Contesting MIT: The Latin American World Model (1971–1977) and Alternative Modernisms (11/20/25)
Join us for a presentation by Dr. Ana Grondona, Fall 2025 De Fortabat Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. This talk examines the Latin American World Model (LAWM)—developed at Fundación Bariloche between 1971 and 1977—and its international circulation as a counterpoint to MIT’s Limits to Growth and the technocratic visions of the Club of Rome. By tracing the model’s trajectories across regional and global institutions, I show how it questioned prevailing development paradigms while articulating an alternative Latin American modernist project grounded in different assumptions about knowledge production, social needs, and global futures. The presentation forms part of a broader research agenda that reclaims Latin American modernism as a contested yet generative site for rethinking modernization and development in the twentieth century.
Dr. Grondona holds a degree in sociology and a Ph.D. in social sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, where she is currently a professor. She is also a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET). Her work focuses on the history of Latin American debates on development and modernization, examining the circulation of ideas from the periphery to the center. She directs two documentary collections: the Carlos Mallmann Archive at the Floreal Gorini Cultural Center of Cooperation and the Gino Germani Archive at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. Her main publications include Saber de la pobreza (2014), Estilos de desarrollo y buen vivir (as editor, 2016), and Genealogía, crítica y ensayo (as coordinator, 2022).
