In the last thirty years, Latin America has undergone important changes that come both from the spread of new technologies and networks and from the revaluation of indigenous cultures or the fight against patriarchy, to name just a few. A continent, baptized with the name Abya Yala, "land in full maturity", by the cradle community of Panama, which faces enormous challenges and aspires to have its own voice in the world concert.
Latin American identity is a historical communion between cultures and nature. They are ecological floors that combine the Amazon with the Andes, the Pacific with the Atlantic and the Caribbean, and the Central American and Mexican basins; with the original cultures, with the African cultures and both with a Euro-Asian, Jewish and Arab diversity. It is a subordinate identity that, on the one hand, has never been able to free itself from the ambition caused by the global weight of its natural wealth and by its social condition of colonial origin: it is very difficult to become autonomous from world powers. To a great extent, they are identities subjected to inequality, to the denial of rights and to the culture of the denial of the other. However, the Latin American identity is also an identity of resistance and resilience that sought and seeks autonomy, recognition of its diversity and its rights. For this reason, in its diversity of imaginaries, it is an immeasurable force of freedom that seeks universal coexistence. Precisely for all this, the Cuna community of Panama correctly baptized the continent as Abya Yala, “land in full maturity”. It is a land that changes constantly but does not lose its memory.
The history is long-lasting and the weight of the heterogeneous situations and diverse national and territorial realities makes a generalization very difficult. However, it is possible, based on a historical and empirical perspective, to detect common directions, directions, trends and challenges. Specifically, here we will seek, on the one hand, to illustrate the most relevant structural and sociocultural changes experienced by the region in recent decades in a context of change and risk in the information age. And, on the other, hypothetically draw what some of the challenges facing Latin America would be.
In the book La Nueva América Latina we confirm that both the neoliberal and neo-developmentalist orientations of development were exhausted in practically all countries, but the most significant thing is that a new Latin American society has emerged with them in the last thirty years. The first relevant structural change was at the company level, since a new type of globalized economy was generated that we call informational extractivism, the core of the Latin American economy. This means that, regardless of whether they were public or private companies, information, communication, production, marketing and financing technologies were introduced on a global scale.
The second change, associated with the previous one, is the new criminal economy, whose jump in the last 30 years is brutal in many ways. Not only has it become one of the main sources of accumulation of global financial capital, but it has also produced important transformations in the economy, culture, politics, social networks, daily life in Latin America and around the world. This criminal informational extractive economy has also penetrated the justice system, the armed forces and internal and external intelligence services. Even art and religion. At the level of the world economy, for example, in Europe it is estimated that around 350,000 million dollars a year are laundered for the use of cocaine. What legal economy can do that? So that is a central core of the world economy, but who tells the financial powers to genuinely recognize and act against that dark side of their profits? Because, in addition, brutal ethical problems arise. For this reason, among other factors, the very project of modernity of these democracies in advanced societies is also in ethical confusion. Another factor worth mentioning is war, always war.
The third change is the new urbanization. The simplest conclusion is that Latin America has become a primarily urban continent. 80% of the population lives in cities, and the majority in macro-cities. The only place in the world that exceeds this percentage is the US (82% of its population lives in cities). We are the second region in the world with the largest urban population and, curiously, we live on natural resources that come from the countryside.
Cities have undergone a brutal transformation process. We remain one of the most unequal regions on earth. The levels of inequality are ruthless. In Brasilia, for example, the Gini is 0.68. And this is also associated with phenomena of social decomposition and recomposition and multicentric conflicts. There is no structured city like in the past; rather the territories have been fragmented. Speculation is at the center of urban reproduction, speculative financial capital is at the center of urban economic life, as well as migrations, the informal sector, social recompositions, pollution and new conflicts managed informationally by young people. A kind of culture of survival is being installed while somehow the urban community bond is deteriorating.
Culturally, the main mutation is the installation of the network society as the main form of information and social communication, a trend reinforced by the pandemic. We live in a network society: that is the fourth change. The network and the street were intertwined in a brutal way. This is associated with a tendency towards individualization, consumption, techno-sociability and has also been reinforced by the culture of the diaspora, of migrants who communicate on networks. This is another central phenomenon: migrants within countries, between countries in the region and from the region to the US and Europe, mainly, but also to Australia and Canada. Migrants are one of the new global actors. What is interesting here is that what organizes all this is a new techno-sociability, associated with access to information and communication networks. In other words, a diaspora with an informational culture. Latin America is already in the world average of consumption. But even more, if we talk about the big communication systems like Google, Latin America is where it is consumed the most. We produce few informational networks, but we consume more than all. It's a huge change and at the core is the individualization with various lights and many shadows.
