Independence and Emancipation: Latin American Theorizations on the Concept of Autonomy

Abstract

From the 1990’s to the present, Latin America has been, as no other region in the world, a laboratory of autonomies —explicit or implicitly framed as such— situated in the cycle of anti-neoliberal struggles. Faced with this historical-political context, in this text we re-examine the conceptualization and theorizations around the idea of autonomy. Based on a review of the major Latin American conceptual contributions, we have organized our reflections along five lines of theorization: autonomy understood as negation, as independence, as counter-power (and as popular power), as emancipation and as community.