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

This article makes a brief balance of the work of the Catalan historian Josep Fontana, and in particular of some of the points that we consider to be of greatest interest from the wide range of analytical possibilities that his work allows us. At first we will collect his discussion in relation to historiographic currents, within the framework of the end of state socialism in the early 1990s. Later we will stop at a perhaps not so well known aspect of his thought, but not for that less important and to which I dedicate a considerable part of my reflections: the teaching of history. Finally, we will comment on some of his main proposals in relation to the renewal of the historian's profession and his intellectual and social role in contemporary society. The article ends with some conclusions, among which the relationship between political commitment and social utility that should characterize the historian's work stands out.

This article analyzes an Embera healing chant through participant observation in Caimalito, Colombia. Jaibanism, a term derived from the Embera shaman or jaibaná, is a phenomenon that has implications for activities that go beyond the healing. It is a conception of the world and an important source of power in a world of social, natural, spiritual forces. Here, we propose to analyze the particularities of this song in a mestizo township. The first part describes a healing ceremony with a jaibaná in the Caimalito district through an ethnographic immersion. In the second, the changes and continuities with the ethnographic literature of Jaibanism are discussed.

This paper proposes a reflection on the relationship settled between science and occultism in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries in Argentina. It is based on the analysis of the stories El Psychon by Leopoldo Lugones, and El hombre artificial by Horario Quiroga. These short forms of literature which belong to the fantasy genre -more specifically, to the scientist fantasy genre – make possible the analysis and the problematization of the objective and universalist character of the modern science, that has been covered by the underlying interests of the scientist advances that pretend to improve “the human”, an idea that has been extended in what is known today as transhumanism, which in the same way, validates multiples sinister practices and narratives being worthy to be approached from a critic perspective. If the transhumanism could be thought as a fantastic narrative, due to its current fictional condition, it is important to discuss their implications on a social outlook, with the aim to reflect about the dynamics of the necessary experiments to get to that utopian state of humanity, as well as, the possible reconfigurations of an ontological and ideological order that involve human and no-human lives.

The phenomenon of agrarian colonization in the Sarare region (department of Arauca, Colombia) has been fundamental for the social construction of the territory. The native vegetation canopy began to be replaced by communication routes and settlements established by the first pioneers, adapting to the pre-existing environmental conditions, and which determined the change in economic activities, from the establishment of large areas of cattle exploitation to the expansion of extractivism sponsored by the Colombian State. In this article we will show, through the collection of primary information, participant observation and the review of secondary sources, the impact of the colonization on the agrarian structure of the Sarare, between 1960 and 1990, and the local accounts about the resulting crisis of the transformation of nature for the benefit of large capital interests, a problem that remains in force and is accentuated by the neoliberal and anti-insurgent policies of the national governments.

Technique, science and technology, throughout the history of humanity, have played a fundamental role, not only because of the benefits that their development has brought with it, either because individuals can see them for themselves, or because the externality of which they are a part has forced them to see it that way, but also because of the effects they cause, directly and indirectly; or simply because such advances cannot even be accessed, because they are not for everyone. The automation of the operational workforce is one of these scientific-technological advances that have taken the essence of technology to a new level, technifying life, social interactions and the functions performed by humans. In order to dispense with the human, where everything and everyone is replaceable, where the care of the other and of the other is not conceived; where consumption, increased productivity and the attainment of wealth for a few are promoted. And, consequently, the increase in poverty, the widening of the gap and technological illiteracy, among other deleterious effects. This writing makes an analysis of the automation of employment, the external factors that have influenced technological progress and the part that few recognize or highlight of automation, the displacement of the human being at the hands of technology, its already evident consequences and of the possible future.

Every day the number of people, households and companies using devices with an Internet connection is increasing. This shows that the social impact of the tools offered by the Internet of Things extends to the whole world, the access and use of these technologies change social interactions in a country, in a community and between individuals. This article presents a conceptual reflection on the social impact of the internet of things, as a megatrend of the fourth industrial revolution (Schwab, 2016). Through a rigorous documentary exploration, the debate regarding ignoring or studying the social impact is proposed and the literature used is consolidated in plausible assumptions to deepen the investigation in the next future.

This article is an invitation to think critically about one of the main modalities of expression and institutionalization of bioethics in Latin America: the so-called Research Ethics Committees. Based on experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic in Argentina and the environmental, social, political, and economic particularities of our region, the main objective of the work is to uncover and expose an ethical fracture in the way in which the problems affecting the health and well-being of communities and individuals of our territories are addressed. After providing a characterization of the ethical fracture, some of its problems are presented and a set of ideas are offered that can be incorporated by Research Ethics Committees to overcome it.

The ecological crisis is a problem solvable through logical actions that must be ethically examined. Environmental ethics is hardly normative; so, we need to put into experimentation the moral assessment and the ethic opinion about those solving actions. Logical actions are consequently ethical and also generate a paradox that is rationally difficult to avoid. However, we tend to choose those actions, or other weighted ones, propelled by feelings. This choice is the main ethical dilemma between moral agents and problematic circumstances. The present essay aims to clarify it and presents the description of the fundamental ethical principles for its experimentation.