Otra modernidad, otra geografía: una interpretación crítica de las influencias y orientaciones geográficas de José Carlos Mariátegui

• Autores: Rodolfo Quiroz Rojas
• Localización: Investigaciones geográficas, ISSN 0188-4611, ISSN-e 2448-7279, Nº. 94, 2017
• Idioma: español
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Other Modernity, Other Geography: A Critical Interpretation of José Carlos Mariátegui’s Geographical Influences and Political Orientation
• Enlaces
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• Resumen
  • español

    Este artículo explica y defiende una interpretación crítica del origen epistemológico de las principales operaciones geográficas que elaboró José Carlos Mariátegui (1894-1930), reconociendo su contexto histórico particular y las condiciones de la geografía de la época. Más allá de las escasas referencias que abordan perspectivas geográficas dentro del pensamiento de Mariátegui (Ruiz, 2003; Méndez, 2016; Sanjinés, 2009), se enfatiza situar este objeto a partir de la disputa por la modernidad y el proyecto político-intelectual que encarnó el pensador peruano. Lejos del inventario de regiones naturales o históricas, legitimadas en el positivismo y el nacionalismo republicano, Mariátegui recreó a la geografía a partir de las prácticas sociales e históricas de la realidad peruana. Es decir, sus fuentes y direcciones geográficas son sacudidas y transformadas a partir de un proceso categorial más amplio que se vincula a su propia trayectoria política y analítica: el rechazo tajante al positivismo como única forma válida de conocimiento y la construcción de un socialismo antiimperialista que se organiza en la propia realidad peruana. Implícitamente, así, Mariátegui proyectó una modernidad alternativa que significó reincorporar el problema de la subjetividad a la comprensión de la realidad geográfica y abrir una geografía en diálogo con un proyecto político socialista fundamentado en las diferencias geográficas o provinciales (Flores Galindo, 1980). Esto implicó, entre otras cosas, que el espacio y el tiempo en Mariátegui son siempre posibilidades abiertas a la política y a la imaginación (Germaná, 1994). He aquí una fuente significativa de sus influencias geográficas.

  • English

    Scholars have consistently overlooked the issue of geographic relationships in the work of José Carlos Mariátegui (1894-1930). This silence can be summarized into two fundamental dynamics: Mariátegui’s scarce reference in the geographical field and the predominance of historiographic, sociological, and literary approaches to his work. This article aims to question such inertia and bridge the gap between Mariátegui and Latin American geographical thought. It performs a critical interpretation of the epistemic origin of Mariátegui’s foremost geographical notions, acknowledging the particular historical context and status of Geography during the early decades of the twentieth century. Against the Eurocentric approaches of his time, Mariátegui was one of the first intellectuals to state the thoughts from and for Latin America, but without neglecting the pivotal contributions of European and Western traditions (Urquijo y Bocco, 2016). Indeed, Mariátegui questioned the possibility of an absolute Latin American or Latin Americanist thoughts while confronting the challenge of understanding the “reality” of his country, by putting forward innovative theses on the Peruvian society and culture from which, evidently, Geography was not exempted. In his seminal work, Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, 1928), Mariátegui explained the antagonism and inequality between the coast and the sierra; he identified the coexistence of three economy modalities (indigenous, colonial, and capitalist) that articulate different social geographies, and he outlined regional issues stemming from political alliances at various social levels, among others. A close examination of these analytical positions reveals a powerful geographic and human sensitivity yet to be explored in Mariátegui’s thought, as well as the need to critically examine their argumentative roots. To date, the scarce research on the theoretical relationships between Mariátegui and Geography have focused on three aspects of this issue only. First, that Mariátegui’s geographical influence comes from certain liberal intellectuals, reflected in a physicist- and economist-oriented vision of Geography, based on the location and industrial growth of the positive “regions” (Ruiz, 2011: 144). Second, that Mariátegui elaborated a racist vision of the Peruvian territory based on the critical dualism of coast/white and sierra/indigenous, which avoided other interregional racial differences (Méndez, 2016). Third, that Mariátegui’s unique perception of geographic differences was circumscribed to the social and economic differences of the Peruvian reality (Sanjinés, 2009). However, none of these proposals involve an in-depth analysis of the situation of Geography in Mariátegui’s particular debate on modern imaginaries, focusing on other study subjects that digress from strictly epistemological discussions on Geography. Therefore, our proposal analyzes and explains the source of Mariátegui’s geographic mechanism. Far from the type of Geography produced during the Republic or the positivist inventories of natural and historical regions, Mariátegui recreated geography based on social and historical practices of the Peruvian reality. In other words, he ridded Geography of its traditional sources and approaches, transforming the discipline into a much broader categorical process that connected his own political trajectory and analytical exploration: he unambiguously rejected positivism as the only valid form of knowledge and attempted to construct an anti-imperialist socialism suitable for the Peruvian reality. Similarly, both positions are part of an alternative modernity model that is defended and constructed from new contents, such as recovering the value of indigenous roots for the future, and challenging nationalisms that surrender to foreign capital and exploit indigenous communities. Therefore, Mariátegui’s modernity implied a profound questioning of the dominant spatial order of nationalism and the possibility of revising the still prevailing colonial margins and representations. In other words, Mariátegui incorporated the subjectivity issue into comprehending the geographic reality in an age when Geography was practiced with no social subjects. Furthermore, he advocated for a socialist political project that integrated both regional indigenous and urban workers, a crucial aspect for modernization that had always reflected geographic and provincial differences (Flores Galindo, 1980). Definitively, Mariátegui’s conceptions of space and time are consistently open to political and imaginative possibilities (Germaná, 1994). As this article discusses, such elements are key sources of Mariátegui’s geographical influences.