While the previous period saw the emergence of tensions and demands surrounding human rights and the consolidation of authoritarian neoconservative discourse, the current scenario (2025) confronts us with a deepening institutionalization of these positions. We are no longer simply facing the "threat" of illiberal regimes (Zakaria, 1997), but rather the active governmental management of new right-wing movements that combine extreme economic libertarianism with radical moral conservatism.

It can be asserted that our regions are undergoing a geopolitical and social reconfiguration marked by the consolidation of radical right-wing projects. This scenario is characterized by interrelated processes that deepen what Pető and Grzebalska (2016) called the "polypore state": a form of governance that appropriates democratic institutions to empty them of liberal content and rights, feeding off them to strengthen exclusionary agendas.

The institutionalization of anti-gender and the "pedagogy of cruelty"

As Graff and Korolczuk (2017) pointed out, the attack on the gender perspective acts as a "symbolic glue" that binds neoliberal and religious conservative sectors together. Currently, this has evolved into what Rita Segato (2018) calls a "pedagogy of cruelty," where the dismantling of ministries and protection policies is not merely a fiscal adjustment, but a disciplinary message directed at feminized and dissident bodies.

Part of the so-called "Culture Battle"—a term appropriated by contemporary right-wing groups to contest common sense—focuses on the deepening of the anti-rights offensive. Historical gains linked to the politicization of bodies and sexualities by feminist and dissident movements are being confronted by neoconservative discourses that have acquired new textures, arguments, and alliances. In this regard, Morán Faúndes and Vaggione (2022) observe that these actors strategically use secular elements, obscuring their religious affiliations to penetrate the public sphere.

This is reflected in the insertion of religious actors, mostly evangelical, into key areas of public policy for children and adolescents, reviving traditional agendas such as the hierarchical structure of families and the resurgence of the paternalistic model. These actions, in turn, are juxtaposed with neoliberal rationality that prioritizes "emotional education" over the guarantee of rights (Abramowski, 2018; Laval & Dardot, 2013; Sorondo, 2020).

The offensive against families: Refamilialization and precarization

We observe that the transfer of state deficits to families is accompanied by an assignment of responsibility for well-being not only in material terms, but also emotionally (Cooper, 2022). The cisheteropatriarchal nuclear family model is once again positioned as the preferred target of policies in neoliberal contexts (Cruz & Fuentes, 2023). From a classist perspective, the aim is to influence the production of "adequate" family practices, reconfiguring values ​​and capacities that transfer the exclusive responsibility for managing the effects of crises to the working class.

This process leads to excessive workloads, particularly for women and gender-diverse individuals who lack the resources to access basic living conditions, consolidating a process of vulnerability through the commodification of rights, permeated by a monopolistic accumulation of capital. The dismantling of social organizations and the defunding of public services result in processes of individualization, familialization, and feminization of social reproduction (Cruz & Fuentes, 2023) in what we can call an extreme neo-familialism.

Underlying this is the attempt to construct a "consumer subject" based on archetypes of entrepreneurship, the commodification of life, and an individuality governed by mandates of self-sufficiency and obligatory happiness. These trends, already present since the neoliberalism of the 1990s, are now characterized not only by blaming families for the irrationality of the model but also by two elements. These are: 1. a strong manipulation of emotions, especially those linked to the rejection of any progressive expression. We will elaborate on this point later; and 2. a kind of inability of progressive organizations and parties to represent diverse and broad sectors of society. The crisis of representation and the aforementioned socio-emotional manipulation, in a way, leave various sectors and social agents to their own weakened resources. Within this framework, we can say that we are no longer talking about the neo-familialism of the 1990s, where party-based democracy was the political norm. We are talking about overburdened families who cannot access political representation to defend their rights, due to democratic disbelief and the aforementioned hate speech.

Multiple resistances and feminist power

Despite these advances that may foreshadow a bleak future, Latin America remains a territory of resistance. Diverse and articulated feminist identities continue to contest the meaning of democracy. The irruption into the public sphere that characterized the previous cycle (Ni Una Menos, Marea Verde) is now being reconfigured into networks of survival and collective care that challenge the logic of capital. Although violence has intensified, legitimized by official denialist discourses, feminisms and dissident movements are building pluralistic and democratic collective identities (Di Marco, 2019), weaving networks that sustain life on the margins of or against privatizing state power.

The academic and political relevance of maintaining "Families" (in the plural) as an object of study is more urgent today than ever. The new right has hijacked the term "family" to promote a single, hierarchical, and exclusionary model, articulating a narrative that presents sexual and reproductive rights as "enemies" of society. This anti-rights offensive is penetrating the legislative and social structure under a rhetoric of freedom that, paradoxically, restricts sexual citizenship. As researchers, we must contest this meaning. Returning to the perspective of radical democracy, we maintain that there is no possible democracy without the democratization of family and care relationships.

