, Martínez, González Cosío, and Benítez, *La democracia…* offered a broad statistical framework that included information on social mobility, migration into cities, the position of marginalized groups, and also an analysis about attitudes (González Casanova, 2017, p. 141).

The study made reference to very up-to-date bibliographical sources, which included not only the classic thinkers of the social sciences, such as Tocqueville and Weber, but also renowned twentieth-century authors, such as Adorno and Darhendorf, Mexican authors of the time, such as González Cosío, Iturriaga, and Martínez de Navarrete and other foreigners who had written about Mexico, such as Richard Hancock (1959), Howard Cline, and sociologists residing in Latin American countries, such as Gino Germani. The author devoted a chapter to Marxism, as a theory useful for the interpretation of social reality, and also included references to important works of social criticism, including the anti-segregationist economist Gunnar Myrdal and anti-colonialist philosopher Frantz Fanon, whose book *The Wretched of the Earth*, originally published in French in 1961, was translated into Spanish in Mexico in 1963 (*Los condenados de la Tierra*, translated by Julieta Campos). One of the authors who most infuenced González Casanova was C. Wright Mills—particularly with his book *The Power Elite*, published in 1956 and translated into Spanish by the FCE in 1957.

*La democracia…* analyzed the social and political structures of power, taking into account social classes and strata as well as Mexican values and history. From the sociological point of view, one of its most signifcant contributions was the analytical distinction between the offcial structures of government (whose study tends towards a more juridical approach) and the de facto "power groups" which include the clergy, businessmen, local *caciques* and *caudillos*, and even relations with the United States. The author demonstrated that although Mexico was formally and legally a federation of states, with a separation between the executive, legislative, and judiciary powers, in everyday political practice there was a concentration of power in the hands of the president of the Republic (González Casanova, 1965, pp. 16–17).

The author applied a theoretical-conceptual framework in which the categories "dual society" and "internal colonialism" were used to analyze the exploitation and mistrust against certain socio-cultural groups, specifcally those belonging to the indigenous population, in a historical continuum since colonial times (González Casanova, 2017, pp. 101–107). The book drew both on the theory of social marginality and Marxist concepts—with references to Marx, Lenin, and Che Guevara—to emphasize the necessary commitment of the social scientist to bring to an end the semi-colonial exploitation: a topic that the author would further expound on in another book.

Unlike other previous books in Mexico that unfortunately did not receive any recognition from the academic community itself (as was the case of Iturriaga's book, which was an important precedent for the work of González Casanova) *La democracia...* is considered as a key referential text for the social sciences and for the identity of sociology in Mexico. The extraordinary reception of the book must also be explained in relation to the important role of the author in the institutionalization process of sociology at UNAM and his plans to set an agenda for the future generations of social sciences (Castañeda Sabido, 2008, pp. 156–161).

After fnishing his period as director of ENCPyS, in 1966 Gonzalez Casanova became director of both the IISUNAM and the RMS (from 1966 to 1970), where he questioned previous intellectual production and advocated for a critical sociology, with a Latin American approach, that questioned offcial history (González Casanova, 1970, p. 22; Farfán, 1994; Loyo et al., 1990, p. 47). After fnishing his period as IISUNAM's director, Gonzalez Casanova was ALAS' president from 1969 to 1971 (and also from 1983 to 1985). His sociological position would have a deep impact on Latin American social sciences during subsequent years as the concept of "internal colonialism" was adopted for the study of the relations of domination and exploitation between culturally heterogeneous groups within a politically independent nation.

The only other author of the time whose sociological thought would be of comparable infuence was Rodolfo Stavenhagen. Born in 1932 in Frankfurt into a family of Jewish descent that had arrived in Mexico in 1940 escaping from Nazi persecution. Stavenhagen studied for his BA in social anthropology with Robert Redfeld at the University of Chicago, his master's degree at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) in Mexico, and his doctorate with Baladier at the University of Paris, where he engaged in the debates of structuralism, French sociology, Marxism, and the anti-colonialist struggles in Africa. In 1964, he wrote his sociology doctoral thesis about rural classes and social stratifcation in some underdeveloped countries.

After graduating, at a time when the exchange of intellectuals within Latin America was on the rise, Stavenhagen traveled to Rio de Janeiro, where he remained from 1962 to 1965 as the secretary general of the Latin American Center for Social Research created by UNESCO, and director of the journal *América Latina*. In 1965, as a consequence of the coup d'état that overthrew President Joao Goularte, he returned to Mexico, where he joined the Center for Economic and Demographic Studies of COLMEX, and simultaneously taught courses at the ENCPyS (until 1968), establishing important links with Julio Labastida and González Casanova (Béjar, 2008, pp. 126–127; Lida, 2015; Mendoza Alvarado, 2016; Mendoza & Chew, 2019).

In the same year that Gonzalez Casanova's *La democracia…* came out, a national newspaper published a brief, well-known text by Stavenhagen (1965) entitled "Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America" in which the author also proposed the concept of "internal colonialism" for the analysis of the region. From 1966 to 1969, he conducted a study of social classes in agrarian societies (Stavenhagen, 1969). As a public intellectual with global infuence, throughout his life he carried out research while actively participating in the defense of the rights and justice of indigenous groups. From 1970 to 1973, he worked in Geneva, at the Institute for Labor Studies of the International Labor Organization (Bejar, 2008, pp. 127–128; Garfas, 2016; Mendoza Alvarado, 2016; Stavenhagen, 1974).

The critics to modernization and the concepts about dualism and internal colonialism would have a very important infuence on Latin America's dependency theory that has been recognized as the most infuential interpretation about the inequality in the region, at a time when the social sciences were going through a renewal period (Cardoso & Faletto, 1969; Roitman, 2008, p. 170; Sefchovich, 1989, p. 37; Torres, 2014). In an interesting article about this question, Bangel and Leone argued that the concept of "internal colonialism" was generated at the time of the institutionalization of the social sciences of the region and the critics toward "modenization theory "with debates between participants from various countries and disciplines. The seminal dialogues were established between Ricardo Cardoso de Oliveira, Gonzalez Casanova Stavenhagen Jacques Lambert, C. Wright Mills, and other authors between the late 1950s and the early 1960s at the Latin America Center for Social Sciences Research (CLAPSS) in Rio de Janeiro. The critiques of modernization theory and the concepts of dualism and internal colonialism would have a very important infuence on Latin America's dependency theory, recognized as the most infuential interpretation of inequality in the region, at a time when the social sciences were going through a renewal period (Cardoso & Faletto, 1969).

