Hall:
Chair and Discussant:
Ossa Julio César
Co-Chair:
Cudina Jean Nicola
Division:
This symposium brings together historical case discussions that examine the early circulation, reception, and appropriation of psychological knowledge in Latin America between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. While psychology in the region is often portrayed as derivative of Euro-pean and North American traditions, these papers highlight the complex processes through which psychological ideas were mediated, reinterpreted, and mobilized to address local political, educational, and cultural challenges. The first presentation examines the explores Latin America's participation in international psychotechnical conferences, analyzing South-North exchanges and the increasing presence of Latin American delegations in the mid-20th century. The second talk reconstructs the role of Wundt's student Georg Heinrich Schneider in Chile's educational reform of the 1890s, tracing how experimental psychology was imported to serve pedagogical innovation. The third contribution, discuss the Colombian case, showing how early developments in psycho pedagogy and psychotechnics in the 1930s were embedded in a liberal nation-building project of modernization and industrialization, culminating in the institutionalization of psychology in 1947. Finally, the fourth paper focuses on Argentina, examining how socialist and communist intellectual networks mediated the reception of Wallon, Vygotsky, and Adler, re-shaping their ideas to address local political and disciplinary debates. Together, these contributions underscore that the history of psychology in Latin America cannot be understood merely as the passive adoption of foreign theories. Instead, it reveals a dynamic interplay of transnational flows, local appropriations, and political projects that positioned psychology as a key resource in education, modernization, and the redefinition of social life.
