ABSTRACT
This chapter reconstructs the intellectual panorama in Latin America during the third-quarter of the 20th century when Iván Illich, Paulo Freire and Ernesto Guevara were developing their main contributions. It describes the processes which installed the idea of “development” at the centre of intellectual discussion; it also observes the principal theoretical perspectives which – in the fields of economics and culture – tried to impose their particular ways of understanding development. Furthermore, it shows how these conceptual differences translated into a kind of polarisation of intellectual activity, to the point where it became indistinguishable from “militant” politics. These pages also address the particularities attached to thinking as a professional occupation in these years, the questions which challenged intellectuals, and the consequences – of all kinds – which derived from their answers.