In 1966, during the directorship of Enrique González Pedrero (1956–1960), when Cecilia Diamant, a woman who specialized in political theory, had an important line position at ENCPyS, the curricula was revised for the third time (previous occasions had been in 1951 and 1959), based on the proposition that sociology should be understood as forming part of the general feld of social sciences, and that it was necessary to incorporate social practice, mathematics, theoretical, and empirical bases, as well as the techniques necessary to study the national problems for "scientifc predictions." In the new program, it was considered that the areas that offered job opportunities for graduates were lecturing in universities, research in academic and governmental centers, and working in agencies for economic and social development. Because until then there were no postgraduate social science courses in Mexico (those who were interested mostly went to other Latin American countries, like Chile), the division of higher studies was created in January 1967 to offer masters and doctorates in political science, sociology, public administration, and international relations, which led to the subsequent transformation of the school into a faculty, the FCPyS (Colmenero, 2003, pp. 117–128). One year after these academic reforms were enforced, the UNAM and the entire country would be strongly impacted by the 1968 student movement.

### The Student Movement

As was happening in other countries, in 1968 there was an important student movement in Mexico. The violent reaction of President Díaz Ordaz's government (1964–1970) changed the perceptions of stability and development that had distinguished Mexico during the so-called "Mexican Miracle." Beyond the possibilities of industrialization and economic development, the social movement demands now focused on freedom of speech and a new agenda for promoting democracy. The student protest movement, which broke out in July 1968, was a major turning point in Mexican society, with innumerable repercussions in the civil and political spheres. In response to the government's crackdown on the students, the imprisonment of their leaders and the occupation of the premises of the UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute, the protests continued until October 2, a few days before the beginning of the Olympics in Mexico, the demonstrators were brutally attacked in what is known as the "Tlatelolco Massacre," when soldiers rounded up and opened fre on a crowded demonstration in a central square in Mexico City (Plaza de las Tres Culturas).

As a result of the frst repression of such magnitude against a population that was peacefully protesting in favor of political liberties, the student movement of 1968 would become an inspiration for subsequent generations (Barros Sierra, 1972; Montaño, 2021). In the following years, the literature on the subject became very extensive; among the studies carried out by sociologists, Sergio Zermeño, a member of IISUNAM, published *México: Una democracia utópica: El movimiento estudiantil de 1968* (Zermeño, 1978). The protests also had a great infuence on ENCPyS students, together with other youth revolts of the time, including the "French May," the "hippies" and the emergence of a new critical Latin American literature. Although classes were called off, the cohesion of the student community was very strong (Estrada, 2018).

### Marxism and Latin American Sociology

The students' demands, the infuence of the Cuban Revolution, and the new theories on Latin America gave rise to a new development of the CELA, to which was added the creation of a postgraduate course in Latin American Studies at the FCPyS in 1972 (Valencia, quoted in Sosa, El, 1990, p. 8). The interest in studying the region would be further fueled by the arrival of refugees in Mexico. Due to the upsurge of authoritarianism and the growth of military regimes in Latin America, during this period academic intellectuals were forced to leave their home countries. Many of them arrived in Mexico and taught at the sociology departments of different Mexican universities, where they consolidated their work and infuenced both students and professors.

Some of them had actually already arrived before this. Such is the case of Enrique Valencia who, in the wake of the popular rebellion known as *El Bogotazo*, moved to Mexico in 1957, where he studied social anthropology, collaborated with Oscar Lewis's research and conducted a pioneering study of urban anthropology, a subject he taught at the same time at the FCPyS and at the CELA, where he became a full-time professor, training several generations of students in methodology and feld work. At the Faculty of Political Sciences, he taught courses mostly in methodology and feld work (CELA, 2020). Beginning in the 1970s, the infux of Latin American professors increased. In 1972, Agustín Cueva, founder and director of the University of Ecuador's School of Sociology, became a member of the center and in 1977 he published *El desarrollo del capitalismo en América Latina (The Development of Capitalism in Latin America)*, that received the Essay Award from the publishing house Siglo XXI 1972 (Maldonado, 1992).

The arrival of persecuted intellectuals increased after the military coup of September 1973 against President Allende that had a great impact on the social sciences in Latin America. Before that Chile had been the main place for the training of social scientists in the region, and the 12th ALAS Congress held in Santiago, in 1972, had an unprecedented number of attendees. After the coup, several academics went into exile in Mexico, where a "Latin Americanization" of sociology took place, propelling the development of the CELA with an unprecedented infusion of ideas, leading to a strong academic and ideological identity (Cueva, Oliver, and Ruiz quoted by Sosa, 1990, p. 8).

Among the refugees who arrived in the country and became academics at the FCPyS were the Bolivian René Zavaleta, author of the book *El poder dual en América Latina* (*Dual Power in Latin America*, 1979); the former president of the Chilean Writers Association, Armando Cassigoli, who taught Sociology of Knowledge; the Bolivian Cayetano Llobet, who would become director of the CELA; and the Brazilians Ruy Mauro Marini (1973) and Vania Bambirra (1978) who, alongside André Gunder Frank and Theotonio Dos Santos had formulated dependency theory and published, (with Almeyda an Borón) in Mexico *El control politico del Cono Sur* (*The Political Control of the Southern Cone*) (Almeyda et al., 1978).

As an aftermath of the military coup led by General Pinochet, the *Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales* (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, FLACSO), located in Santiago de Chile, was forced to close, and in 1975, following an agreement with the Mexican government, a branch was opened in Mexico. The new headquarters initiated academic activities in 1976 with René Zavaleta as its frst director. During its frst period (1976–1980), FLACSO-Mexico concentrated its research on the study of political movements, the state, institutions, and democracy (Bobes & del Castillo, 2020).

In the aftermath of the student movement of 1968 and the arrival of intellectual exiles from Latin America, Marxism became the dominant theoretical and methodological framework. The notion of the social scientist as agency for social change, encouraged the engagement of sociologist as opinion makers, as members of left-wing political parties, and as active participants on other areas of public life. Thus, Marxism offered both a political ideology an academic and normative theory for the study of national reality (Castañeda Sabido, 1990; Sefchovich, 1989, pp. 34–35). The IISUNAM invited some of the most renowned Marxists authors of the time, such as Nicos Poulantzas, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Adam Przeworski, Enzo Faletto, Aníbal Quijano, and Ernest Mandel, and published two collective books dealing with social classes in Latin America (Benítez Zenteno, 1973), which went through a large number of editions and were considered classic contributions to the region's scholarship (Andrade, 2008, p. 100; Perló, 2017). Books written by a sole author included Roger Bartra's agrarian political classes (1977). In 1969, Víctor Flores Olea, who would head the FCPyS from 1970 to 1975, published a book about Marxism and socialist democracy. Other academics, like Enrique Semo Calleb (1973), incorporated Marxism for their own interpretations about Mexico's history.

In response to demands from students and a group of professors, the sociology curriculum at the FCPyS underwent a series of changes, which gave greater weight to political economy (Perez Siller, 1985, pp. 31–32) and drew a distinction between Marxism and "bourgeois social theories," leading to the introduction of a compulsory subject called sociological theory (Lenin, Gramsci) and the inclusion of a "Seminar on Capital" as a semi-optional sequential subject (Colmenero, 2003, pp. 191–192). As stated by Salazar, the ideals of the Revolution and Socialism were incorporated without an analysis of the real situation at the USSR and other Soviet-infuenced countries (Sosa, 1990). Therefore, according to Castañeda Sabido (2004), while Marxism promoted the autonomy of social sciences from the state, its uncritical appropriation as the only theoretical alternative led to an over-ideologization of research, which in its turn eroded the discipline's autonomy.

