“Where people can dream their futures without fear”
Anthropologist Fernando Coronil passed away in August 2011 after battling cancer. For a moving and personal account, see A Tribute to Fernando Coronil by Genese Sodikoff.
I had recently discussed Coronil’s critique of Scott in my Anthropology and government planning blog-post. Coronil was an original thinker for Latin Americanists and many others.
Also out from Laurent Dubois, posting at Duke University Press, A Tribute to Fernando Coronil. Dubois has a great discussion of Coronil’s introductory essay for Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar by Fernando Ortiz, which was also the first essay I read by Coronil. From Gary Wilder at the CUNY Graduate Center, In Memoriam: Fernando Coronil.
Para hispanohablantes, ver Fernando Coronil: distinguido intelectual venezolano falleció en Nueva York y Aporrea: Muere en Nueva York Fernando Coronil.
Fernando Coronil will be missed–he worked toward the moral optimism of anthropology promoted by this blog. From the final paragraph of The Future in Question: History and Utopia in Latin America (1989-2010):
Of course, given the unequal structures of power within which this leftward turn has taken place, it is possible that its new imaginings may be co-opted or crushed. But given that these imaginaries now unite South and North in a politics that fuses the pursuit of well-being and sheer global survival, it is likely that a counterpoint between the embers of the past and the poetry of the future will continue to conjure up images of worlds free from the horrors of history. Politics will remain a battle of desires waged on an uneven terrain. But as long as people find themselves without a safe and dignified home in the world, utopian dreams will continue to proliferate, energizing struggles to build a world made of many worlds, where people can dream their futures without fear of waking up. (2011:264)
Updates on Fernando Coronil’s work
See the May 2018 Venezuela & Anthropology bibliography.
In 2013 I reviewed the links and tributes in response to a comment from Tilman on Transcultural Studies and the possible critiques and positions of Coronil, Trouillot, and Eric Wolf. Julie Skursi provided a great follow-up comment recommending Coronil’s article Towards a Critique of Globalcentrism: Speculations on Capitalism’s Nature (2000) and his essay “After Empire: Reflections on Imperialism from the Américas” (2007) in the edited volume Imperial Formations.
Here are the embedded comments:
To cite: Antrosio, Jason. 2011. “Fernando Coronil: ‘People can dream their futures without fear.'” Living Anthropologically website, https://www.livinganthropologically.com/fernando-coronil/. First posted 18 August 2011. Revised 20 May 2018.