Presentation

Life’s spaces and the human condition of science

Paloma Marín Escobar, Andrés Alfredo Castrillón Castrillón

Proper way to cite this article in APA style:

Marín Escobar, P., & Castrillón Castrillón, A. F. (2024). Life’s spaces and the human condition of science [Presentation]. Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales, 15(2), 422-425. https://doi.org/10.21501/22161201.5029

Trying to narrow down into a reflection what the four decades that the Luis Amigó Catholic University commemorates this year has meant turns out complex; what one can do is approach from one’s own experience to the elaboration of a judgment, undoubtedly crossed by memory that, most of the time, does not do justice to what it is trying to name or to the subjects, and each vital project, who have inhabited the university space, either as students, as teachers, in support of general services or from the administrative side. The common ground that accompanies whatever the trajectory that has been conceived here, and that feeds from the foundations, like the root to the tree with its fruits, is life. This has been a place for life from its multiple and endless enigmatic faces. Thus, the mission of the University as a proposal to enhance the most human face of life, in the midst of the unfortunate, hostile and unsettling times that surround the context and pulsate under the lacerated soil of our country; but also, illuminating where hope and the sense of community, coexistence and development of dignity appear in the intimate space of each subject and in the social future.

The fact that a project such as the one from Fray Luis Amigó has survived all the political junctures of recent decades only means that our society is always in need and in this place finds a way to see the horizon, to reconcile the outside with the inside, and arise commitments with humanity and with science, with ourselves and with the other who mirrors our own nature to the point of move us towards the common good, because that other is, has been and always will be a patented, material and vibrant exteriority of the fragmented self that we all are. Fray Luis Amigó’s project has allowed these others to have a face: the weak, the oppressed, the alienated, the foreigner, the nameless, the one who moves his lips for the need to speak and to find someone to listen to him; without going to the detriment of the structuring of an individuality willing to act and form a path in coherence with his natural desires and inclinations.

The University must always resemble life, both because of the relationships that are woven within it and more because it is not limited to the impetus for the formation of subjects who are expected to be proactive and productive in society, but rather, it fosters being people, returning science to its human condition. The Luis Amigó Catholic University is a space of life and has transmitted that feeling to those who are linked to it; over the years it has overcome the prejudice of the impersonal nature of the institutional condition, or the power relations that exist within any academic space; instead, there are grooves of real exchange and mutual growth in favor of training with a social sense, in context, of a critical and scientific nature with the sole purpose of transforming humanity.

For all of the above, it is worth mentioning here that working with knowledge and generating scientific content brings with it the need to think about the human condition itself. Agents, media, trainers and researchers have a responsibility, not only to academia, but even more so to society. The products of science must respond to the most primitive and original concerns of humanity or at least ask about it, since the question is always the southeastern path of thought and if Kundera said that love can arise from a metaphor, we will say that from a question the most human thing can arise from the exercise of thinking, a human science, because the question returns us to the origin, reconciles us with our nature and makes us indissoluble with the other and with the other, beyond the indiscriminate pointing out of objects of study, science is born from a question about something else that exceeds us, but that also providing us sense, meaning and dignity. Proof of this are the contributions that complete our number.

Regarding the works of this volume 15, number 2, we have the editorial “Teaching in the “Post-conflict” era in Colombia” by Jaime Gómez Díaz, Fredy Quiroz Guzmán, Yosimar Rojas Torres and Carlos Alberto Gómez Díaz, focused on the relevance of the role of teachers for education in the Colombian post-conflict areas. Since they have been, together with the students and other residents of the areas that were affected by the conflict, in the midst of the events of reality and the particular difficulties of each place. As the authors acknowledge, an education that addresses unique problems and the way in which they are addressed and redirected to education is necessary and relevant.

In the research articles we begin with “Configuration and local processes of organized criminal violence: the Guaymas-Empalme case, in northern Mexico” by researchers Antonio de Jesús Barragán Bórquez and Guillermo Núñez Noriega, in which the authors inquire the violence derived from organized crime in this region of Mexico, given its complexity and the social effects observed in the place. We follow up with the article “Conflicts and moral dilemmas faced by rural extension workers in their daily professional practice: a qualitative study in Caldas, Colombia” by Marlon Javier Méndez Sastoque, which had the purpose of describing and carrying out a typological analysis of the problems that arise in the daily duties of extension agents with people who are part of their work team or with whom they have some relationship; they conclude that these practices not only involve labor and economic aspects, but also moral ones.