The previous work plan correctly identified the link between "patriarchy and neoliberalism"; now we must delve deeper into how this alliance deepens a biopolitics of abandonment. The crisis of social reproduction and austerity policies brutally transfer the cost of sustaining life to households, generating a "re-familiarization" of caregiving without resources. Faced with the withdrawal of the state, families—and specifically women and gender non-conforming individuals—act as buffers against the crisis.

The theoretical foundation for the period 2026-2028 will be based on three renewed axes:

The Familiarization of Care and the Reproduction of Inequalities: Analyzing how the social organization of care remains a critical issue. The neoconservative model exploits unpaid labor under the rhetoric of "natural values." To understand these issues, it is essential to appeal to the notion of situated intersectionality, which is transversal to both analysis and research. The priority of understanding how hierarchies of class, race, and gender differentially impact the living conditions and well-being of families is reinforced. Migrant, Indigenous, and working-class families suffer the most intensely from the lack of protections in the face of the dismantling of public services. We are interested in characterizing how this context of increased demands for care conditions and impacts the sexuality of women and gender-diverse individuals, their access to sexual citizenship, and the increase in gender-based violence in its various forms.

Anti-patriarchal struggles and the affective turn perspective: we incorporate this perspective into our analysis of anti-patriarchal struggles because it is being applied to the interpretation of political processes and transformations, and its use is becoming increasingly widespread. Its application is also being challenged by other academic and feminist sectors. The affective turn considers emotionality in its social character, as a result of the subject's interaction with the world, and not as an expression of an intrinsic interiority. From this perspective, the affective dimension is recognized in the production of political identifications, such as the use of gender fear as a unifying strategy for conservative sectors, or neoliberal practices that promote horizons of happiness centered on a self capable of self-regulation and capital accumulation, revealing common approaches and potentialities. Finally, from this perspective, feminist actions aimed at forming communities and affective bonds with a shared orientation towards the same objects can be valued, such as challenging or complaining about experiences of inequality (Ahmed, 2021).

From this perspective, we aim to focus on local practices, on the spaces where feminisms articulate their actions in response to situations that threaten daily life and well-being. It is imperative to produce evidence that dismantles the fallacies of hate speech, demonstrating that gender equality and diversity do not destroy the family, but rather democratize it.

The relevance of this Working Group lies in its capacity to analyze families not as isolated private refuges, but as political spaces where tensions between democratization and authoritarianism are played out. From this perspective, we have been converging and coordinating actions with other Working Groups on feminisms, such as "Feminisms, Resistance, and Emancipation" and "Care and Gender," with whom we share common ground around which we debate, broadening our perspectives and epistemic dialogues. In this new phase, we will once again focus on building alliances and deepening them, not only as a working method or mechanism but fundamentally as an ethical and political stance for the production of knowledge.

3. Fundamental theoretical keys and lines of work

3.1. Democratization of the private sphere and sexual citizenship: Following Di Marco (2011, 2019, 2025), we maintain that there is no real democracy without the "democratization of everyday life" and family relationships. The classical approach to political democratization is insufficient if it does not address the frameworks of meaning production in the private sphere.

The current offensive seeks to restore a naturalized hierarchical order within the family to legitimize authoritarianism in the State. In response, the concept of sexual citizenship and the renewed emphasis on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)—implemented in various countries of the region—become critical tools. They allow us to analyze how demands for abortion rights, gender identity, and the recognition of diverse families erode the core of patriarchal power and manage to persist even in adverse contexts.

3.2. Patriarchy, struggles, and the affective turn: Our analysis begins with the premise that democratization must occur in all spaces: the factory, the street, the school, and the family. We understand feminisms, in line with Mouffe (2018) and Laclau (2005), as movements capable of articulating heterogeneous demands into a collective will that radicalizes democracy in the face of oligarchic-neoliberal-conservative closure.

However, it is crucial to broaden our understanding of patriarchy in the current context. We do not conceive of it merely as a structure of interpersonal male domination, but as a fundamental political system that is historically rearticulated through capitalism and colonialism. As Silvia Federici (2018) points out, capitalism must be understood as a "patriarchy of wages," where the devaluation of reproductive labor is functional to accumulation. In the current phase, we are witnessing a patriarchy that reacts with extreme violence to the loss of control over the bodies of women and gender non-conforming people.

This perspective also draws on decolonial contributions that question the "coloniality of gender" and the family. Following María Lugones (2008), we understand that the imposition of the traditional nuclear family model stems from a Eurocentric civilizational matrix that has historically delegitimized and destroyed other non-Western forms of kinship and community organization. Modern/colonial patriarchy not only organizes gender but also classifies humanity for exploitation.

We also incorporate the perspective of the "Affective Turn" as an indispensable critical lens. If the new right effectively mobilizes "sad passions" (fear, hatred of otherness) to consolidate its base, then resistance is not merely rational opposition, but rather affective political practice. We are interested in investigating how the politicization of love, anger, and hope shapes new subjectivities capable of sustaining life and rebuilding the common good. Ultimately, we see families as centers of political formation.