Tiltai

The theme of this article is regionalisation processes in the region of Latin America. The article tries to find the basic tendencies of regional processes and development in Latin America. It was ascertained that regional processes in Latin America increased after the Cold War when new regional associations were establishing and collaboration between different regions increased. Regional processes do not happen for a long time due to the politics of national protectionism, tension between countries of that region and uneven collaboration in economic sphere. However, increasing political and economic influence of Latin America encourages regional processes by expanding the need of collaboration with this region.

In this essay, I shall argue that Ethnology can be seen as a scientific approach to the local that promotes a comparative understanding of the “own” and the “other” (and hence of encounters and conflicts) both among humans and between human and non-human subjects, viewed as part of a “local household”. The three approaches are not competing with one another but flowing together, building on and mutually conditioning one another. Their starting point is topography, the thorough description of place; this flows into topology – the interpretation of place with a view to improving the conditions of conviviality – and toposophy, understandings of how lived experience forms our worldview and beliefs grounded in the wisdom of place. In the question of how we express these beliefs in our definitions of the Local, the cycle, in a sense, returns to its starting point.