The Latin American and global contexts have undergone various changes as a result of the ongoing consequences of the pandemic and the array of issues that have emerged amidst the contradictory and unsettling scenario of the present. The emergence of new conflicts on the global stage, the worldwide energy crisis, environmental problems, and the stark evidence of the fragility of human life, along with the multidimensional nature of the difficulties that persisted before and during the pandemic, point to a present in which, alongside the hope for the transformation of Latin American and Caribbean social realities, there is also a need for the reaffirmation of peace from and within these territories, the unleashing of a spirituality that embraces new ways of being beyond the anthropocentric model, and the shaping of new embodiments that configure alternative ways of living, where diverse forms of knowledge converge within a pluralistic world like our own.

In this context, it is essential to recognize, within the interaction between territorialities, spiritualities, and bodies, three fundamental dimensions for understanding the unsettling nature of the present: the relationship between peace and territorialization, the connection between the corporeal and the molecular, and the interaction between spirituality and the construction of ways of living. This is because, amidst the multidimensional nature of the crises affecting Latin America—such as food insecurity, the need to configure alternative forms of existence, and the presence of diverse knowledge emerging from territories and within the struggles waged by various social movements in their micropolitical endeavors—it becomes necessary to rethink how, from the perspective of the body, spirituality, and territorialities, it is possible not only to conceive of alternative forms of resistance, but also the complex connections between research, academia, social movements, and the development of public policies aimed at building solidarity-based societies mediated by affect and critical thinking.

The pandemic, as became evident during the three-year period 2019–2022 and as documented in the macro-research project *Memories of a Pandemic*, was configured both as a problematization that required critical frameworks to invent new concepts and, above all, to engage directly with the daily lives of individuals in their communities, and as an event whose effects and consequences did not end with the lifting of lockdowns, but rather left a trail of problematizations that must be explored in greater depth to account for the problematic nature of the present. Thus, in matters such as embodiment, the molecular and its transposition into the universe of data, and the understanding of existence at an informational—algorithmic—biological level… Genetics, while remaining connected to the sociocultural, became visible as part of a panorama in which life today is woven, even in power relations, amidst microscopic spaces that demand new perspectives, methodological fictionalizations, and critical approaches capable of confronting a biopolitics intertwined with information schemes and the order of molecules. Meanwhile, in the case of territorialities, the pandemic revealed the existence of new territories and, with the emergence of energy and environmental crises, a scenario in which new struggles arise over issues such as food sovereignty, land tenure, and the configuration of territorializations of peace within the framework of the conflicts that have emerged during the conjunctures of the past year. In the realm of spiritualities, given the post-pandemic crises, the convergence of knowledge and commitments to different ways of living has allowed for the configuration of diverse possibilities for organizing life as a creative force, a continuum of nature. culture and openness to the affirmative and the power of affections.

Now, within this landscape, marked, as noted, by new conflicts but also by the hope for change reflected in the growing strength of collectives, social movements, and new consciousnesses that emerged amidst the pandemic, a fundamental element appears, becoming a central axis for establishing the necessary connections within the relationship between territories, spiritualities, and bodies in order to critically engage with the present. This element is the question of care, which, beyond the conceptual dimensions in which it has traditionally been framed, now takes on new possibilities. It is situated both within the realm of the question of care for those who care and the act of caring itself, and in the ways in which care is integrated with territories, spiritualities, and bodies, allowing us to establish relationships and intersections among three elements that constitute the contradictory nature of the present.

In the first instance, regarding the relationship between the body and the molecular, which is directly associated with the emerging corporealities of the present and which became visible with the pandemic, care becomes a fundamental element. This is because it involves entering into dialogue with questions such as the "self" and the relationship with caring for others, understanding that the body today is no longer considered solely in a biological, mechanical dimension, but rather in a molecular nature in terms of code. Thus, care reveals itself as the element that allows us to confront the potential forms of governance that appear with a biopolitics written directly on the codes of life and which, as the pandemic revealed, require critical thinking in terms of convergence, capable of integrating the medical, the technological, the economic, the social, and, in general, all the dimensions in which the power of bodies resides and their capacity to also be the starting point for possible resistances in molecular times.

Secondly, regarding territoriality, the present reveals a set of conditions that necessitate revisiting the implications of territory and concepts such as territorialization as starting points for establishing social transformations based on building territories of peace. These territories should foster dialogue among different forms of knowledge and a commitment to territorializations where diversity and micropolitics converge. Thus, the task of care is precisely to consolidate the conditions for expanding and sustaining the value of the ideas that emerged in the streets, ideas that transform territory, even in its symbolic dimension, into a space of care, a space for defending the land, and a space for expanding the relationship between justice, memory, and peace.

Finally, in the case of spiritualities, which are absolutely necessary to establish new ways of life, care raises the possibility of creating other forms of existence that involve questioning new incarnations and definitions of life, on which it is possible to establish the bases of public policy in which the spiritual ceiling is precisely the affirmation of existence and the configuration of that common horizon in which knowledge and ways of living converge and intersect to reaffirm existence as a field of possibility amidst the multidimensional crises of the post-pandemic era and the emergence of the conjunctures that arise in the present.