Besides sociology, during the 1970s, Marxism was adopted as the main theory of other social sciences including economics and anthropology. Among philosophers, Bolívar Echevarría, Eli de Gortari, Carlos Pereyra, and Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez had an important infuence on the social sciences. Whereas some intellectuals held to Marxist positions throughout their lives, others, like Carlos Pereyra and Roger Bartra, later embraced other theoretical and political positions (Illades, 2018).

The predominance of Marxism, and the incompatibility between the viewpoints of the intellectual leaders Lucio Mendieta and Pablo González Casanova, led to the criticism of previous sociological practice, motivating a new interest in the social sciences themselves as a subject. As pointed out by Moya and Olvera (2013), with the exception of González Navarro's book (1970) about sociology and history in Mexico, which analyzes the legacy of a number of some important authors, the frst collective efforts to reconstruct the history of the social sciences in Mexico took place towards the end of the 1970s with the publication of the book *Las humanidades en México* (*Humanities in Mexico*), whose chapter on sociology was written by Arguedas and Loyo (1978). To commemorate its 40 years of existence, the IISUNAM published *Sociología y ciencia política en México* (Arguedas, 1979) and the COLMEX journal *Estudios Sociológicos* published an issue dedicated to the research and teaching carried out during the frst ten years of the CES (Stern, 1984).

### Research Trends

The predominance of Marxism, so pivotal in the orientation of teaching, did not spread over the whole of research. During Benítez's period as head of the IISUNAM (1970–1976), a new area of population studies was created which gave new visibility to the institute. Focused on demographic dynamics and economic issues, a study about migration was conducted in collaboration with COLMEX, and a project of Latin American regional history was promoted (García Muñoz, 2006; IISUNAM, 2017, p. 69). Benitez also conducted a collective project about the Mezquital valley, one of the country's poorest areas.

Researchers at the IISUNAM worked in a wide range of specialized felds, including sociolinguistics, political sociology, sociology of art, sociology of knowledge, as well as an area that was linked to Mexico's recent history (Perló, 2017; Loyo et al., 1990; Welti, 2006). During this period, the IISUNAM expanded its number of researchers with refugees from Latin American countries and the new ENCPyS and FLACSO graduates (IISUNAM, 2017, pp. 64–66). María Luisa Rodríguez-Sala was the frst woman academic secretary at IISUNAM, an editor or RMS, and an important group of other female researchers started publishing their works. Among them were Regina Jiménez Ottalengo (1977), and María Elena Cardero (1976). One of the most important events was the 1972 conference dealing with the main national problems. The presentations were published as a three-volume pioneering collective book *El peril México en 1980* (1971) that went through several reprints. From 1976, now under the leadership of Julio Labastida Martín del Campo, to ISUNAM, new areas were created including sociology of institutions, classes and social movements, as well as urban sociology, which would later become urban and regional studies (Perló, 2017).

Since the *Revista latinoamericana de sociología* (*Latin American Journal of Sociology*) published by FLACSO, Chile had been forced to close during the rise of the military regime, the RMS—under the coordination of Sergio Zermeño, Aurora Loyo, and Carlos Martínez Assad (1976–1989) in different periods—became the most important Latin American social science journal with an international impact and a range of authors from different countries like Guillermo O'Donnell, Marcelo Cavarozzi, and Sergio Bagú (IISUNAM; RMS, 2019).

### The Expansion of Sociology in Mexico

In 1973, 20 years after Medina's unsuccessful efforts, the CES (Center for Sociological Studies) was inaugurated at COLMEX, offering a PhD in social science with a specialization in sociology. The project was headed by Víctor Urquidi, Rodolfo Stavenhaguen, and some of the researchers that previously worked at COLMEX's Center for Economic and Demographic Studies, created in 1963. The CES focused mainly on empirical studies: such topics as Mexican migrations, social stratifcation, and mobility in rural–urban relations, local development, labor and employee organizations, as well as research on education, family, behavior, and values. From 1976, the CES incorporated new research areas on domestic groups, culture, ethnicity, bureaucracy and public policy, technology and rural employment, women and family, bureaucracy, social movements, and trade unionism. Besides the academic results, some of these studies had an impact on public policy (Giorguli & Ugalde, 2020, p. 120).

Some of the books written in the late 1970s by COLMEX professors include those by Claudio Stern on migration and development in different Mexican regions; Jorge Bustamante on migration of Mexicans to the United States; Ricardo Cinta and Santin y Codero about power, business, and pressure groups; Claudio Stern on social inequality; Jose Luis Reyna on authoritarianism, political control, and development; and Hugo Zemelman on militarism, problems of political transition, and sociological theory (Stern, 1984). Among the CES women scholars, Lourdes Arizpe did studies on migrant women; Silvia Gómez Tagle on agricultural cooperatives and labor unions; Brígida García and Orlandina de Oliveira on migration; Mariel Martinez on class struggle in the countryside; Maria Teresa Rendón on livelihoods in rural areas; and Vivian Brachet on bureaucracy and the sociology of organizations. Some of the pioneering social research on the situation of women was done at that time by women academics at COLMEX, among them Lourdes Arizpe in the informal sector, Garcia and Oliveira on the relationship between female work and fertility, and Alcántara on the opportunities for women from low-income families (1979).

In 1974, the *Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana* (UAM), a new public university was founded in Mexico City with sociology programs in its three campuses. UNAM also opened other campuses in the Mexico City metropolitan area offering sociology degrees. Apart from these university institutions, there were also a few small research centers for specialized studies, such as the *Centro de Estudios Educativos* (CEE, Center for Educational Studies), founded and directed by Pablo Latapí in 1961, the *Instituto Mexicano de Estudios Sociales A. C.* (Mexican Institute of Social Studies) (1971–1974), created by former FCPyS student Luis Leñero and geared towards self-managed social action, and the *Instituto Mexicano de Estudios Políticos* (IMEP, Mexican Institute of Political Studies), a private academic association founded and directed by FCPyS sociologist and future director Antonio Delhumeau, who in 1973 published, with Francisco Gómez Pineda, the book *Los mexicanos frente al poder* (Mexicans in the Face of Power), authored jointly with a psychoanalyst. Other collaborators in this project were UNAM women sociologists Bertha Lerner and Susana Ralski, who wrote about the president's power (Ruiz de Chavez, 1972).