The researchers Iñigo Rodríguez Torre, Maria Dosil Santamaría, Monike Gezuraga Amundarain and Leire Darretxe Urrutxi in their work “EducaBlog": contribution to social education from professional profile”, propose to analyze, from a phenomenological approach, the contribution to learning and professionalization of the users of the Educablog educational strategy, highlighting the impact of this strategy on the professional and personal lives of the users. The article “Synergies between rural schools and Asturian local entities” by Nerea López Bouzas, M. Esther Del Moral Pérez, Jonathan Castañeda Fernández, M. Rosario Neira Piñeiro studies, using a mixed methodology, the collaborative projects carried out between asturian rural schools and local entities. The authors spotlight the positive results of this work and present the evaluations of the members. For their part, Mariana Beatriz López, Leandro Drivet and María Laura Schaufler in the article “Experiences of Argentine childhoods in the context of the pandemic: an approach through the analysis of drawings” explored, through the study of the stories and drawings, the experiences of boys and girls from the Argentine coast, as well as their perceptions and experiences to determine their vulnerability and the potential development of mental health problems during confinement.

In the article by Andrés Mahecha Ovalle “Nominal treatment formulas of Colombian YouTubers” he studies this type of formulas used by young people in their communicative interaction on the YouTube platform, to do so he analyzes the extralinguistic variables of sex (gender), age and place of origin. The research conclusions indicate that the nominal treatment of these young people is restricted compared to other social groups. The research work “Experience of the covid-19 phenomenon in the context of marital relationships and parent-child relationships” by Victoria Eugenia Cabrera García, Darlaine Betzabeth Erasmus Guedez, Junny Stefany Jiménez Muñoz and María del Carmen Docal Millán, aimed to explain the family conflicts during confinement, both marital and those derived from accompanying parents in their children’s school activities; Its reference points were anxiety, parental stress and rough interaction.

The purpose of the work “Making a desired name: identity narratives in young students from private universities who have committed transgressive criminal acts” by Santiago Bahamonde Olaya and Wilson Andrés Amariles Villegas, was to configure these identity narratives, in such sense, using the: narrative through life stories method, they interviewed young people who had committed a criminal act and investigated the transformations they had as a result of said experience.

Finally, the work “Structure of research works for degrees in master’s programs in depth: case of administrative sciences” by Jhony Alexander Barrera Lievano, Jesús Beltrán Virgüez, Sandra Patricia Parada Fonseca, aimed to propose a structure for the works degree, master’s degree modality in depth, for administrative sciences and in accordance with the guidelines given by Colombia’s Ministry of National Education.

Theoretical article

In this issue the article “Ways of approaching disability in indigenous peoples” is published. A proposal for critical interculturality” by Michelle Lapierre, who through a relevant study, discusses the different ways of approaching the understanding of disability in indigenous peoples, since these can occur in different ways depending on the epistemological position in which the relationship between cultures is based. The author emphasizes that these approaches have consequences both in academia and in the territories.

Reflection articles

As for the reflection articles, we begin with “University to feel-think and cosmo perceive. Afro Descendants in Colombia” by researcher Liliana Parra Valencia, whose purpose is to problematize racism and inequality with black people in higher education. For this reason, she evokes African, afro-diasporic and indigenous knowledge that had been excluded by modern rationality and proposes that the university must be rethought based on the notions of feel-thinking and cosmoperceiving. The work, “Theory of mind: network of complex processes woven in intersubjective experience” by Diana Marcela Bedoya Gallego, Maira Alejandra González Gaviria and Jorge Enrique Palacio Sañudo, aimed to reflect on the relevance of the dialogue between the approach of the Theory of Mind the mind from the cognitive tradition and its implications in the intersubjective context to expand and explain the aspects of the early mother-child bond. This issue closes with the article “Liberal thought in Latin America after the Independence” by Christian Paúl Naranjo Navas, which analyzes, through a historiographic and hermeneutic methodology, the understanding and adaptation of the political and economic ideas of classical liberalism after independence, in Latin America in the 19th century.

As for other endeavors, we thank those who are and have been part of the editorial processes, as well as those who send their articles, or read those that are published and contribute to the continuity of the work of the Colombian Journal of Social Sciences. It is in favor of an academic community that the work of the journals completes their reason why.