Entre los “límites” y las alternativas de “otro” desarrollo: el problema de las necesidades básicas. Un ejercicio genealógico.

Abstract

The paper presents a genealogical study of the “basic needs” diagnosis. Based on a theoretical perspective that intersects history of the present and materialist analysis of discourse, we discuss various “memory domains” in which this diagnosis acquired its senses. After reviewing the context of the “emergency” of the question of basic needs in the early eighties in Argentina, the paper reviews previous discursive memories inscribed in debates around “the limits to growth” and alternative paths to build “another development” that took place between 1970 and 1983. This analysis allows us to observe the polysemyc and controversial facet of the “basic needs” diagnosis, usually neglected by critical reviews of the history of the concept. Our analysis includes documents relevant to the formation of the knowledge on poverty in Latin America, generally absent in specialized research. These documents allow us to question approaches that assume that the problematization around “basic needs” was imported from “the center” to “the periphery” or from international organizations to dependent countries.