Presentation

Abstract

The works featured in this issue of FIGURAS REVISTA ACADÉMICA DE INVESTIGACIÓN share a critical perspective committed to the defense of human rights and social transformation. Drawing on diverse disciplinary approaches, the contributions examine how cultural, institutional, political, and legal structures affect specific groups and propose pathways for fostering meaningful change.

The articles included in the Perspectives section demonstrate how different disciplines can contribute to understanding and addressing complex social issues. In “Genealogical Narrative Series,” Mabel Arellano Luna analyzes a textile graphic series through the lens of affect theory and autobiographical narrative, showing how art can become a process of memory, resilience, and mourning. In “The Violentometer…,” Yazmín Victoria Rocha Román and Mónica Vázquez Hernández examine obstetric violence during the perinatal period from the perspectives of public health and women’s rights, with the aim of developing educational tools to identify, measure, and prevent violent practices. In “The Production of the Migration–Terrorism Nexus in the United States (2001–2025),” Víctor Villareal Cabello investigates the political construction of the link between migration and terrorism, explaining how anti-terrorist discourse has been used to legitimize punitive immigration policies and restrict fundamental rights despite insufficient causal evidence. Finally, in “Collective Intellectual Property,” Nancy Jazmín Pérez Ramírez and Juan Manuel Ortega Maldonado compare intellectual property frameworks applicable to Indigenous communities in order to assess their potential as tools for economic development and intercultural dialogue.

The Scenes section brings together a collection of essays united by a common concern: understanding the structural transformations taking place across Latin America and the Caribbean in the context of a global polycrisis, characterized by the convergence of economic, political, ecological, geopolitical, epistemic, and civilizational crises. These essays open a space for interdisciplinary reflection that engages with the tradition of Latin American social thought while proposing new frameworks for interpretation and action in response to contemporary challenges. In doing so, they seek to strengthen the critical capacity of knowledge production and renew the epistemological foundations through which the Latin American social subject is understood and constituted.

Finally, the Resonance section presents two critical reviews. In the first, Fernando Martínez Vázquez discusses the book Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices (2019), highlighting its principal contributions for scholars of communication, anthropology, and the social sciences. In the second, Jorge Olvera examines the origins, objectives, participants, and achievements of the research seminar The Strange Courtship of Another World: Fantastic Narratives and Poetics of Otherness, held at the Facultad de Estudios Superiores (FES Acatlán). Together, these reviews constitute an exercise in academic outreach that showcases initiatives dedicated to the study of culture and human practices.