Editoral | Latin America: you are here!
Abstract
The primary purpose of the call for papers "Latin America: you are here!", which results in this journal issue now released, was to call on researchers in the region to include awareness of the place where we are in their academic discourses and procedures, and also to consider that our research projects make up, contribute to and derive from the fact that they are housed, in multiple aspects, in the socio-cultural sphere of Latin America. If, on the one hand, the difficulty of many of us in recognizing and dealing with this fact seems enormous, on the other hand, given the current process of redrawing forces on a planetary scale, it is urgent to recognize, claim, value, and qualify our intra-regional relations, as well as with the rest of the world. To be in Latin America, as Adrián Gorelik reminds us in the interview he generously gave us, is to be in the Extreme West described by Alain Rouquié, which implies being specific, regional, Western, and, still and above all and always, actors in the Global South.
We received contributions from several countries on the continent during the entire production process of this edition. Hundreds of authors answered our call, and as many reviewers helped us select and prepare the twenty-three works that we proudly share here with the academic community. Despite being largely authored by Brazilian researchers, they approach and discuss with interest and competence the current realities of various countries, transversal themes of the continent, at different scales, through often innovative procedures.
At the invitation of the Editorial Committee, urbanism historian Adrián Gorelik, Professor Emeritus at the National University of Quilmes, Argentina, builds a plural and attentive reading of the central theme of the issue in the interview In the edge of the West, given to Marcelo Tramontano and Mario Vallejo.
The circulation of ideas on the continent and resulting dynamics is explored, in a central way, in three works: Latin America as an “island”: A libertarian utopian project, by Cláudia Gonçalves Felipe, Avant-garde in Latin America: Manuel Bandeira in the universal localism, by Brenda Leite, and Theories of gentrification: A study on their application in the Global South, by Marina Diógenes.
The Latin American city is examined from different points of view through manifold methodologies. A historical perspective in Madres de Plaza de Mayo: Narrative and spatial strategies, by Isadora Monteiro, a teaching-learning process in Arquisur Virtual Networked Studio: a Latin American chair, by Fernando Martin Speranza, Helena Ayoub Silva, Roberto Londoño, and Lucimeire de Lima, a field survey in Intergenerational urban dynamics: territoriality and Covid-19, by Thais Libardoni and Lígia Chiarelli, an examination of principles and legislation in Right to the city and buen vivir: Latin American dialogue and affect, by Liana de Viveiros e Oliveira, Adriana Lima and Julia Dell'Orto, and a comparative reflection between metropolises in Collective of dependent infrastructures: disenchantment and deviation, by Cauê Capillé, Luísa Gonçalves and Thiago de Soveral.
Two works seek to relate the region to the world in different movements. From the outside in, with architecture as a lens – Casa Wabi Foundation: Tadao Ando, Álvaro Siza, and Kengo Kuma in Mexico, by Thaís Piffano Oliveira and Fabiola Zonno. And from the inside out, with Design as a path: Design as a competitiveness strategy for internationalization, by Laercio Marques da Silva, Camilla Cavalcanti, Otávio Oliveira, and Fernando Linhares.
The theme of housing is approached in distinct and yet complementary spheres. From the point of view of public housing policies in Thinking critically about Brazilian and Chilean housing policies, by Veronica Donoso and Carolina Arrau, from the perspective of popular occupations in metropolises in Between the barriadas of Lima and the occupations of Belo Horizonte, by Leticia Notini and Tiago Lourenço, and on the vernacular housing model in the Amazon region in Spatial representations by the usage in the traditional Amazonian dwelling, by Izabel de Oliveira Nascimento and Ana Kláudia Perdigão.
Similarly, the design of settlements peculiar to the continent's history is focused on four works. The design of precise interventions in collaboration with Andean communities in PICO Colectivo as a design methodology for fragile territories, by Mariana Sant'Anna and Vera Luz – in the Project section –, the design of camps for Venezuelan refugees in Humanitarian architecture and sheltering in Latin America, by Vera Hazan, the design of urban environmental devices in Jardim Pantanal: Instrumenting a hydrographic basin, by Nelson Brissac Peixoto and Alexandre Gonçalves, and the controlled and relational design of Jesuit reductions across Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, in the article Jesuit reductions as a system: a necessary review, by Nomads.usp researchers Sandra Soster and Anja Pratschke.
Issues of gender and coping with colonizing processes are approached in two works: A Latin transformism: Bartolina Xixa and the micropolitical insurrection, by Douglas Ostruca, and The butt spatialization and the resexualization of the city, by Ana Paula Boscatti. The latter composes together with three other contributions a series of four works that we have grouped in the Carpet section. Here, the image is at the center of the language chosen for the construction of information at different levels – artistic, journalistic, advertising, and in audiovisual, photographic, or collage formats. They are Rarefactions: using art to exhibit human contamination, by Ana Cecilia Parrodi, The interculturality of the Lavagem do Bonfim of Bahia festival, by Atílio Avancini, and Latin America in gestures, by Samira Proêza.
We wish you all an excellent reading.