In addition to the Latin American and global dimension that sociology took on in Mexico, the rapid growth of university enrollment since the 1970s led to the creation of new academic institutions outside of Mexico City, fostering a national presence of the social sciences and a decentralization of research and teaching, as well as the development of graduate programs in several states (Figueroa Gómez & Figueroa, 2002, pp. 35–36; Silva, 1987). Also, with the iniative and support of the IISUNAM, in 1974, a new center for preparing social sciences professors and researchers began offering courses in anthropology, economics, and sociology at the *Universidad Autónoma "Benito Juárez" in Oaxaca* (UABJO) (Andrade Carreño, 2008), one of the southern states of the country with the highest poverty rates and a signifcant indigenous population. Social science degree programs also began to be taught in the north of the country, and in 1975, a sociology degree was founded at the University of Sonora (UNISON) (Durand et al., 2019), one of the states located in the north along the US border.

At the important University of Guadalajara (UDG), in the second most populous city in the country, and the capital of the state Jalisco located in Mexico, a degree program in sociology was created in 1977 at its four campuses, offering specializations in Latin American sociology, cultural sociology, labor studies, inequality, politics and social movements, social communication, and education. That same year, under the strong infuence of the Marxism (which would prevail until the curriculum was changed in 1993), a School of Sociology was founded at the University of Veracruz, the fourth most populated state, located in the eastern part of the country. With the creation of the sociology departments in these universities, studies of regional history and society would begin to have a remarkable importance.

In 1971, the *Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología* (CONACyT, National Council of Science and Technology) was created as an advisory governmental entity to design, promote, and evaluate scientifc research and technology programs in accordance with national goals (Pozas, 2015, pp. 258–259). With these purposes in mind, CONACyT supported the creation of several social science research institutions, such as the *Centro de Investigaciones Superiores en Antropología e Historia*, founded in 1973 and restructured in 1980 as the *Centro de Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social* (CIESAS), with the aim of doing interdisciplinary approach on various regions. In 1974, the *Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas* (CIDE, Center for Economic Research and Teaching) was created, offering degrees in economics, political science, international relations, law, and public administration (López & Cejudo, 2020, p. 9; Tenorio, 2009, p. 21). In 1979, in the central-western part of the country, El Colegio de Michoacán was established, with PhD and research programs on the social sciences and humanities focused on regional studies. In 1976, FLACSO was founded in Mexico following and an agreement signed by the Mexican government through the Ministry of Public Education (Pozas, 2015; pp. 258–261; Salmerón and De Gortari, 2020, p. 35).

In 1976, a group of academic authorities from different institutions created the *Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales* (COMECSO, Mexican Council of Social Sciences), an organization with the purpose of communicating and pursuing the improvement and professionalization of the main social science schools, postgraduate programs, research centers, and publications around the country. With the foundation of COMECSO in 1970, a new phase in the institutionalization of the social sciences began (the former had been from 1950 to 1970). The renewed social sciences pathways contrasted with the hierarchical organizations of the past and with the protagonist intellectual academic leaders of previous decades who positioned the research and teaching agenda of their institutions according to their own intellectual concerns (Pozas, 2015).

### Main Publications

Professors at the FCPyS wrote a number of key studies with critical interpretations of Mexican offcial history. Among them were Adolfo Gilly's *Interrupted Revolution* (1971) and Arnaldo Córdova's *The Ideology of Mexican Revolution* (1973). Due to the industrialization process, there was also an emerging interest about the economic situation and cultural values of the urban middle classes, as shown in the interesting books written by Francisco López Cámara (1971) and Gabriel Careaga (1974). Towards the end of the 1970s, there was a renewed interest in the study of collective identities and the Mexican national character. The sociologist Raul Bejar (1968a, b, 1979) criticized the scientifc validity of the classic essays by Ramos, Paz, and other authors, and instead examined national identity as psychological and socio-historical process and a series of behavior patterns that must be studied empirically. Important innovations in quantitative research were also shown in the book of COLMEX scholar Rafael Segovia's (1975), about Mexican youngsters' political culture. Based on a survey of 3500 students and their parents, the study analyzed the main traits of the socializing process and the values transmitted through schools, friends, families, and the media.

One of the most outstanding and infuential books for Latin American urban studies—that unfortunately was not often included in the UNAM's sociology curricula—was one written by the woman anthropologist Larissa Adler Lomnitz (1975). Based on the analytical framework of the theory of marginalization, which was so infuential at the time for studying about the larger South American metropolises, such as Lima, Bogota, and Rio de Janeiro, the author introduced an innovative concept of "survival strategies" which allowed her to illustrate the importance of social solidarity networks among precarious urban groups with unstable employment situations (Stavenhagen, 2012, p. 10). From a universe similar to the one studied by Lewis in *Los hijos de Sánchez*, but with a different interpretation, Adler Lomnitz rejected the equation between urbanization and disorganization attached to the concept of "culture of poverty," and gave a pragmatic twist to the studies on the subject by showing how, in a situation of scarcity of resources, the extended family of rural migrants adapted to the urban environment by reinforcing its social solidarity ties.

Among the books written about Mexico by US scholars, the following stand out: Eric Fromm and Michael Maccoby's *Social Character in a Mexican Village* written in 1970 (Maccoby, 1996) Frank Brandemburg's *The Making of Modern Mexico* (1972), Roger Hansen's *The Politics of Mexican Development* (1971), and Clark Reynolds's *The Mexican Economy: Twentieth Century. Structure and Growth* (Reynolds, 1970). Other books consulted by students were C. Wright Mills's *Sociological Imagination*, Alvin Gouldner's *The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology*, Fernando Holguin (1984) on statistics for the social sciences, Leopoldo Solis (1973) on the Mexican economy, and Cardoso and Faletto's (1969) dependency theory.

In 1976, Raul Rojas at the FCPYS published a guide for social research, with numerous reprints in the following years (Rojas Soriano, 2013). At the Law School, Leandro Azuara's comprehensive book *Sociology* demonstrated the relevance of the discipline for legislators, lawyers, and magistrates (Azuara, 1977). Unfortunately, like other texts published by the Law School, it would not be consulted by sociology students. A new interest in gender and women studies also arose in this period, leading to a fnancial collaboration of the Mexican government and ECLAC supporting the publication of a book by Liliana de Riz (1975) about women's participation in the Mexican labor market.

### References

Adler Lomnitz, L. (1975). *Cómo sobreviven los marginados*. Siglo XXI.


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## From Particular Sociologies to Interdisiplinary Studies

**Abstract** As in other parts of the world, at the beginning of the 1980s, sociology in Mexico confronted new theoretical and methodological challenges. From 1980 to 2000, sociology passed through an increasing specialization, a renewed attention to the study of new actors, social identities, subjectivities, and social movements. In line with the transformation of Mexico's democratic institutions, sociology studies centered on the state, democracy, power, and the political system. During the frst decades of the new century, facing the new complex, national, and global circumstances, such as increasing violence, the ecological problems, new migrations and the pandemic, sociology made a shift from the previous emphasis on specialization towards interdisciplinary studies with a more comprehensive approach.

