Contesting modernization in rural peripheral settings: the pioneering lens of Cynthia Hewitt de Alcántara

Abstract

Abstract The interdependent inequalities in the production and circulation of knowledge in the social sciences have marked the historical development of mostly male canons from the centers. With the impulse of the feminist wave in Latin America, the great contribution of invisible women to the construction of the social sciences has begun to have high relevance. This article introduces for the first time the intellectual and professional trajectory of Cynthia Hewitt de Alcántara (1942) from the gender and sociology of knowledge perspectives. Based on her written production and an in-depth interview conducted in July 2022, I focus on the author’s production during her first stay in Mexico between 1966-1985, reconstructing the interrelations between the contexts of production and her contributions contesting modernization processes within the green revolution, the situation of women in peripheral rural contexts and the entangled paradigms of the social sciences from a gendered perspective.

Keywords

• Modernization
• Green revolution
• Rural women
• Cynthia Hewitt de Alcántara
• Circulation of knowledge
• Gender