Analyzing the problematizations of the present, which arise amidst current crises, becomes a primary objective of the work promoted by the Working Group, in accordance with the conceptual perspectives linked to the configuration of a critical convergence position (Piedrahita, 2021), beyond disciplinary boundaries, where academia engages in dialogue with the social world in a process open to diverse forms of knowledge. This critical exercise, in turn, allows for the configuration of complex relationships with the arena of public policy management processes, so that, amidst the current changes resulting from various social struggles in Latin America, a direct relationship between academia and the configuration of public policies becomes possible, imbued with a different spirituality, new possible territorializations, and a necessary perspective on the transformation of bodies and subjectivities following the crises inherent in the pandemic.

The pandemic context was the subject of numerous reflections and critical stances throughout its development and in the different phases that followed the declaration of global lockdowns in 2020 (Agamben, Han, Zizek, 2020; De Sousa Santos, 2020). Following this scenario, which affected all dimensions of the social, economic, political, and cultural spheres, new problems are now emerging, along with the characteristics of what has been termed the post-pandemic era. These problems are linked to the set of changes that occurred both before and during the pandemic. This is the case of the complex interaction between subjects and technologies (which modifies the notion of corporeality in a molecular and algorithmic order), the reconfiguration of territorialities (where possible reterritorializations emerge from peace) and the appearance of the need to consolidate different ways of living, with a spirituality alternative to the governmentalities that organize life under market logics and not in the view of existence as a life, with all its power and its constant becoming.

In this framework, in which new conditions of biopolitics appear (Rose, 2012), but also other dimensions of the political from the affirmative (Braidotti, 2018), forming a paradoxical and crisis context, present even before the pandemic and reinforced by the consequences left by the pandemic event itself, it is necessary, among other tasks, to promote the processes of dialogue and recognition of diverse knowledge and forms of knowledge through the consolidation of critical convergence processes that allow the construction of complex interactions between diverse modes of knowledge that lead to the overcoming of disciplinary boundaries and enable interaction between multiple fields as a response to the complex nature of contemporary problematizations. All of this without neglecting the fact that, to meet these challenges, the role of an issue such as care is fundamental, which not only had an important place during the pandemic but, currently, implies the necessary task of thinking about other dimensions of what the act of caring represents and the questions that are revealed not only about those who receive care, but also about those who care and in turn about the ways in which care can serve as an element of convergence to analyze the processes that occur in bodies, territories and spiritualities.

Now, although it may seem like a recent development, the question of caring for caregivers is as old as the historical emergence of the concept itself. In other words, understanding the ethical and political problems inherent in caregiving inevitably led to the question of caring for the caregiver. However, the historical evolution of the relationship between caring for others and caring for the caregiver also involves the various modifications that the idea of ​​the "self" has undergone, since the relationship between care and self-care, which would later give rise to the obsessive concerns of our present, only emerged a couple of decades ago. This means that caring for the caregiver has not always been conceived as "self-care" because the notion of "self," despite its origins in ancient Greek philosophy, acquires its meaning from modern ontological debates as the concept of "being that I am" is configured. as a unity perceived by consciousness and as a condition for relating to the world and others (Foucault, 2002), (Ricoeur, 2003). Another way of saying this is that the question of caring for caregivers involves ontological, ethical, and political elements derived from the historical development of the notion of "subject," of "self," which are in turn accompanied by specific concerns for care that takes the form of hygiene, population control, or, in our time, prevention of contagion, but also of flourishing and vital fulfillment. It would then be possible to account for the care/self-care relationship by analyzing the actions and practices carried out on themselves by those who assume caregiving responsibilities for others.

The GT's proposal thus recognizes the relationships that emerge when considering care and self-care as a set of practices that subjects perform on themselves, which we will understand here as "reflexive practice" (Foucault, 2003), whether through their own ethical effort or shaped by governmental techniques, which we will call "governmentality." This dual movement, both reflexive and governmental, would be susceptible to a historical analysis that would make its configuration visible in order to establish the possibilities for modifying the context in which they operate, an exercise that we will understand in this research as "a critique of the imaginary of care." Insofar as a critical exercise consists of making the present and the context in which the problematization emerges intelligible, this mode of knowledge ends up being a strategic variable in subjective struggles and their articulations with the control of governmental devices or modalities: "critique is the movement by which the subject claims the right to question truth about its effects of power and power about its discourses of truth." (Foucault, 2018, p 52). This critique would allow caregivers to question their reflexive practices in the care-self-care interaction, the role they play in them in terms of the management of people and populations, the limits and scope that have been constructed around the imaginary of care, and the possibilities of subjective and contextual modification and transformation.

In this sense, in the interaction between care and embodiment, the body is understood as a space of possibility in terms of its potential, so that, in its textual and molecular nature, the body experiences self-care and care for others as resistance to embodiments produced by algorithmic design and programming. Meanwhile, in the relationship between care and territorialities, the conceptual approach is linked to the struggles that have emerged in and from territories in defense of and pursuit of peace based on principles of justice, solidarity, and other ways of understanding life, so that care becomes the axis of connection and sustainability in the construction of territorializations of peace. And finally, in the interaction between care and spirituality, in relation to new governmental modalities characteristic of the present, care emerges as a possibility for constructing spiritual frameworks linked to the possibility of creating new ways of living in connection with dialogues of knowledge, the spread of critical thinking, and the configuration of a logic of multiplicity that multiplies.