A fifth mutation is the crisis of patriarchy. There is no longer a central monopoly of man as the center of organization, the mononuclear family no longer predominates. Today family networks are made up of us and others, they are more horizontal and there, although the role and work of women has increased both outside and inside the home, their organizing role in family reproduction and economy is essential. This is a demographic change. Subjectively, machismo is a hard trait in Latin American culture. There have been feminist movements about that. This is very important because the family is what links the individual with the social structure. The hypothesis would be that, with the pandemic, the weight of the family and social networks has multiplied their importance and work on the network has expanded. Work is organized at home, you study at home, the house reproduces society. And although they come and go, we have more and more complementary and diversified family economies that go, enter and leave, and that together complement a minimal social reproduction with its growing limits, as mentioned, with the pandemic and the world crisis that the accompanies.
A sixth change occurs in religiosity. A fantastic fact is that religiosity has increased worldwide with the global crisis. In Latin America, religiosity has also increased, but Catholicism has decreased. Even in Montevideo those who adhere to some religion have increased. It lowered the legitimacy of the Catholic religion, and with it of the most important cultural institution of religious power in the region, while it has brutally increased the number of evangelists. The response generated by the Catholic Church to all this mutation was a communitarian papal charism with Pope Francis. Several of the new political changes are associated with these religious changes. To a great extent, the diverse tensions and orientations between a liberation theology-type community Catholicism and the growing weight of evangelical churches constitute politically divergent responses that sustain subjective tensions in Latin American societies. Today religion is once again a central phenomenon at the international level, as can be seen when analyzing the cultural force of the Orthodox Christian patriarchy in Russia or the evangelical conservatives in Germany.
In Latin America, with a democracy of 40 years and thanks to the strength of the movements of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants, cultural identities have been reaffirmed and valued. That's the seventh change. Furthermore, they have changed the legitimacy of historical multiculturalism along with a demand for intercultural coexistence. One fact must be highlighted: everywhere there is an appreciation of native and Afro-descendant peoples. It is a good achievement, despite the significant presence of harsh racism that Latin America has always had.
Another fundamental change, the eighth, is the emergence of new social movements. On the one hand, the social movements of young people who ask for ethical and ecological values in a practical way. They demand ethics in politics, they manage in the networks the historical social conflicts related to inequality, work and institutionality, but also gender movements stand out, mainly women's and LGTB movements, and new ecological movements, largely linked to the native peoples, networks of NGOs and an ecological public opinion at a global level.
The Brazilian, Argentine, Colombian and Chilean women's movements, among others, have had repercussions even in India. So, there is a global expansion and connection between the new social movements, which have not yet become a political-institutional force. Likewise, the emergence of demands and ecological conflicts, especially in the native peoples with broad sympathy in the global public and the support of NGOs, demand a defense and an ecological change in the ways of life. Likewise, the mobilization and explosion of protests associated with inequality, discomfort and distrust of the political and judicial system in recent years have been multiplying in the region. The list is long, the current crisis in Ecuador is a stark example.
The other side of the coin is that protests have broken out from conservative middle sectors of young people in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, etc. One of the few times in history where the monopoly of the left in the street is broken. It is a serious issue, which should be studied more objectively, without entering into an ideological contempt, but trying to understand these phenomena. We do not understand either Bolsonaro or Trump without these movements, due to a certain result of the multidimensional global crisis. And when we name Bolsonaro we refer to a strong change in the political culture not only in Brazil but in Latin America. Thus, a new field of political conflict with religious features has been formed.
A ninth change is a new public space structured by digital communication, at the center of which is politics. This is a very complicated phenomenon. There is no place in the world where politics is not done in this new space of digital communication. The book analyzes what the techno-truths have been, it analyzes how advertising, communication, the communicational construction of corruption, what are the power games in communication and the enormous power of transnational communication companies. Today they are at the center of citizen evaluation. But it also highlights the enormous power of new communication networks. In short, public space has changed. Doing traditional politics and not having the resources for an advertising campaign is doomed to failure, and that is what has also produced corruption in the political system and the State. So in the end we have serious problems of state breakdown. And after all that, a polarization and a crisis of confidence between the rulers and the ruled have set in. The politics of scandal was installed, of the judicialization of politics and a friend-enemy relationship is being established in digital daily life.
