Listening to Latin America: Exploring Cultural Complexes in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela Paperback – November 7, 2012

Sixteen Jungian analysts from six Latin American countries apply the concept of “cultural complexes” to understand social conflict in their countries. This concept was created recently in analytical psychology to link societal events and history to the psychological dispositions of large parts of the population. Most of these authors situate the origins of the cultural complex in the trauma of colonial conquest by Europeans and the oppression of native populations during centuries of colonization. One can learn much about Latin American culture, history, and social conflict from this collection of essays.Some authors rely on surveys of public opinion to describe the patterns of psychological traits today in their countries. Then they review the long political history of their countries, seeking to identify the roots of the cultural complex that manifest in politics and culture at present.While some chapters are persuasive on the value of cultural complexes as an explanatory condition, others are unconvincing. This leaves open the question as to whether alternative explanations might do better, such as sociological and social psychological ones. Most of these chapters attempt to account for social conflicts today between haves and have-nots. Sociological explanations about the nature of class conflict, race relations, ethnicity, and historical crises might do as well or better than ones based on cultural complexes.Finally, the book suffers from the absence of a concluding chapter with the general tendencies in the many chapters, an assessment of the usefulness of the cultural complex concept, theoretical innovations, and an agenda for future studies on the subject.The best chapter in the book is on Chile by Beas and Sanchez thanks to their sound conceptualization, research on the presence of cultural complexes, and clear historical analysis.Lawrence Alschuler, author of The Psychopolitics of Liberation: Political Consciousness from a Jungian Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

The book has a deep content and interpretation of the Latin American Archetypal soul. It is an important reference to everyone interested in understanding these complex dynamics. I really enjoy it.