Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana

Continuities, continuities, and fractures in the work of the social and political sciences in the Global South. From exiles to transnationalism and political subnationalism

2026-01-15T07:11:41+00:00

Latin American social sciences have evolved in adverse political contexts, characterized by dictatorships, negotiated transitions, insurgencies, authoritarian neoliberalism, and mass displacements. This environment has generated a situated intellectual production, marked by inequalities, conflicts, and emancipatory projects. This dossier examines the continuities and fractures of the Latin American political present, showing that democracy in the region is an unfinished, negotiated, and often interrupted process, sustained by both formal institutions and community and migrant practices. Latin American citizenship is exercised at multiple scales: state, community, digital, and transnational, and contemporary mobility becomes a political platform and a civic school. The territorial dimension is key, as democracy reinvents itself in local and community spaces, where the state coexists with local forms of decision-making and justice. Environmental conflicts are also democratic conflicts, and political ecology emerges as a central axis of social analysis.

Thinking from Our America: Ethics, Migration and interculturality in the thinking of Alcira Bonilla

2026-01-19T21:00:40+00:00

This article analyzes the philosophical thoughts of Dr. Alcira Beatriz Bonilla, who is a researcher at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Buenos Aires. The article gives special attention to her contribution to a liberating and intercultural philosophy of Our America. Through a detailed study of her main works of the last 20 years concerned with a situated thinking, two central axes are addressed: (1) the critique of ethics and education; (2) the notion of citizenship and emerging moralities. It is shown that through these two axes Bonilla articulates a practical rationality that is situated and infused with a commitment to human rights, epistemic justice and the dignity of excluded subjects. The result is a philosophical proposal that stands as a critical and transformative response to the multiple forms of oppression and exclusion that affect the peoples of Our America.

Memories of Venezuelan Migrant Journeys in Latin America: from Maracaibo to Mexico City (2015–2024)

2026-01-15T07:18:25+00:00

This study addresses the following research question: How do Venezuelan migrants who crossed multiple international borders between 2015 and 2024 reconstruct and re-signify their memories in contexts marked by structural violence, precarity, and institutional racism? The central hypothesis is that migrant memories not only preserve a record of the journey but also function as mechanisms of agency, meaning-making, and the articulation of situated rights. The main objective of the study is to analyze the memories associated with the migratory trajectories of Venezuelan migrants. It is argued that migration constitutes a total experience that engages the body, territory, subjectivity, and memory. The narratives collected reveal embodied memories, affective networks, insurgent citizenships, and pedagogies of displacement. Drawing on a critical memory framework (Jelin, 2002; Sarlo, 2005), the study illustrates how recollections of the journey operate as living repertoires and tools for contesting dominant narratives about migration in Latin America. The research adopts a qualitative methodology employing two main data collection techniques: (1) ethnographic fieldwork and (2) semi-structured interviews, all conducted between October 2024 and January 2025 at the CUPA housing complex, located in the Benito Juárez borough of Mexico City.

Exercise of active citizenship in Mendoza, Argentina, to extend voting rights to migrants

2026-01-15T07:18:23+00:00

The article analyzes the exercise of active citizenship by the Movement Toward Socialism–Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Mendoza (MAS-IPSP-Mendoza) in relation to the recognition and expansion of migrant voting rights in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, with an emphasis on the year 2023. The study uses a mixed approach, combining semi-structured interviews with leaders of the organization, an analysis of provincial regulations, and a review of electoral data. The results show that, in the face of restrictive and obstructive policies, MAS-IPSP Mendoza has become a key player in coordinating institutional advocacy actions and establishing alliances with political parties in the destination country. These practices contribute to reconfiguring the boundaries of citizenship, positioning migrants as active subjects and strengthening their participation in the democratization processes of subnational political spaces.

Marshal and the paths of Latin American citizenship after globalization (2000–2025)

2026-01-15T11:40:38+00:00

This article analyzes the transformation of Latin American citizenship between 2000 and 2025 through a comparative and longitudinal approach combining qualitative analysis and verifiable statistical indicators. It revisits T. H. Marshall’s classical framework of civil, political, and social rights, and connects it with José Carlos Luque Brazán’s notion of citizenship as a hybrid process between national and post-national logics. The study evaluates eight countries in the region (Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela) across five dimensions: civil, political, social, cultural/plurinational, and digital rights. Findings indicate significant progress in political inclusion, social policies, cultural recognition, and digital rights, alongside serious setbacks in civil rights due to structural violence, weak judicial systems, polarization, and emerging authoritarianism. Latin American citizenship thus appears as a hybrid, stratified, and non-linear system where state sovereignty coexists in tension with transnational practices, decolonial dynamics, and expanding digital spheres. The article argues that Latin America offers a unique vantage point to rethink citizenship theory from the Global South, integrating social justice, cultural recognition, and digital rights as key elements of a plural and twenty-first-century citizenship.

