For a Strabismic Sociology: A View from the Southern Cone

This article, adapted from the 19th Lewis A. Coser lecture delivered in 2024 at the American Sociological Association Meetings, presents three intertwined and sometimes overlapping arguments. First, I examine the limitations of the category “Global South” for studying Latin America. Second, I develop this critique by proposing a perspective distinct from both Northern theory and Global South approaches—what I call a “strabismic” standpoint. Third, I demonstrate this perspective in situ through the case of Argentine sociology, tracing the circulation of knowledge from an intermediate field of sociological production, where the center–periphery duality is but one among multiple relevant dimensions. Taken together, I aim to provincialize current constructions of Global South theory and highlight how in their effort to develop new critiques of the existing canon, scholars—given the dominance of English as a lingua franca—may inadvertently reproduce the very ethnocentrism they seek to challenge.