Social Movements, Crises, and Mobilizations: A Look at Summer 2019

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20919844
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Liliana Cotto Morales
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Subject Matter: Commentaries

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20919844

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 232, Vol. 47 No. 3, May 2020, 129–137

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20919844

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

129

Commentary

Social Movements, Crises, and Mobilizations

A Look at Summer 2019

by

Liliana Cotto Morales

Translated by

Victoria J. Furio

But if I have learned anything from my time in Puerto Rico,

it is the Puerto Ricans do the impossible every single day.

—Naomi Klein

Beginning in the 1990s and in the first five years of the twenty-first century, we

saw a strengthening of social movements that had achieved political space for

combating U.S. neoliberal strategies and halting the dangerous influence of big

business and capitalist governments. These movements became the protagonists

influencing state policies in several Latin American countries and other regions.

A systematic study of the knowledge produced by this resistance and insurgency

may suggest alternatives that could be transformed into solutions.

This protagonism was notable in the late 1980s because of its role in the fall

of Latin American dictatorships and of “actually existing socialism” and in the

Venezuelan Caracazo, among other iconic events. In Puerto Rico it was a decade

of disillusionment with political parties and an expansion of grassroots com-

munity work with the principles of popular education as a political option. The

visit of Paulo Freire, sponsored by a group of organizations that were part of

the Coordinadora Nacional de Educación Popular (National Popular Education

Coalition), determined for many that the way forward was organization out-

side traditional politics. This perspective gained strength during the final

decade of the twentieth century.

The World Social Forum, whose initial seat was Porto Alegre, Brazil, was an

organizational expression of the leading role of social movements on a global

scale. The role of the world, regional, and local forums in the electoral processes

Liliana Cotto Morales is an urban sociologist and professor emeritus of the University of Puerto

Rico’s School of General Studies. She is a member of the leadership team of the university’s

UNESCO Chair in Education for Peace. Victoria J. Furio is a conference interpreter and translator

located in Yonkers, NY. This commentary is based on a text prepared for the commemorative

publication of the twentieth anniversary of the UNESCO Chair on Education for Peace, and a

Spanish version has appeared in América Latina en Movimiento (February 2020).

919844LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20919844Latin American PerspectivesCotto Morales / COMMENTARY

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