Today everything is confused and we are experiencing a crisis of everyday subjectivity: the kamanchaka. This is what is called a mist that floods the soul of the Andean world: a cloud suddenly arrives at the mining camps in the Andean mountains and enters the houses, the mines, all spheres of work and social reproduction, and produces depression and discouragement. This depression is a crisis of subjectivity. So, no exits are found. That is why it is important not only to oppose and resist a power in decline, but also to strengthen and renew the arcane culture of resilience such as that of the ecological floors (different heights) in the Andean and Amazonian world.
Although in Latin America democracy is still valued as a way of life, as a value, it gives the impression that the only liberal vision of democracy is insufficient. It is necessary, but insufficient. It seems that what can change and produce a political transformation in increasingly complex and diverse societies is a deliberative and associative politics. A new politicity that gives renewed meaning to social life and reconstitutes a map of what is possible. This is a policy of exchange between different, but associated with the concept of agency. This means that the deliberative process of a new politicity links the result of what is deliberated with the procedure to achieve that goal. As Vattimo said: “it is not when we have the truth that we agree; it is rather when we agree that we find the truth.”
The other great challenge of deliberative politics is its psycho-cultural character, which has to do with a principle of otherness referring to equity in the speech act between different people and studying what communication with a democratic sense really is like and how, within it, one he changes and modifies his opinion, since in democracy, except for human rights, there are no absolute values. The question seems to reside in how to deliberate to achieve a minimum of systemic governability, obviously recognizing that democracy itself is a field of conflict of institutional power by nature inconclusive.
Considering the context of the pandemic, the effects of the war in Europe and the global multidimensional crisis, then, we must think about the question of associative systemic governance. This means recognizing the minimum thresholds at which one can agree with the functioning of effective and legitimate institutions. What are the minimum thresholds for the economy? What can not be done? This is key for institutions to work, for communication to work. What would be these basic foundations to respect human dignity? All of this is called constructivist systemic governance: minimal short-term systemic agreements so that the dynamics of the conflict do not turn into catastrophic polarization. It is not about resolving the issue of the State, the accumulation of capital, the role of entrepreneurs or any other problem, but to achieve a minimum of common trust to face the storm and sow a better future petite by petite.
On the other hand, it is certainly essential to reconstruct, without losing memory, maps of development and democracy. Today liberal democracy is collapsing all over the world and conservative political forms and authoritarian states are gaining strength. This calls into question the moment of globalization that we are experiencing and seeks hope to see how to rebuild future scenarios. Will Latin America be able to play an important role at a global level?
It is essential to understand the new field of what is possible in politics and, above all, to detect the features of the new moment that is beginning and draw the new patterns for the immediate future. This may allow us to constitute genuine Latin American mirrors to make ourselves and act in globalization with better chances.
These are the changes that inhabit the region. How to face them and what are or would be the possible actors and policies? Is a realistic policy innovation possible? Is it possible that a pedagogy be imposed where a sense of responsibility, a sense of proportions, a will to change reality associated with a strengthening of the capacity of the actors to achieve transform goals into realities is combined? Is it possible to recreate founding values of this period of 40 years of democracy around austerity and solidarity? Entrepreneurs, will they be able to develop a culture of austerity for themselves? Will the law be enforced? Or will Latin America continue adrift without being able to manage the changes? Will a capacity for action and reflection be installed where the Latin American values and traditions of unity in diversity are combined with the expansion of technological-informational development capacities that allow sailing against the wind, interspersing deliberation, sociocultural pluralism, competitiveness and the long-awaited equality between different And so, will Latin America be able to contribute not to an ideal world but to a world in which different modernities can coexist in a fairer way, a little better, a balanced world inhabited by different modernities?
It is worth insisting that a major challenge is to face the complex and tremendous crisis of governance that almost all the countries of the region are going through in a context of multilateral international instability that is increasingly precarious and risky. It is about sharing a set of founding values of a new political-institutional order that questions the friend-enemy logic both in the political-military and economic spheres and that seeks to build agreements based on basic human rights values such as the right to or those referring to the maintenance of minimum operating thresholds for the economy, limits to extreme poverty and daily violence that especially affects the poorest and women. This also means maintaining minimum thresholds of institutional legitimacy, at least with respect to some key institutions of the judiciary. Possibly this type of orientation will allow the construction of a basic bond of trust between the governors and the governed.
