Introduction to the Special Section: Social Movements and Social Emancipation in Latin America

Abstract

‘Emancipation’ remains marginal as a theme within Latin American studies (LAS) with the focus on questions of institutional politics, democracy, democratization, citizenship and development. Yet for the past two decades social movements have been articulating new imaginaries, ideas and practices beyond traditionally conceived frameworks of social change. They are anticipating alternative arrangements towards a dignified collective life. In these alternative possibilities, emancipation does not allude to a revolutionary process to take the power of the state, but denotes other horizons that in principle transcend the state as the main locus of struggle. These movements pose methodological, theoretical and epistemological challenges to the study of Latin America.