**Keywords** Democracy • Interdisciplinary • Migrations • Pandemic • Social movements • Violence • Women

### From the "Grand Theories" to Specialized Sociologies, 1980–2000

From the 1980s onwards, and particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (Cuellar, 2019), sociology in Mexico saw a shift from Marxism and the theory of dependency to a "theoretical pluralism" and a concentration on specifc topics and felds of knowledge such as political sociology, social movements, and urban and rural studies (Cadena-Roa, 2021). The transformations also changed expectations about the sociologists' mission and range of action, which led to uncertainties about their professional profle, and in students' interest in degree programs. After the boom in the 1970s, from 1980 to 1990, sociology's enrollment decreased, while the demand for other disciplines, such as communication sciences, notably increased (Contreras & Puga, 2017; Silva, 1987).

However, it is also true that during this period, new bachelor's degrees were opened in some states of the republic such as Tabasco in the southern part of the country, and Tamaulipas in the north. In 1981, the *Instituto de Investigaciones José María Luis Mora* was inaugurated in Mexico City, offering a PhD in Latin American Development Studies and master's degrees in political sociology (starting in 1981) and regional studies (starting in 1985). *El Colegio de Jalisco* was also created as a research and teaching center in the social sciences and humanities, with an emphasis on graduate studies. There were also important changes in the gender composition of the student body, with an increasing number of women as sociology students. From 1992 to 1996, 52.3% of the students enrolled in this degree program at the UAM-A were female (Cuellar & Martínez, 2003, p. 9). Women also began to have an increasing presence as teachers, researchers, and even directors. In 1980, Gloria Zafra founded the Institute of Sociological Research at Oaxaca's UABJ, and from 1996 to 2000, Cristina Puga was the frst woman director of the FCPyS, and shortly after, she became the executive secretary of COMECSO.

Important academic journals were founded with different editorial criteria, such as *Estudios Sociológicos* at COLMEX (1983) and *Sociológica* at UAM-A (1986). While the former mostly published empirical studies, dealing with topics such as migrations social movements, employment and families, the latter was directed towards theoretical questions, including debates about modernity and postmodernity and the reinterpretation of classic and contemporary authors (Zabludovsky, 2002). The journal *Acta Sociológica*, which had been closed down several years after its frst publication in 1969, resumed publication at the FCPyS in 1987.

Reservations about the validity of comprehensive theories and the end of the "orthodox consensus" (Giddens, 1998) gave rise to the so-called crisis of paradigms, a phrase that was a sort of ambiguous adaptation of Kuhn's ideas (Kuhn, 2013; Hernandez Marquez, 2012). However far from being a real "crisis," the expression was used in reference to what was considered as the theoretical pluralism of the social sciences.

In Mexico and Latin America, Marxist interpretations tended to place a new emphasis on culture, recovering authors like Adorno, Horkheimer, and Gramsci. Concurrently, new readings of the classics were encouraged. Max Weber's thought took on a special relevance, due largely to the courses given at UNAM and COLMEX by Luis Aguilar Villanueva, Francisco Gil Villegas and José María Pérez Gay, Mexican academics who had studied in Germany. There was also a renewed interest in Durkheim, and a recovery of thinkers who had not been read with enough attention before, such as Simmel, Elias, and even Parsons. In addition to the new infuence of the sociological propositions of these authors as theoretical foundations for research and teaching practices, Mexican sociologists have done extensive introductory studies and new editions of the works of European classics of sociology were published by FCE and distributed to all the Spanish-speaking world. These included Max Weber's *Economy and Society* (Gil Villegas, 2014), Durkheim's *Elementary Rules of Religious Life* (Vera et al., 2012), and Simmel's *Sociology* (Zabludovsky & Sabido, 2014) among others.

New attention was also given to the schools of interpretative and historical sociology, Luhmann's systems theory, Alexander's neofunctionalism and, most particularly, Foucault's critical thinking (Girola & Zabludovsky, 1991). After the nuclear incident in Chernobyl, sociology in Mexico was also motivated by the conceptual debates on risk society (Beck, 1998), radicalized modernity (Giddens, 1998), refexive society (Beck et al., 1997), and communicative action (Habermas, 1982). Bourdieu's theories of "habitus" and "campus" and Touraine's notion of social subjects acquired special relevance as theoretical frameworks for research in Mexico.

Despite the focus on European and American authors, there was also a growing interest on the history and new conditions of sociology and social sciences in Mexico and Latin America. This is shown in a number of studies on the history and practice of the social sciences in Mexico. In addition to the texts that have been cited throughout this book as references, among the publications of the 1990s were studies on the development, organization, and institutionalization of the social sciences edited by Paoli (1990) and Muñoz and Suarez (1991) As for the twenty-frst century, there is a renewed attention to recent history and to the social sciences process of institutionalization (Gutierrez-Marquez & Valverde, 2015), journal content (Salles & Zabludovsky, 2001; Puente & Mancini, 2017), the relation between the social sciences in universities, academic renewal, social responsibility, technology, and knowledge networks (Casas, 2001; Zamitiz, 2015); and the future prospects of the social sciences (Leyva, 2020). Among the research that focuses on the feld of sociology, there are collections edited by Andrade et al. (1995) on sociological research in Mexico; Zabludovsky (2007), on conceptual change, Tavera and Arteaga (2020) about recent sociological debates; and an article written by Abend (2007) that contrasts publications and research practices in Mexico and the United States.

As Lechner (2015) has observed, revolution was the axis around which Latin American sociology in the 1960s moved, while in the 1980s, there was a shift in attention to the transitions to democracy, as shown by the multiple studies on political parties, the institutionalization of electoral processes, the new forms of legitimacy, political subjects, and civic culture. The results of the 1994 electoral process in Mexico, by which the PRI's hegemony as the only ruling party was brought to an end, prompted a new interest in the construction of a new democracy. Some of the sociologists who specialized in these issues like Jacqueline Peschard (1994) and José Woldenberg (1993) would also play a key role in the formation of the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE), later as members of the board and even as presidents. This was a citizen's body that for the frst time organized elections in Mexico with no interference from the Secretary of the Interior.

As in other parts of the world, the debate about globalization was a key issue for sociology. From the economic point of view, it became relevant with the signing of the National Agreement of Tarif and Trade (NAFTA) by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States in August 1992. This fact motivated the publication of several sociological studies that addressed topics such as the effects of competition in the Mexican agricultural sector, the new working conditions in the maquiladoras and the export industry, effects on the national business community, challenges in the fnancial sector, and changes at the northern border. Sociology has also been concerned with studying the political and cultural dimensions of globalization, such as its effects on the sovereignty of the country, the confrmation of new identities, and the impact on the sociological work itself, including deliberations on the validity of the sociological lexicon, what Ulrich Beck has in mind when he warns against "zombie categories" (Beck, 1998; Zabludovsky, 2010), and the emergence of new social identities (Bokser, 1989; Gimenez, 2009; Zabludovsky, 2007). As in other parts of the world, sociology in Mexico during the 1990s had a "cultural and affective turn" with new attention to subjectivities and the rising importance of the sociology of emotions (Ariza, 2020).