De facto citizenship and rules in use for territorial work in Mexico City

2026-01-15T11:40:50+00:00

This article identifies, on an empirical level, some of the rules in use in “political-territorial work” in Mexico City, which have been developed over more than two decades and operate on the behavior of a subset of citizens who stray from the archetype of procedural democracy. Despite this, their actions are not without elements of civic virtue (activism aimed at providing common and public goods, caring for the environment, supporting vulnerable people, etc.), which are obscured under the label of“clientelism,” although their logic goes beyond politically conditioned exchange. Based on robust qualitative evidence, acquired through in-depth interviews exploring the biographical trajectories of different brokers, a structure of meanings and incentives is identified, analyzed, and reconstructed that does not distinguish between clientelism and citizenship, but rather between legitimate and corrupt practices of political-territorial work.

Climate denial and the populist radical right: The presidency of Javier Milei in the Argentine Republic

2026-01-15T11:43:05+00:00

This article draws from the case study of Javier Milei's presidency, who took office on December 10, 2023, in Argentina, to analyze the relationship between the rise of the populist radical right and climate denial discourses. Within the context of the contemporary civilizational crisis, the present study examines the denial and delay repertoires that hinder the implementation of effective environmental policies. The article distinguishes between overt climate denial, skepticism, and contrarianism, highlighting the discursive strategies employed, ranging from delegitimating science to normalizing socioecological impacts. Furthermore, the links between ultraliberalism rationale, the reduction of the state's role, and the political instrumentalization of climate change are examined. Based on Milei’s public statements, political platform, and government measures, it is argued that his administration constitutes a paradigm case for the integration of climate denial into the populist radical right repertoire in Latin America. This development raises crucial questions regarding global environmental governance and consensus in the context of a socioecological crisis.

Contributions to a relational and processual political science

2026-01-15T11:45:13+00:00

With the aim of seeking solutions to the current crisis in political science, this article proposes some contributions for the formulation of a new relational and process-oriented political science that aims to explain the new changes in reality, using a theoretical-methodological arsenal that locates the State, power, and politics as products of social relations of conflicting forces. The methodology retrieves the main causes of the crisis in political science. Subsequently, the theoretical results recover the contributions made by the Relational State Approach (EER) for the relational and process-oriented analysis of state institutions, with the intention of using that foundation for the generation of a new relational political science. Finally, the importance of updating the analysis from an intersectional perspective with other forms of gender, ethnic, or trade union oppression is detailed.

Citizenship in dispute: migrant political subjects in the making in Argentina (2003–2025)

2026-01-15T11:45:30+00:00

The article analyses the transformations in migration policies in Argentina between 2003 and 2025 as areas of dispute over the limits of democracy and the configuration of new forms of citizenship. It examines how regulatory and political changes express different conceptions of the relationship between the State, rights, and migrants. Using a qualitative approach based on documentary and bibliographic analysis, the study is organised into four periods: the consolidation of the human rights paradigm (2003–2015); security policies and DNU 70/2017 (2015–2019); the impact of the pandemic (2019–2024); and the restrictive measures of the current government, centered on DNU 366/2025 (2024–present). The results show that, in the face of regulatory setbacks, migrants constitute themselves as political actors who, through their organisations, develop processes of subjectivation and resistance, disputing the limits of citizenship in contexts of exclusion.

Quality of direct democracy, electoral participation, and marginalization in Mexico (2021-2024)

2026-01-15T11:45:26+00:00

The objective of this article is to determine the relationship between the democratic quality of direct democracy mechanisms (referendum), electoral participation, and the degree of marginalization of Mexico’s federal entities. The article reflects on the limitations of direct democracy mechanisms due to terminological confusion and the requirements for their activation. This reflects the fact that citizen participation in Mexico is far removed from the theory of citizen participation, which recognizes the dynamic nature of participation and assumes that citizens not only take part in issues that concern them, but also have access to the resources available to society. The subnational analysis reconsiders the design of the referendum, but nor its results. The relationship between the elements that form part of the objective is spurious.

