Popular Movements and Critical Thought Confront the Neoliberal Advance in Latin America
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Luciana Balbuena (Communication and outreach)
Luciana@thetricontinental.org
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
5 November 2019

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research publishes a new dossier about the challenges of popular movements in the face of the neoliberal offensive in Latin America.

In Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research’s Dossier №22, Latin America and the Caribbean: Between the Neoliberal Offensive and New Resistances, we present a discussion of the challenges confronting popular movements in Latin America and the Caribbean in the face of a new advance of imperialism, the right-wing, and neoliberal projects in the region based on the discussions held at our first Latin American Seminar.
From the 20th century to today, critical thought in Latin America and the Caribbean has developed based on theoretical reflections on the political practices and challenges confronted by the people and people’s movements. Today, critical thought is faced with the challenge of reflecting on the characteristics of the neoliberal offensive and of the popular resistances that are rising up to challenge it. In recent years, the people of Latin America and the Caribbean have been confronted by a new advance of imperialism and capitalism, which has revived a process of recolonization in the region. This reassertion of power has led to a new wave of neoliberal, ultra-conservative or pseudo-fascist right-wing projects that are challenging political hegemony at a national level in various countries at the expense of the rights of workers and the people, their rights, and their living conditions.
On the other hand, recent cycles of socio-political struggle — which are particularly intense in Ecuador and Haiti (as well as Chile, more recently) — indicate that popular resistances are rising up today in the face of this neoliberal offensive, its agenda, and the international organizations that are driving it. These struggles raise the need for popular movements and Latin American critical thought to reflect on today’s reality, the patterns of these processes, and the possible paths and futures for emancipatory labour.
Read Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research’s new dossier: Latin America and the Caribbean: Between the Neoliberal Offensive and New Resistances.

Bartolina Sisa, 1753–1782.
“Beginning with a journey through the history of Latin American thought, this dossier examines the current political context in Latin America and the Caribbean, proposing to identify some of the patterns, questions, and central focal points that are raised today in emancipatory thought and action. The text raises an agenda of essential questions for reflection and debate in critical thought, from an analysis of the characteristics that the conservative neoliberal offensive has taken on to the indications of new popular resistances and the political disputes that are developing in the region.” — José Seoane, Coordinator of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (Buenos Aires)

Berta Cáceres, 1971–2016.
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is an international, movement-driven institution that carries out empirically based research guided by political movements. We seek to bridge gaps in our knowledge about the political economy as well as social hierarchy that will facilitate the work of our political movements and involve ourselves in the “battle of ideas” to fight against bourgeois ideology that has swept through intellectual institutions from the academy to the media.
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Media Contact: Luciana@thetricontinental.org