Faced with the ebb of Marxism, and infuenced by Touraine's ideas, Mexican sociologists turned from a concentration on social classes to studies on social movements (Tarrés, 1992, pp. 735–757). The above gave rise to both theoretical and methodological refections, and analysis of specifc cases like the movements of teachers, workers, and students. In 1989, several popular groups that were in disagreement with the government, and until then operated surreptitiously, organized in the city of Monterrey the National Congress of Popular Urban Movements, which would be followed by a second one in 1992, where they created the *Confederation Nacional de Movimientos Populares* (CONAMUP) (Bennett & Bracho, 1993).

Sociology also showed a growing interest in social movements in the countryside, which was marked by a "climax" with the uprising of the "Zapatista Army of National Liberation" (EZLN) in Chiapas in January 1994 (the same year NAFTA started). Considered the frst antiglobalization movement, the protest produced a new sociological interest in the rights of indigenous peoples and human rights in general (Sánchez Albarrán, 2021, p. 416) as well as a debate on multiculturalism, regional autonomy, and participatory democracy. As Stavenhagen (2012, p. 23) points out, attention to the indigenous population re-emerged vigorously in the last decades of the twentieth century and also showed that in the "postmodern era, the construction of identities seemed to prevail over class interests." The period coincides with the awarding of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize to the Guatemalan indigenous woman Rigoberta Menchú and with the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, which the indigenous movement identifed as "fve hundred years of resistance."

In the feld of rural sociology, various studies addressed issues like the migration of rural workers to the United States; the new agro-industrial projects, the marginalization and poverty of peasants, and the rise of powerful new economic groups. More complete information on rural sociology in this period may be consulted in the state-of-the-art articles by de Grammont (2008) and Larroa (2010). Urban studies also experienced an important boom with topics ranging from the debate about theoretical approaches—with an important infuence of Manuel Castells's contributions—through the analysis of specifc situations, like housing conditions, low-income neighborhoods defcits; the increase of the informal economy, urban policies; social movements; the effects of globalization on cities, local powers; and the new Latin American metropolis. The attention to social problems in particular geographical areas and the dissemination of social science institutions among different states gave rise to a new interest in regional sociology with the launching of the journal *Eslabones* edited by Carlos Martínez Assad (2001) and the studies of the situation of social sciences in certain regions in Mexico as shown in the book edited by Contreras and Hualde (2015) about the research and specialized programs carried out in the northwestern states of Mexico.

After the 1985 earthquake that struck Mexico City, sociologists carried out various studies to understand the social effects of this disaster and generated proposals for the injured and the new homeless. Studies such as Duhau (2016) and Ziccardi (1989) on the history of urban sociology in Mexico give a more detailed picture of the main contributions of Mexican sociology in this feld. The interest in urban sociology also took the form of a concern for the resolution of social problems. With this intention in 1994, the UNAM founded the University Program of Studies about the city, PUEC, to collaborate with other national and international university centers, public sector, and local associations to propose practical strategies for the improvement to the conditions of habitability, local development, transport, sustainability, and disasters in cities.

In addition to urban and rural sociologies, the specialization process of sociology in Mexico included a large number of research felds that would be impossible to analyze in this book, but which may be consulted in various studies on the state of the art and that of sociology of the population (Trigueros, 2015), sociology of work (De la Garza & Cavalcanti, 2006; Góngora, 2018; Ibarra & Manzo, 2018) (Cuéllar & Martínez, 2003), sociology of education (Cerón et al., 2017; Zabalgoitia, 2019), sociology of women and gender studies (De Barbieri, 1993; Estudillo et al., 2019; Lamas, 1986; Rosales, 2007), sociology of the family (Salles Tuirán, 1997), sociology of Indians and peasants (Warman, 1989), medical sociology (Castro Pérez, 2001), environmental sociology (Guzman Pineda, 2015), historical sociology (De la Torre et al., 1994), sociology of culture (Gimenez Lizcano, 1999), sociology of the body (Sabido, 2011), sociology of social representations (Gutierrez Valencia, 2009; Urbina & Ovalle, 2018), sociology of protest emotions and collective action (Gravante & Poma, 2017), sociology of social movements (Murga, 2004), and political culture (Hernández et al., 2019).

Some of the texts on the state of the art published by *The Oxford Handbook for Sociology in Latin America* (Bada & Rivera, 2021) were written by sociologists working in Mexico, such as Mora-Salas de Olivera on the sociology of inequality,(Mora-Salas and Oliveira, 2020) Viviane Brachet on the sociology of the state, Rodolfo R. Blancarte and Hugo José Suárez on the sociology of religion, Liliana Rivera on the sociology of migration, Marina Ariza on women and migrations, Castro y Aranda on women's health and decision-making, and Roberto Castro on medical sociology. Other academics living in Mexico have also previously written books on history of sociology in Latin America (Herrera, 2006; Zemelman 1989) and Latin American theory (Marini & Millan, 1996).

Mexican sociologists have also held important positions in international organizations. Among them, Guadalupe Espinoza directed United Nation Fund for Women UNIFEM in Mexico and Central America, and Enrique Leff coordinated the United Nations Environment Program for Mexico and Latin America.

### From Particular Sociologies to Interdisciplinary Studies

After the trend towards specialization, in the face of the complex phenomena of the twenty-frst century, such as migration, violence, public health, ecological damage, disasters, new identities, and forms of governance, the social sciences made a turn towards explaining problems (Valencia, 2020) in a more holistic way, and with an interdisciplinary approach as shown in Garcia's Canclini (1991) studies about culture and modernity in the era of globalization.

In the case of the research on the escalation of violence in Mexico, it has become evident that the fragmentation of knowledge into separate areas such as sociology, political science, criminology, neuroscience, and international relations often hinders the comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

In recent years, studies on the subject have revolved around insecurity, the links between organized crime and drug traffcking, and its repercussions on sovereignty, governance, and the effect on the very foundations of the state. As violence is far from limited to organized crime, researchers have also focused on urban gangs, the victimization suffered by journalists and intellectuals, and the violence carried out by the police force (Ugalde, 2010). One of the axes of the studies on violence is that exerted on Central American migrants who cross the country: attempting to reach the United States. Many young people are forced to participate in the illegal activities of the drug market.

Although it is true that during the twenty-frst century, Mexico went from being a country of emigrants mainly to the United States to a transit region for immigrants, that does not mean that the presence of Mexicans who enter the United States has their lost importance. On the contrary, the remittances they send to Mexico have an exceptional relevance for the Mexican economy. Studies on the day laborers at the agricultural sector and other Mexican migrants to the United States have given an account of the adverse situation in which they often live, the mechanisms of exclusion in place, and the limitations and obstacles that children face in enrolling in the schools of the country where they arrive. In the year 2022, the RMCPyS published a special dossier with studies on "migrant corridors," the role of violence and organized crime in forced displacement, the economic effects of remittances in the support of migrant families, the restrictions and consequences of the pandemic, and refections on the concepts of diaspora, citizenship, multiculturalism, and human rights.