Revisiting the role of the Legislature in the context of Brazil’s political transition (1974-1985)

2026-01-19T21:02:14+00:00

This article analyzes the role of the Brazilian Legislature in the political transition between 1974 and 1985, arguing that, even while subordinated to the authoritarian regime, the National Congress played a significant part in institutional adaptation and the process of democratization. The study adopts a historical-institutional perspective, with a qualitative and descriptive-analytical approach, centered on the intrinsic case study of the National Congress and grounded in the comparative literature on political transitions. Drawing on documentary sources and legislative data, the analysis examines how authoritarian norms shaped actors’ strategies and constrained the scope of legislative action. The findings demonstrate that Legislature, far from being a passive actor, functioned as an arena of negotiation, legitimation, and conflict management. The article concludes that the gradual control of the transition ensured the continuity of political elites and left institutional legacies that continue to affect the quality of Brazilian democracy today.

Enclosures, dispossession and resistances: waste as a disputed territory in the city of Mexicali

2026-01-15T12:17:37+00:00

In the current context of global socio-environmental risks such as climate change, waste, as a common good and a disputed space, is part of the new processes of dispossession, exploitation, and enclosure affecting the recycler community located in the border city of Mexicali. This paper seeks to make their struggles and resistances visible through democratizing practices that emerge from below. In the absence of a more horizontal democracy that protects their rights, this community of recyclers organizes, engages in dialogue, and participates actively, since by defending rights they build a stronger and more inclusive democracy. Their resistance manifests itself through the recovery of knowledge and practices from their places of origin, which have allowed them, through creative strategies, to rebuild themselves as a group. The research was carried out through action research, within a process of planning, action, observation, and reflection, using the approach of Latin American Political Ecology.

Poetry and political participation: a current discussion in Colombia

2026-01-15T12:17:50+00:00

The search for poetic narratives to support social and cultural movements can represent an added value in the aspiration for popular power and political participation in Latin America. This article proposes some ideas for integrating poetry into academic knowledge and political action, considering the possibility that poetic leaderships may share power over knowledge, activating collectivities and redistributing the sensible. This is a first theoretical approach that prepares the ground for fieldwork aimed at exploring foundational poetic (mythical) ideas capable of mobilizing political transformations through aesthetic sensibility and collective imagination, within the memory of the social, cultural, and political movement of Bucaramanga, Colombia, in the 1980s. In particular, it focuses on the work of poet Chucho Peña, whose way of communicating poetic ideas constituted a political milestone through phenomena such as intermediality and collective creation.

Exile and forced migrations: Sociopoliticall logics, national dynamics and impacts in Latin America. A conversation between Luis Roniger and José Carlos Luque Brazán

2026-01-15T12:18:03+00:00

This dialogue with sociologist Luis Roniger examines exile and forced migration in Latin America as structural political processes, rooted in the region's history and institutional practices. From the colonial era to contemporary democracies, exile has operated as a mechanism of exclusion, identity formation, and transnational projection of democratic struggles. Roniger underscores the role of exile networks in the defense of human rights, as well as the centrality of memory, truth, and the political agency of the displaced. The conversation also addresses contemporary displacements linked to global crises, persistent inequalities, violence, migration biopolitics, and accelerated civilizational transformations. The need to recover exiled voices to understand citizenship and democratic resistance in the present is highlighted.

Reseña de: Luque Brazán, J. C., Sandoval Hernández, F., García Sánchez, M. del R. & Pérez Tagle, J. A. (Comps.). (2025). Las democracias latinoamericanas: entre la igualdad política y la justicia social. Mérida, Venezuela: Fondo Editorial del Centro de Fo

2026-01-21T19:11:23+00:00

Las democracias latinoamericanas: entre la igualdad política y la justicia social (2025) brings together twenty-four chapters that explore, from a critical and post-neoliberal perspective, the structural dilemmas of democracy in Latin America. Edited by José Carlos Luque Brazán, Federico Sandoval Hernández, María del Rocío Sánchez García, and Jesús Antonio Pérez Tagle, the collective volume links theoretical reflection with empirical studies on citizenship, social rights, inequality, and public policy. Grounded in the constitutive tension between political equality and social justice, it advances a regional understanding of democracy that moves beyond proceduralism toward redistribution and participation. This review analyzes its structure, theoretical contributions, and critical limits within the broader debate on post-neoliberal democracy and citizenship in the Global South.

Libro completo: Luque Brazán, J. C., Sandoval Hernández, F., García Sánchez, M. del R. & Pérez Tagle, J. A. (Comps.). (2025). Las democracias latinoamericanas: entre la igualdad política y la justicia social. Mérida, Venezuela: Fondo Editorial del Centro

2026-01-21T19:02:33+00:00