The Academic Management’s role is that of resuming the tradition of the master Celso Furtado in studying the problems of underdevelopment and the development policies of Brazil and Latin America. To this end, academic activities should take into account the fact that developed and underdeveloped economies should be treated distinctly, both theoretically and purposely, in order to overcome the condition of dependence that has secularly limited the process of national construction of our nations.
Taking into account these “Furtadian” premises, the main academic tasks of the Center Celso Furtado are as follows:
- To hold debates, seminars and conferences on the subjects of development and underdevelopment in order to allow for a free circulation of ideas related to public policies that are appropriate for promoting justice and equality.
- To publish and broadly divulge all the material produced at the Center as well as a series of articles and books disseminating the views of leading national and international authors on development and underdevelopment.
- To stimulate the progress of thinking regarding development policies, through surveys and research carried out jointly with researchers from other centers with the same areas of interest.
- To organize and run annual courses on economic and social development in order to resume discussion about underdevelopment, all rooted in the historical/structural method adopted by Celso Furtado. The series of these courses began in 2006 with a study of the leading works by the Master himself.
- To organize, update and disseminate by means of the Celso Furtado Site, seminars, round tables and courses held as part of the Center’s academic activities and publicize all the news and articles that it may consider pertinent to the study of national and international development.
The Center’s Editorial Program includes a series of “Development Textbooks” [Cadernos do Desenvolvimento] and “Development Memoirs” [Memórias do Desenvolvimento]. The “Memoirs” uses the oral history technique, to interview social scientists who work theoretically, or through practice in government, in the areas of economic and social development in Brazil. Three editions of the “Textbooks” and one of the “Memoirs” are available in this site (in portuguese).
The first edition of the “Textbooks” include texts and transcripts from debates held during a seminar in honor of Celso Furtado at the Federal Senate, in Brasilia in November 2005.
This seminar was undoubtedly a wonderful tribute that touched everyone. But, the only real tribute we can pay to Celso Furtado is to resume and update his views and thoughts about the world and about Latin America, thoughts and views that occupied his mind to the very end of his life!
We also propose to create a Celso Furtado Chair in which everyone involved will be able to develop their own points of view since it is only through debate that a new economic policy for Latin America can emerge, strengthening and extending the unquestionably ECLAC roots of the Master. And indeed, ECLAC was the only institution, with its Prebisch-Furtado pillars, and later those of Aníbal Pinto and so many others, that was able to create a Latin American political economy. This is the debt owed by our generation.
|