Studies about violence have shown the dramatic situation experienced by many women in the southern state of Chiapas, where they are victims of traffcking in the sex market and who suffer violence throughout their entire journey from their communities of origin, in the border crossing, and at the places of their arrival. One of the most critical phenomena on which numerous works have been presented deals with what happened starting in 1988 with the murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez, an important transit area for drugs and migrants, and in which there are numerous export maquiladoras factories that provide employment to thousands of women from other parts of the country (Pineda & Herrera, 2007; Pacheco, 2015; Ugalde, 2010). Social science research has also focused on the daily violence against women that prevails in rural areas of Oaxaca and other states, showing the links that exist between violence, gender inequality, poverty, and the disadvantages experienced in the access to resources.

As in other parts of the world, women have increasingly expressed their discontent at the situation they are experiencing. An analysis of what happened in 2019 shows the great increase in the number of protests, by women, particularly in CDMX and Chihuahua, demanding the public acknowledgement of the disappeared women and justice for the femicides (LAOMS, 2020). Some recent studies have been dedicated to movements of young feminists which have led to strikes of several schools and have demonstrated in the streets without a unifed leadership. Complaints about harassment and gender violence presented by middle- and higherlevel students have also been analyzed, many of which are carried out informally (by the exhibition of photos of the aggressors at their schools, or in the social networks) without actually producing legal action.

Beyond feminist research and the violence against women, sociology in Mexico has increasingly incorporated the gender approach. In 2021, the RMCPyS published a dossier on the new feminist expressions with articles on public policies, anthropology of emotions, electoral politics. Communication, women entrepreneurs, and the analysis of the feminist movement in specifc regions of the country. In fact, during the period starting in 2006, gender studies became a main feld of Mexican sociology, covering various topics such as discrimination, the lack of opportunities in the felds of political and economic power, the inequalities generated by the effects of COVID-19, and several innovative approaches around issues such as gender and space.

Another area with growing importance is the sociology of disasters, which for a long time were only studied from the point of view of natural phenomena without taking social conditions and consequences into account. According to data from the National Center for Disaster Prevention (Guevara, 2022), without taking into account the impacts due to the covid epidemic, in the last 20 years, disasters have caused 11,215 deaths that have indirectly or directly affected 60 million people, have led to the loss of 13 million hectares of crops, and damaged some 40,000 schools. Regarding the recent pandemic, the offcial fgures have been highly questioned, but it is evident that the widely documented setback in the three dimensions of human development (health, education, and income) has had strong repercussions in the loss of jobs, and in the quality and sustainability of school enrollment (Cadena-Roa, 2021; ONU, 2021).

In fact, facing the phenomenon of the pandemic by COVID-19, the social sciences in Mexico showed their value for understanding the causes and consequences of the pandemic (Casas et al., 2022) by doing research about health problems in the context of globalization, transnational networks, and governmental action (Velasco Cruz, 2021, p. 9). Among the multiple studies on the subject, the RMS published a special number on the social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic with articles dedicated to the social consequences of the public health crisis and the quarantine on migrations, gender inequality, and other issues. In 2012, COMECSO published a collective book (Cadena-Roa, 2021) showing the relevance of the social sciences in the study of disasters, and the economic and social effects of the pandemic among the homeless, and other social groups. During the period, an interdisciplinary group of academics carried out a nationwide survey about the pandemic among 53,000 people (Angulo et al., 2021, p. 11; the ISUNAM's researchers). Alicia Ziccardi and Diana Figueroa (2021, p. 31) coordinated a survey that detected the precarious conditions and the lack of access to water for large sectors of the Mexican population during the confnement.

As we have pointed out, in the face of the dramatic changes of the nineteenth century, in an alliance with other disciplines, the practice of sociology has evolved remarkably displaying its capability to cooperate in the explanations and solutions for the emerging problems. However, giving the unprecedent changes that are affecting "risk societies" around the word, there is still a lot to do. To face these challenges, sociology must work in parallel with other felds to disseminate its results outside academia and try to achieve greater recognition so that this discipline may be considered as an option for future students of social sciences that usually choose other felds and professions, such as communication studies, international relations, or political sciences.

With this purpose in mind, it is also necessary to study the history of the discipline from a renewed perspective with an integral approach and an effort to include an extensive range of authors and the important contributions of Mexican sociology over more than a century and half. Despite the emergence of studies on the history and state of the discipline, these are usually presented in a fragmentary way as publications in journals or in collective books whose different works are often unconnected and do not have a central theme. In addition, despite Mexican sociology's growing tendency to work in collective projects, historians of sociology in Mexico usually focus on the intellectual heritage, of one or two authors, who are often presented uncritically as the only "classics" or actors that led to the advancement of the discipline. This has made invisible the legacy of many precursors (including some women) without which sociology in Mexico cannot be understood. Added to this are the few translations and editions of the original works, which prevent these contributions from being known to the new generation and to the international community.

### References


**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### Index

#### **A**

Academics, 1, 2, 4–7, 12, 18, 20, 22, 28, 30, 33, 36, 39, 41, 48–63, 72, 73, 77, 80 Agrarian, 13, 31, 40, 41, 54, 58 Anthropological, 17, 18, 22 Anthropologist, 18, 21, 35, 37, 50, 63 Anthropology, 3, 15, 18, 21, 29, 32, 36, 53, 56, 58, 61, 79 Art/s, 3, 14, 16, 19, 21, 33, 35, 59, 76 Author/s, 3–7, 10–18, 21, 28–33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 48–50, 52–54, 57–60, 63, 72, 73, 80

#### **B**

Books, 1, 2, 4, 7, 10–13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 33, 36, 38–42, 48–53, 57–61, 63, 64, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80

### **C**

Congresses, 32, 33 Courses, 10–12, 17, 18, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 41, 54–57, 61, 73 Covid, 79 Culture, 15, 17, 19–21, 35, 38–40, 60, 63, 64, 73, 74, 76, 77 Curricula, 2, 17, 30, 31, 34, 36, 55, 63 Curricular, 5 Curriculum, 11, 12, 30, 37, 58, 62

### **D**

Degree programs, 31, 34–37, 62, 72 Democracy, 5, 6, 48, 55, 57, 58, 74, 75 Democratic, 6 Demographic, 6, 49, 59 Dependency or dependency theory, 5, 54, 55, 57, 64, 71 Disaster/s, 76, 77, 79, 80

#### **E**

Economics, 2, 4, 5, 13–15, 18, 19, 30–33, 40, 41, 48–50, 55, 58, 59, 61–63, 74, 75, 78–80 Education, 2, 3, 9, 10, 12–14, 19, 20, 28, 29, 33, 39, 41, 60, 62, 76, 79 Empirical, 32, 55, 60, 72

