Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The precarious working conditions of journalists within the violent context of Mexico have influenced the emergence of new digital media as separate actors which prioritize civic commitment to editorial autonomy. This type of journalism is classified as “alternative”. Based on the analysis of ZonaDocs and Tráfico ZMG in terms of agenda, coverage approach, organization, management and guiding principles of the medium, we propose a situated definition of alternative journalism and study the challenges it faces to maintain and consolidate its work. The mixed methodology used here is based on semi-structured interviews and content analysis; the theoretical framework draws on the contributions of studies on media systems and the sociology of news production. Findings include the fact that independence, civility and collaboration are derived from the performance of ZonaDocs and Tráfico ZMG in three strategic spheres that confirm their alternative nature: the economic one, which affects its editorial autonomy; that of the assumption of professional roles, which starts from understanding journalistic work from the perspective of social commitment; and the organizational one, derived from horizontal work schemes, cooperation networks and citizen participation.

In Mexico City, for a long time, the relationship between indigenous peoples and local governments was marked by invisibility and a legal and institutional gap. In recent years, this relationship has been disrupted due to institutional and political changes in the city government. This article analyzes the processes of redefining the notion of ‘urban indigenous’ in the city between 1997 and 2018, as well as its materialization in discursive frameworks that sustain the notions of place, rights and participation spaces for those defined as indigenous and original peoples. It uses a mixed methodology based on revising government programs and reports, local and federal legislation, and profound interviews. Findings include that the transition from the place of the indigenous people as a vulnerable and/or rural to the recognition of their rights may increase the complexity of government mechanisms but does not imply a change in the subordinate and restricted place these groups occupy in relation with the rest of urban inhabitants.

In a historical context in which the perspectives afforded by globalization are extremely uncertain, national demarcation has re-emerged as an advantageous sphere from which to define political projects, on both the left and the right of the ideological spectrum. This overwhelming reality demands that we pay attention to the foundations of what philosopher Étienne Balibar called ‘the nation form.’ For this purpose, this paper aims to outline this thinker’s foundational conceptualization of the nation. Taking one of his most well-known essays (The Nation Form: History and Ideology) as a point of departure, the following pages will underscore the conditions of possibility of the nation, whether they be ‘hard’ (the development of the capitalist economy on a world-wide scale) or ‘soft’ (the ideological processes by which national subjectivity is shaped). Lastly, it shall examine Balibar’s reflections regarding the class element, considered to be constitutive to any national community.

This article aims to analyze the school careers of immigrant students and determine to what extent some sociodemographic variables (gender, origin, length of stay in Spain or mother tongue) affect these careers. From a study involving 172 students (52.3 % female, 47.6 % male) aged between 6 and 16 years (M= 12.6; SD = .79) we analyze four aspects: 1) the mobility of the centers through which these students traversed, 2) the suitability rate or the grade in which they have attended school and its relationship with chronological age, 3) the grade repetition rate, and 4) the graduation rate or the higher grade they achieve in their schooling. The results indicate the diversity of school trajectories and that these are related to variables such as gender and mother tongue. Finally, some practical implications to improve the successful schooling of immigrant students are discussed.

El presente ensayo pretende abordar la fase del análisis de los datos que se generan en un estudio de caso (EC) desde un modelo de diseño inscrito en la tradición sociológica. Dos motivos justifican el enfoque en esta instancia: 1) son pocos los estudios o análisis que reflexionan sobre la instancia de procesamiento de los datos en un ec y 2) gran parte de los razonamientos académicos existentes se concentran mayoritariamente en los estudios de caso etnográficos.

Sumak kawsay socialism, or good living socialism, is one of the three schools of political thought of sumak kawsay which first appeared in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The idea of good living is currently re-emerging in debates on how to build a new post-pandemic world. Sumak kawsay socialism, however, has remained on the sidelines of the political landscape and academic discussions. In its place, twenty-first century socialism has once again reappeared as the socialist proposal to create and organize a new system. This paper will analyze which practical and theoretical weaknesses and contradictions have led to the disappearance of good living socialism from political and intellectual debates. It concludes that intellectuals from different branches of socialism used sumak kawsay/good living as a “key symbol” to take advantage of the social, economic, political, and environmental situation in Ecuador and Bolivia in order to seize power.

Current critical junctures suggest the need for a progressive policy change in the United States. From the approach of historical institutionalism, the political possibilities of the Green New Deal as progressive political change are discussed. A case study with comparative perspective of the great progressive stages—the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the Green New Deal—is conducted in order to study the schisms, dependent political trajectories, mechanisms of reinforcement and reproduction, and political legacies of each period. Its main finding is that it is the differences in the political design, such as the ambiguity of consisting only of a resolution and its decentralized and autonomous community-based implementation mechanisms, explain the distrust of moderate sectors and the low institutional success of the Green New Deal initiative compared to initiatives of the other reformist eras.

The racialization of indigenous work is a highly relevant issue for understanding the persistence of colonial asymmetries and inequalities in Latin America. This article proposes a classification system for job segments and profiles in a traditionally invisible group: Mapuche women residing in the La Araucanía region (Chile). Our proposal consists of a typology of seven profiles constructed with a set of labor, demographic, and socio-economic variables. We begin by developing the relevance of the present study through a discussion of different approaches, including from precariousness, intersectionality, and racialization. We then present the results produced by combining multiple correspondence analysis and cluster k-means. The article ends with defining the scope and limitations of this proposal, as well as the lines of research and public policy discussion that stem from the results.

Along with big data, platforms, and users, algorithms are the primary communication elements of digital culture. This article presents a literature systematization that analyses the relationship between algorithms, society, and culture. It places the subject in the context of cultural studies and digital communication, primarily focusing on automated recommendation systems used on social platforms. This analysis draws from the consideration of algorithms as sociotechnical assemblies that include a broad set of human and non-human actors. Then, it introduces the conceptual bases of the critical studies of algorithms and the most frequent study issues in the area: power and agency, algorithmic visibility and biases, and the methodological trends aimed at their empirical study. It presents a path to deepen the knowledge about the subject despite its opacity, and the tensions between the platforms’ algorithmic power and the users’ agency, as well as their action and interaction possibilities with devices that automate processes and prioritize information.

The present work evaluates the modes of action that integrate the online and offline dimensions of political participation. Offline political participation is composed of two general subdimensions: conventional participation and political protest. On the other hand, online participation operates through a low-cost (soft) and a high-cost (hard) modality. The analyses were conducted with a sample of 1 136 persons of the Metropolitan District of Quito, Ecuador. The strategy to verify the raised hypotheses was based on the comparison of different factorial models by confirmatory factorial analysis. The multidimensional nature of political participation and its implications in the current context of Latin America are discussed.