The imprint of Latin America on Michel de Certeau

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the imprint of Latin America on the work and thought of Michel de Certeau. From the first encounter, in 1966, a series of subsequent meetings and journeys began to unfold, progressively reconfiguring his conceptual categories and his understanding of the writing of history. The geographical displacement from France to Latin America became, for De Certeau, an epistemological displacement. In Latin America—or rather, in the interstitial space between the Americas and France—he did not simply find a field of study or a new perspective, but a privileged point of view: a hermeneutical locus from which to rethink the writing of history, the particularity of theology, and modern subjectivity. What unsettling questions did De Certeau bring back from Latin America to the context of the human sciences and theology in France? To what extent did his view of revolution in Latin America shape his understanding of the May ’68 revolution? And how did De Certeau conceive the “discovery of America” as an event that reconfigures the writing of modern history? These are some of the questions I will seek to address in this contribution.