Introduction

Perhaps, in some sense, it was for the better that Cultural Studies at Birmingham, at least qua Cultural Studies, closed its doors – or, more accurately, had its doors closed – back in 2002. From death life proceeds, and while the disappearance of Cultural Studies from Birmingham may have led to misgivings and questions, doubts and uncertainties – for some, even existential ones – it in no way and in no sense marked the end of, if we may, the project. Cultural Studies may have died there, but it lives on elsewhere. This special issue of the eponymous journal that focuses on the field is dedicated to documenting the reality and the problematics of ongoing life of Cultural Studies in the elsewhere otherwise known as Latin America (Spanish speaking) where, since 2002, a number of post-graduate degrees (and one pre-graduate) have been institutionalized in leading universities throughout the region. Though not all of them bear the name Cultural Studies – for reasons that are aired in some of the following articles – they all share its perspective on culture, as an arena of contestation, resistance, conflict, negotiation, education and cooptation, as vital for understanding current configurations, balances, shifts, victories, defeats and stalemates (provisional). In short it is no longer the case that in Latin America ‘Cultural Studies exist more as an individual practice than as an institutional field’ (Szurmuk & McKee Irwin Citation2009, p. 24). It is coming in to its institutional own.