### **F**

Feminism, 14, 15 Feminist, 2, 78, 79

### **G**

Gender, 6, 7, 64, 72, 76, 78, 79 Globalization, 6, 74, 75, 77, 79 Government, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 19, 20, 32, 34, 36, 38, 48–52, 55, 57, 64, 74, 75

### **H**

Historical, 1, 2, 6, 10, 13, 17, 21, 36, 40, 41, 50, 53, 73, 76 History, 1–3, 7, 11, 13–16, 18, 21, 27, 32, 35, 36, 39, 41, 51–53, 58, 59, 62, 63, 73, 76, 77, 80

### **I**

Identity, 3, 4, 6, 18, 19, 21, 50, 53, 57, 63, 74, 75, 77 Immigration, 3, 27 Indians, 11, 76 Indigenist, 32 Indigenous, 3, 6, 13, 18–21, 31, 33, 38, 53, 54, 62, 75 Industrial, 19, 40 Industrialization, 3, 5, 34, 40, 55, 63 Inequality, 5, 6, 13, 14, 19, 54, 55, 60, 62, 77–79

Institutionalization, 1–3, 15–22, 27–42, 53, 54, 63, 73, 74 Institutionalized, 2, 34 Institutions, 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 28, 29, 35, 36, 42, 48, 57, 60–63, 76 Intellectuals, 2–5, 7, 12–14, 16, 19–22, 27–29, 32, 36, 39, 42, 48, 51, 53, 54, 56–59, 63, 77, 80 Interdisciplinary, 2, 6, 36, 62, 77–80 Internationalization, 7

### **J**

Journals, 2, 4–6, 18, 32, 37, 38, 54, 59, 60, 72, 73, 76, 80 Jurisprudence, 12, 28

### **L**

Latin America, 4, 5, 30–33, 35, 41, 51, 52, 54–58, 73, 77 Law, 11, 13, 28, 29, 31, 32, 35, 36, 40, 42, 49, 62

#### **M**

Marxism, 5, 48, 52, 54, 56–59, 62, 71, 75 Marxist, 38, 49, 53, 58, 73 *Mestizos*, 3, 11, 13 Mexican, 1–7, 10–16, 18, 20–22, 28–30, 32, 33, 35–39, 41, 42, 48–52, 55–57, 60, 63, 64, 73–80 *Mexican Miracle*, 4, 5, 48, 50, 55 Mexico, 1–7, 9–18, 20, 21, 27–42, 48–64, 71–74, 76–80 Migrant/s, 20, 61, 64, 77, 78 Migration, 4, 6, 20, 41, 52, 59–61, 72, 75, 77, 79 Modernization, 40, 54, 55

Movement, 2, 4–6, 16, 21, 31, 37, 48, 55–58, 60, 62, 75, 76, 78, 79 Muralists, 3, 16, 22

#### **N**

Nation, 4, 18, 53 National, 2, 3, 6, 11, 16, 18, 19, 21, 30, 33, 37, 38, 40, 48, 54, 55, 58, 60–63, 76 Nationalism, 4, 6 Nationalist, 3

### **P**

Pandemic, 78–80 People, 10, 11, 13, 18, 20, 33, 38, 39, 75, 77, 79, 80 Philosopher, 17, 28, 35, 38, 52, 58 Philosophical, 3, 16, 31, 32, 39 Philosophy, 4, 10, 16–18, 28, 29, 35 Political, 2–4, 6, 11–13, 15–17, 19–21, 28, 32–36, 39, 48–50, 52, 55–63, 71, 72, 74, 76, 79 Political science, 4, 6, 30, 34, 35, 37, 55, 77, 80 Politics, 14, 28, 62, 79 Population, 11–13, 18, 19, 39–41, 49, 53, 56, 59, 62, 75, 76, 80 Positivism, 2, 9–22 Positivist, 3, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17 Poverty, 6, 50, 51, 62, 64, 75, 78 Professionalization, 37, 63 Progress, 3, 9–11, 13, 14, 39, 40, 49 Publications, 1, 3–5, 7, 15, 20, 21, 29, 33, 37–42, 48, 51, 52, 59, 63–64, 72–74, 80 Publishing houses, 2, 4, 29, 51, 52, 57

### **R**

Refugees, 27–29, 56, 57, 59 Regional, 6, 11, 19, 33, 59, 60, 62, 72, 75, 76 Research, 1, 2, 4–6, 17–21, 28–35, 37–42, 49, 50, 54–64, 72–74, 76–79 Researcher/s, 6, 30, 34–36, 41, 42, 59–61, 72, 77, 80 Revolution, 3, 15, 20, 34, 36, 58, 74 Rural, 4, 6, 18, 32, 35, 40, 54, 60, 64, 72, 75, 76, 78

### **S**

Science, 2, 3, 10, 14, 16, 17, 34, 36, 55, 62, 72 Scientifc, 2, 3, 9–22, 30, 34, 39, 40, 55, 62, 63 Social, 3–7, 10–19, 28, 30–35, 37, 39, 41, 42, 48, 49, 52–58, 60–64, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80 Social change/s, 2, 10, 30, 58 Social classes, 12, 33, 39, 49, 50, 52, 54, 58, 75 Social movements, 2, 6, 60, 72, 75, 76 Social science/s, 2–4, 6, 7, 12, 16, 19, 22, 27–42, 48, 49, 51–55, 57–64, 72–74, 76–80 Social theory/theories, 3, 7, 28, 30, 58 Society, 3, 6, 9, 12, 17, 32, 39, 40, 53–55, 62, 73, 80 Sociological, 2, 6, 11–13, 17, 18, 28, 32–35, 39, 40, 49, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61, 73–75 Sociologists, 1, 6, 12, 27, 29, 40, 51, 55, 57, 61, 63, 71–80 Sociology, 1–7, 9–22, 28–37, 39–42, 48–64, 71–80 Specialization, 2, 6, 28, 37, 60, 62, 76, 77

Statistical, 37, 40, 41, 49, 50, 52 Statistics, 30, 34, 36, 41, 64 Student movement, 5, 55–56, 58 Studies, 1–7, 10–15, 17–22, 32, 33, 35–39, 41, 42, 48–64, 71–80

#### **T**

Teaching, 5, 17, 19, 30, 33, 59, 61, 63, 72, 73 Theoretical, 1, 5, 17, 30, 55, 58, 59, 71–73, 75 Theory, 3–5, 7, 10, 17, 28, 30, 40–42, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 61, 63, 71–77 Translation/s, 29, 80

#### **U**

University /universities, 2, 5, 6, 15, 17, 21, 22, 28, 30–32, 34, 40, 55, 56, 61, 62, 73, 76 Urban, 6, 18, 32, 40, 56, 60, 63, 64, 72, 75–77

### **V**

Violence, 6, 50, 77–79

### **W**

Women, 2, 6, 13–16, 20, 22, 28, 35, 36, 39, 49, 55, 59–61, 63, 64, 72, 75–80