The Latin America and Caribbean region exhibits the greatest inequalities on a global scale. Evidence shows that this situation specifically and asymmetrically affects children and youth (Vommaro, 2017; Vázquez, Ospina, and Domínguez, 2018), particularly in terms of access to fundamental rights, such as the recognition of their voices, their active participation, resistance, and demands. This reflects the worsening spiral of disadvantage (Bayón and Saraví, 2007), which deepens over time in situations of persistent inequality and silencing.

Thus, inequalities do not operate in isolation, but rather are articulated around a multiplicity of dimensions such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, territoriality, and generation, structuring differentiated experiences in access to rights, political participation, and the experience of both physical and symbolic violence. These precarious experiences of uncertainty and oppression can be amplified by the very actions (and omissions) of governments. Within this framework, the intersectional perspective (Crenshaw, 2002; Gonzalez, 2020; Carneiro, 2003) allows us to understand and analyze how multiple factors and conditions accumulate, producing multidimensional and multifactorial inequalities, violence, and oppression in children and youth, in scenarios of political instability where the dynamics of exclusion and resistance and re-existence are constantly under strain.

In this context, understanding the inequalities experienced by children and youth in Latin America also requires recognizing the historical, political, and epistemic frameworks that underpin them (Alvarado-Ospina et al., 2016). The power relations that structure the region both enable and limit the ways in which children and young people participate, are recognized, and develop their subjectivity and agency. As Alvarado, Ospina-Alvarado, and García (2012) point out, these historical, cultural, and political structures shape the practices and meanings from which the political subject is constituted, affecting their capacity for action in the public sphere. Thus, experiences of exclusion cannot be understood solely as material deprivation, but rather as the result of systems of meaning that define who is heard, who is represented, and who is systematically silenced. This makes evident the need to move towards critical, situated and relational readings that allow us to denaturalize traditional interpretations about childhood and youth, and to challenge the normative and political frameworks that continue to reproduce their subordination.

By restoring critical and situated perspectives, it is necessary to challenge the hegemonic narratives that unfold from various public policies, official and media discourses, which construct the categories of childhood and youth as passive, vulnerable and even dangerous actors; narratives that reinforce stereotypical and adult-centric views that only produce the intensification of the dynamics of exclusion, subalternization and vulnerability. In contrast, the production of knowledge from the epistemologies of the South and decolonial approaches - allied with collective actions, in the streets and in digital networks, driven by social movements and political-cultural activism (Borelli, Rocha and Pereira, 2025) - recover these generations as social and political actors with knowledge, practices, experiences and resistances that challenge and question hegemonic narratives (Romero, Pérez Islas, Vázquez and Valdez Gonzáles, 2024)

The current context demands special attention to the political processes of advancement and strengthening of the so-called new right in the region. On the one hand, it is fundamental to analyze the experiences of children and young people under radical right-wing governments; on the other hand, it is essential to understand youth activism within the parties and movements that make up these same political expressions (Seman and Weñschinger, 2023; Vázquez, 2023).

These processes create fertile ground for making conservative, moralizing, exclusionary, and security-focused narratives more visible, narratives that place children and young people at their center. This cycle, which represents a geopolitical realignment in the region, sees right-wing governments presenting themselves as defenders of certain traditional values, the classic heterosexual family, and the importance of religion, generally in opposition to activism, social movements, and youth movements centered around feminist agendas, sexual diversity and dissidence, sexual and reproductive rights, and the rights of children and young people in general. Furthermore, they have the capacity to contest meanings, challenge, propose, and construct agendas around issues such as sex education and abortion. The consolidation of right-wing and ultraconservative forces is revealing a certain fragility of the "democratic pact," while simultaneously demonstrating how the dynamics of democracies have opened the door to dissatisfactions that the expressions of the new radical right attempt to represent politically. In this way, social movements and activism, the collectivization of struggles and demands for rights are often under threat from these governments, which is why new and innovative political practices are being reconfigured in different areas of society.

In this context, and from a situated and decolonial perspective, it is necessary to analyze these scenarios in a complex and critical way to understand how inequalities are configured in the everyday experiences of children and young people in the various Latin American and Caribbean territories. This, in turn, opens spaces of resistance and emancipatory practices that need to be made visible and strengthened through the production of critical, socially situated, and collaborative knowledge. Furthermore, it is essential to understand how and why right-wing movements became spaces for youth activism.

Recovering and reclaiming the perspective of the Global South, as well as decolonial and intersectional perspectives, involves problematizing and understanding the hegemonic conceptual constructions that justify political processes and sustain the sociocultural dynamics that produce or reinforce inequalities and exclusions. As Mendoza, Alvarado, and Arroyo (2020) point out, moving toward critical approaches implies questioning the Western epistemologies that have dominated youth studies, which have produced homogenizing and exclusionary categories that render the situated experiences of communities invisible. From this perspective, decolonial perspectives allow us to destabilize hegemonic conceptual frameworks and pave the way for other ways of producing knowledge and understanding inequalities. In parallel, it is necessary to recover and promote forms of knowledge, practices, and resistance that arise from the territories themselves, especially those marked by dynamics of oppression, invisibility, and social exclusion. Practices of resistance and re-existence have expanded and erased some of the classic concepts of politics through new uses of culture, technologies, communication, and aesthetic experiences. By denouncing inequalities and necropolitics, they negotiate with certain institutions and constitute themselves as subjects, occupying cities and networks with their political bodies (Borelli, Rocha, and Pereira, 2024). Ultimately, this group aims to contribute to a critical, situated, and transformative understanding of childhood and youth in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Traditionally, childhood and youth have been the focus of stigmatizing characterizations. Children are treated as incomplete and unfinished beings, and therefore lacking agency. Young people, for their part, have been persecuted, subjected to precarious situations, and criminalized, identified as dangerous or threatening to the social order—a situation that has even led to the gradual genocide or youthicide. Thus, children and youth constantly experience violence stemming from political and cultural hegemonies, deepening the precarious and socially critical conditions in which many children and young people live in the region. These conditions are the starting point for any proposal to produce knowledge. However, a multiplicity of acts of resistance and re-existence led by these individuals can also be identified. Therefore, it is important to strengthen and work with and from the perspectives of children and youth who effectively produce counter-hegemonic narratives and liberating practices.

