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Volume 61 / Social Sciences

SOCIOLOGY: COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA


WILLIAM L. CANAK, Professor of Sociology, Middle Tennessee State University


COLUMBIA

COLOMBIAN SOCIOLOGISTS CONDUCT empirical research, teach, and publish as public sociologists whose professional practice engages a nation ruptured by violence, demographic disruptions, and economic insecurity. Within this context, sociologists' influential role within society has grown out of their distinctive capacity to describe and evaluate the complex interplay of public policy, popular mobilization, social organization, and core social indicators. Leal and Rey profile Colombian social science development in an important set of essays (item #bi2002001667#). Displaced individuals and families (refugees) comprise nearly 10 percent of Colombia's population. Several works reviewed for HLAS 61 present well-funded broad ranging analyses of essential to understanding the causes and consequences of social displacement in Colombian society (items #bi2001007075#, #bi2004001991#, #bi2004001857#, #bi2001007102#, and #bi2003001619#). Several comprehensive empirical studies of violence detail and synthesize our understanding of violence's impact of every institution and social relation (items #bi2002003091#, #bi2003001620#, #bi2004001988#, #bi2002003089#, and #bi2004001866#). Assessments of Colombia's criminal justice system and criminological studies, including analyses of the drug economy, provide further detail to this sociological profile (items #bi2001007091#, #bi2003001620# #bi2001007054#, and #bi2001007090#). Contemporary examples of social policy and program evaluation research, such as items #bi2004001867#, #bi2002003087#, #bi2003001621#, #bi2003001626#, #bi2003001617#, and #bi2001007063# explore the Colombian government's liberal reform policies and their impact on social, economic, and cultural institutions. Colombian sociologists continue long-standing intellectual traditions, with major contributions to gender studies, including theoretical and empirical explorations of masculinity (items #bi2001007085#, #bi2004001882#, and #bi2004001870#).

VENEZUELA

Venezuelan's recent history witnesses a society galvanized by conflict. Class and political mobilizations have been driven by opposition to the Chávez presidency and concern over control of the oil economy. A mono-export dependent economy (petroleum) combined with current urban demonstrations and rural government-led land redistribution form an unstable foundation for one of Latin America's highest GNP nations.

Long-standing intellectual traditions have oriented Venezuelan sociological research toward mainstream topics and methodologies that mirror and express the strong influence of US graduate education. Ruis Calderón presents a solid review of Venezuelan social science (item #bi2004001863#). The best Venezuelan research has focused on demography, health, criminology and deviance, and education. Recent trends, however, confirm the emergence of a critical social problems-oriented research examining labor and workplace relations (items #bi 00007018#, #bi2003001618#, #bi2004001865#, and #bi2001007101#). Research on violence documents the response of sociologists to a society marked by social mobilization and declining institutional legitimacy (items #bi 00007018#, #bi2002006891#, #bi2002003088#, #bi2002006893#, #bi2001002777#, and #bi2003001612#).


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