2024-03-14 18:03:31
The history of social science thought in Latin America was deeply influenced by European intellectual development, now a book proposes a reverse path and publishes in France a series of essays written by Latin American thinkers. Is about Utopias and dystopias in the political imagination (L’Harmattan editions), collective work coordinated by Angélica Montes Montoya, Obed Frausto and Sébastien Lefèvre.
“I prefer to say that I am Caribbean,” she said. Angelica Montes In a note published by RFI. “I identify more with the geography of the Caribbean archipelago, with a broad territoriality, that Caribbean that goes from Cartagena, where I was born, and includes the coasts of Central America, the United States and that, in some way, extends imaginatively to the great Mediterranean,” he added.
Due to this origin, Montoya became interested in the poets, philosophers and writers in general of the “Greater Caribbean”, but his curiosity grew when he arrived in Cartagena. a French guest who “introduced her to the thought of Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault, among others.”
Montoya has a doctorate in philosophy from the Paris 8 University, professor, essayist, author of The Representation of black subject in Colombian historiography (L’Harmattan), graduated with a master’s degree in Latin American Social Studies at the Institute of Higher Studies of Latin America (Paris).
Reflective dialogue between Latin America and France
“With the other two coordinators of the book, We want to make Latin American thought known in France. Latin American philosophers are little known in France today. Very few. Therefore, the objective was to generate a dialogue of knowledge. One of France’s permanent slogans in its Francophonie is to generate bridges of dialogue. But generally that bridge goes from France to Latin America. “That bridge is not traveled enough from Latin America to France,” he reflected. Among the authors are Rita Segato, Santiago Castro-Gomez, Rocío Zambrana, Hugo Busso.
“Thinking about utopia is almost an exercise in mental health. If we are not able to imagine something better about the world we are in, I think we would have numerous suicides,” said Montoya and continued: “Not thinking about utopia is like having nothing ahead of us. We have never abandoned that exercise of utopia. The only thing that was abandoned was the term itself, especially in the 90s, when it was said that it was the end of communism and that the only destiny of societies was capitalism. “We have to think about how to imagine a society with the capitalism and despite capitalism.”
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In these times, the author does not believe that capitalism is left behind, but she also rejects the increasingly predominant belief that the State may cease to exist. “Radicality is also believing that we are going to get rid of the state and representative democracy because presumably they do not represent us and cannot save us. “When you ask the people who hold these radical discourses about the way in which we are going to organize ourselves without capitalism and without democracy, they do not give you any answer nor do they offer you any alternative.”
“The reality is that we cannot escape history, we have to move forward with it. We must try to make modifications that allow us to negotiate with the historical context in which we find ourselves,” he stated.
However, he acknowledged that “it is sometimes very difficult to transmit these ideas because intellectuals who have a moderate voice are not listened to very much,” even “the majority of intellectuals who are listened to are radical. It is a radicalism that We find both the extreme right and the extreme left, which there are also.
For Moyano, utopia must be thought of within a legal and institutional framework. “For me, nothing is possible outside of representative democracy. Even popular participatory democracy is only possible within the framework of representative democracy, that is, within the framework of law. Without law, without laws, it is chaos“he insisted.
“Those who question the representative democratic State today can do so because they have the right to express themselves. This right to express oneself is enshrined in the Constitutions of representative democratic states. The image that comes to mind is the following: it is like sitting on a branch that is suspended in the void and they begin to saw the branch. Come on, little one, sooner or later you’re going to fall,” she concluded.
Fuente: RFI
RB CP
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