Given this scenario, the proposal seeks to improve and understand the situations and experiences of children and youth in the region, through research activities (with comparative approaches to contexts), the dissemination of knowledge through different media and formats, and the creation and strengthening of links with civil society organizations, activists, social movements and policies in defense of the rights of children and youth.

To that end, the Working Group proposes a series of diverse activities aimed at debating epistemic and methodological approaches, and analyzing readings and interventions for addressing childhood and youth in the specific context presented. The challenges for this new phase of the Working Group revolve around different strategies:

First, we aim to foster and promote comparative and situated research in Latin America and the Caribbean on the condition of children and youth, socio-state responses, and participation strategies. To this end, we will hold internal seminars based on previous research to critically examine epistemic and methodological approaches. We will seek avenues for cross-cutting agreements that allow us to develop regional approaches and integrate research from each CLACSO member center. We will also hold meetings with other working groups with whom we have prior connections (Bodies, Territories, and Resistances; and Emancipatory Praxis: Transformative Decolonial Methodologies) to discuss research progress and approaches. We will encourage the participation of young researchers beginning their careers, and this year we intend to incorporate advanced undergraduate students completing their degrees in areas related to children and youth, as a strategy for intergenerational collaboration among researchers. Within this framework, a strategic alliance will be formalized with the recently approved Ibero-American Network of Studies on Youth Participation and Activism (RIEPAJ), established through the call for proposals from the Ibero-American University Association for Postgraduate Studies (AUIP). Furthermore, several researchers from the Working Group are also members of RIEPAJ, which facilitates collaboration for the creation of joint projects. In addition, we will collaborate with FES to expand the regional study "Youth, an Unfinished Task" (FES), which will also include the Working Group "The State as a Contradiction."

Secondly, it is proposed to continue and deepen the training processes that the Working Group has been carrying out, such as the two CLACSO online postgraduate diplomas (Advanced Diploma in Youth: Inequalities, Cultures and Policies, and Advanced Diploma in Childhood and Human Rights) and the recently approved specializations (in childhood and youth, in methods and techniques of social research, in care policies with a gender perspective, and in collective memories, human rights and resistance). Progress will be made in the curricular and institutional design for the implementation of the Master's Program in Childhood and Youth. The organization of the International School of the Ibero-American Network of Postgraduate Studies in Childhood and Youth (RedINJU), which has already held 12 editions, will continue. and the involvement of the Working Group members in the development of the Postdoctoral Research Program in Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth, initiated in 2012. Furthermore, it is proposed to institutionalize ties with the International Association of Educating Cities, Latin American Delegation. Thus, in this new phase, a systematic work agenda will be developed between both networks with the aim of promoting training and development, and the publication of joint works.

Third, the Working Group aims to influence the public and political agenda by disseminating and circulating knowledge in various formats, building upon the productions and publications already produced by the Working Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Observatory on Early Childhood, Childhood, and Youth. Audiovisual materials and podcasts will be created as a strategy to reach new audiences. Furthermore, strategic alliances will continue to be forged with international organizations, state actors, and social movements dedicated to children and youth. Agreements with the Ibero-American Youth Organization (OIJ), with whom progress has been made on the work agenda, will be formalized. Since the last two CLACSO conferences held in Mexico City and Bogotá, the Forum on the Persistence and Emergence of Inequalities in the New Generations of Latin America and the Caribbean has been implemented, fostering collaboration among Working Group members, social movements, and government actors. On the other hand, the Working Group will promote and collaborate by creating spaces for participation in the Latin American and Caribbean Biennial on Early Childhood, Childhood and Youth, which has already had 5 editions and has its 6th edition planned for 2026. The Working Group promotes the idea that the established spaces of the Biennial should become the central location for all of the Working Group's activities: presentation of research reports, meetings of postdoctoral students, meetings of graduates of the RedINJU postgraduate school, among others.

All these activities will be guided by the epistemological framework of the situations and participation of children and youth within the context of the tensions and disputes over meaning that democracies in the region have been experiencing. They will explore what children and young people think of democratic institutions compared to other systems of government, what role they play in different democratic governments, and the forms of social and actor-based articulation they employ to construct the public sphere and the commons. They will also examine the repertoires and agendas of youth activism within the context of democratic processes strained and exacerbated by the strengthening of right-wing governments in the region. Furthermore, the activities will explore the emergence of debates and modes of socio-state production concerning children and youth in the context of the proliferation of conservative, right-wing, and traditionalist narratives. Finally, they will focus on counter-hegemonic youth resistance, considering all the complexities that this entails. Thus, emphasis will be placed on the role attributed to digital networks, platformization, and datafication, given that large technology corporations have established themselves as a global political actor often openly linked to right-wing groups.