Another challenge is associated with the renewal of the public media space. It is essential to end the politics of scandal, which occurs mainly in social networks, as the way to achieve political benefits. This means deliberating and questioning a policy that seeks to destroy the opponent and his image through scandal and the use of artificial intelligence, as in false news that affects the sensitivity of the voter. The policy needs to produce a more plural digital public space without putting barriers to press freedom, but seeking that the same media contribute to the creation of a more open and plural public space and less manipulated.
In the same sense, it is absolutely fundamental to face perhaps the most complicated institutional challenge for Latin American countries: a reform of the judiciary that puts an end to its patrimonial and clientelist privatization through agreements.
The latter is linked to one of the most important challenges of democracy and development: the renewal of the State. The challenge would be to produce a State of the public where new interactions between the State and the market are expanded, where the effectiveness and efficiency of the market can be juxtaposed with human solidarity. That the markets seek to be favorable to an economically sustainable public. The 1993 Human Development Report on the public and markets develops an interesting argument in this regard, and the proposal for Productive Transformation with Equity promoted by ECLAC in 1992 argues in favor of a fruitful combination between sustainable productivity and equity where the State plays a central articulating role. It seems fundamental to update this type of ideas. The approach of an informational and ecological human development seeks to recover these perspectives by focusing on the dignity of people and communities. Dignity is at the center of the diverse orientations of the aforementioned movements and in the culture of equality, always sought on the continent. Perhaps the same current world situation allows, for example, to imagine more sustainable agricultural development strategies that are less dependent on polluting imports.
Combining and extending a fruitful relationship between the codes of modernity and the codes of informationalism is a crucial challenge for the future. And there, education, science and communication play a strategic role, since only an informational public education can guarantee, in the long term, a sustainable and inclusive economic and social development. Probably one of the crucial challenges is how to combine the development of informationalism both at the techno-economic level and in navigation in information and communication networks with the most excluded or informal sectors. It is possible to expand the skills of the most excluded youth in urban and rural areas and integrate them into a creative dynamic of the communication society. It seems possible to generalize experiences of techno-informational and cultural innovation with young people from the so-called informal sector. There are already very interesting experiences in this regard.
In this area, the strategic and articulation role that universities can play is essential because, on the one hand, they have, since the reforms of Córdoba in 1917, a vocation for social integration of a Latin American nature, and on the other, their potential scientific and technological competencies. and real companies associated with techno-informational companies can promote a network practice and an ethics of socially integrating informational change that Latin America needs so much to live together better. The strengthening and innovation of public schools and networks of Latin American universities based on specific projects would undoubtedly strengthen a social life and knowledge in the continent.
At the center of all these challenges is the need, the possibility and the management and innovation capacity of the political forces. The complexity of the narrated changes and the need to face the new challenges demand new politicians, new political parties, new political systems that link historical memory with the scientific-technological transformation of the new glocal avatars and seek to relink the State to the pluralities nationals in a new Latin America.
In a possible political scenario of growth of progressive forces in the region, will they be able to face this type of challenge? They necessarily need to transgress and innovate themselves. In this regard, is it possible to feed development and democracy strategies in the medium term that come from an academic production integrated between hard sciences and soft sciences, that are nourished by the historical values of Latin Americanism and promote sustainable informational development where the core is dignity? human? A decent life is a value shared by society. The question is who are the actors or the movements that can structure this perspective.
The little lights that are beginning to illuminate are becoming stronger but still insufficient with respect to the problems and logics of power to be faced. The question is also how the new sociocultural actors increase their agency capacities and become institutionalized.
To the extent that the region, in a practical logic, can create this type of challenges, partners of development and dignity, the greater will be the chances of institutionalizing a Latin American community with a voice in a global world at a time of political-cultural collapse. For example, a regional agreement on lithium or a flexible agreement between Mexico and Brazil, indisputable economic leaders, that promotes an integrated Latin America and aspires to become a kind of platform between the power dynamics of the East, especially China, and the West, especially the US, could give the region an active place in globalization and in the progress towards a less worse world. Another similar challenge in this perspective is to build a global agreement to end or reduce the criminal economy and culture, the one that traffics people, weapons and drugs. However, for that it is essential to face and resolve the tremendous situations that we have to live.
The dark side is also present today but there is also a moment of inflection and change for Latin America to act as a fully mature territory.
Juan Fernando Calderón Gutiérrez is a Bolivian sociologist. Professor National San Martin University, Argentina.
