Visioni LatinoAmericane 20 (2019)

The Author identifies some characteristics of various private assistance institutions founded in the State of Veracruz (Mexico) between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It also reflects on their founding and sustaining mechanisms and identifies the actors and social groups that participated in these projects, as well as their main objectives.

The Author analyzes the implantation of European culture in the New Spain´s Viceroyalty during the centuries of Colonization, through the guilds specialized in the production of plastic arts, their role in the novohispana society and main creations until beginning of the XIX century. The global vision of this artistic fact allows deepening in the social and religious life of the viceroyalty.

Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz, a Brazilian socio-anthropologist and pupil of Roger Bastide, is well known for her ethno-anthropological studies of indigenous and popular cultures. Her research on the carnival of Salvador de Bahia, cangaceiros, peasants and messianisms remains fundamental.

In the indigenous population and among older adults have been identified as survival strategies activation of social support networks. From the principle of reciprocity is an exchange of favors and gifts called social supports from various networks that contribute to access to material, emotional and instrumental resources that were identified among Otomi older adults (Mexico) through qualitative research.

Giuliano Giorio has been a sociologist of the University of Trieste with multifaceted interests both in terms of operational commitment as well as scientific, political, social and ecclesial. A theoretical scholar but also a man of action, always attentive to the person, to the community and to promotional sociology, he has practiced participation in the social intervention. Among his main fields of study and action there was Latin America and, specifically, Brazil, for which he promoted the Pedagogy of alternation, rural family schools, a sociology of community and a genuinely person-oriented social service. He has created initiatives and associations including Aes-Ccc, Mepes, Csal, etc.

The election result obtained in Brazil (October 2018) has its causes in recent social events. The surprise is the name of the elected president.

In the decade of the Nineties a group of thinkers and academics gave form to a new critical perspective to think about the social situation of Latin America and the advance of neoliberalism in the region. This is the project Modernity/Coloniality and its proposal of the pensamiento decolonial. The Author exposes two of her mayor contributions: the concepts of coloniality of power and utopia of the total market.

A critical path to read the concept of "America": plural and referable to the various social self-definitions implemented on the continent. A journey that traces the history, based on current literature but also tries a reinterpretation, proposing a debate on issues of our time, strengthened today by the choices of the various electorates and national governments as well as certain emerging geopolitical directions.

Starting from some theoretical considerations, the Author reflects on the possible ways of managing social conflicts understood as destructive, but also creative force of human experience. A possible way of exit capable of directing the conflict towards integration and avoiding violence is not only given by the management of structural tensions, but also by the degree of openness / closure of the system, the distribution of power and resources, the capacities of leaders, the political context, the symbolic and ideological representations.