A Mestizo-inspired vista for organization studies: reconciling science and aesthetics in Latin America

Organization and management studies in and concerning Latin America are often caught between two poles: decontextualized universal theories or highly localized, critical decolonial perspectives. This polarity constrains dialogue and obscures the region’s intellectual contributions, which are rooted in its unique history. To address this polarity, we first draw on authors from adjacent social sciences to problematize the historical and ongoing process of mestizaje – a complex, ambivalent admixture of Indigenous, African, and European worlds. Then, building on Latin American authors such as Gloria Anzaldúa and Octavio Paz, whose work has explored the intersection between social science and artistic approaches, we conceptualize mestizaje as a heuristic that reconciles science with aesthetics in organizational inquiry. We then suggest three orientations for research pertaining to the region. This Mestizo-inspired vista provides conceptual and methodological tools to escape dichotomous debates and recognize the creative and ambivalent character of knowledge production in and from Latin America.