The context of Latin America and the Caribbean presents a complex and diverse panorama, revealing a profound tension between the logic of advanced capitalism and the enduring relevance of social struggles and the assertion of difference. Thus, with the emergence of a set of challenges inherent in contemporary issues, such as those specifically related to care, affectivity, and the development of multiple ways of living in the wake of digital technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence, various research possibilities arise. These possibilities aim to consolidate the foundations of critical thinking capable of questioning current events, with the question of life itself being central as a fundamental element for envisioning transformative actions and for developing knowledge that engages with the needs and problems of a Global South characterized by a multiplicity that multiplies and undeniable particularities that define it. From this perspective, it is necessary to recognize the tensions inherent in the challenges posed by a paradoxical scenario like the current one, and more specifically the conditions of the situation in Latin America and the Caribbean as territories where it is necessary to rethink ourselves from a common, public, open knowledge that problematizes care, affectivities, and technologies based on the everyday questions that emerge within those ways of life in which the voracious logic of advanced capitalism and the possibilities of resistance from other ways of existing marked by the practice of care, the affective turn, and an appropriation of AI and the digitization of existence in a collaborative and open science key are strained.

The contemporary biopolitical dispute is inextricably linked to a set of key issues: firstly, the centrality of life as a problem in contemporary societies and of ways of living as a stage for tension between the logic of capital and the bets of critical resistance; secondly, the presence of issues such as care and affectivity as decisive elements for rethinking contemporaneities based on the affirmation of life through possibilities of boosting the power of micropolitical modes of resistance in positions such as becoming a caregiver or the intensive force of affects; and, thirdly, the horizon of the digitalization of life and the advance of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as factors that directly interfere with the practices of care and affectivity from a critical logic anchored in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean. Three situations that frame a context that requires thinking both within the general framework of a global society and in the specificity of a South that demands a focus on care, the affective turn and technologies based on the centrality of life, modes of existence and the ways in which it is necessary to conceive of resistances from other fields of possibility, situated and with the possibility of serving as a starting point to reaffirm the political, creative and diverse condition of the Latin American being.

These conditions become visible, for example, in the major problems that intersect today: on the one hand, the need to rethink affectivity in times of a drastic increase in mental health problems related to lifestyles anchored in the accelerated and axiomatic temporalities of capital; and on the other hand, the condition of caregivers in a society where the tension between the neoliberal model and the possibility of resistance based on the very power of care is evident. These tensions, profoundly political but also strongly economic, intersect at the level of technological development with the transition from the mechanical model to algorithmic computational logic, which is interwoven with the necropolitical forces of market capitalism—a neoliberal culture that, by exacerbating individualism and free competition, transforms care from a practice for the collective affirmation of life into a central element of economic management. The analysis proposed by this Working Group therefore focuses on the tactical versatility of discourses on care, which, in our region, reveals how the State offers a restricted and deficient response in essential services, stratifying access to care and undermining the meaning of caring together. As Tronto (2024) points out, "the effect of market democracy on care is clear: it creates great inequalities and reduces the meaning of caring together."

This capitalist capture of existence and the trivialization of creative desire and affects drive the need for a micropolitical resistance that arises in the process of becoming a caregiver. This process is grounded in a Deleuzian practical ontology that distances itself from univocal being to embrace multiplicity and difference, focusing on the power of bodies, a crucial concept developed by Spinoza. The Affective Turn is articulated as the conceptual tool for this transformation, liberating thought from cognition and representation. Affects, from this perspective, are not mere private emotions, but intensive forces or fields of intensities that flow autonomously with respect to consciousness, driving mutation and becoming something else. Massumi (1995, 2002) defines this resistance to capture as the autonomy of affect, the emergence of the virtual that generates novel interconnections. Thus, the configuration of caring existences requires updating sensibilities and drawing lines of flight with respect to the subjection of the ego, in a process of desubjectivation where, in the words of Foucault (2002, 2018), the techniques of domination are articulated with the techniques of the self.

From this perspective, in the Latin American and Caribbean context, a set of problematizations converge, manifesting themselves through the need to consider the possibilities for consolidating other modes of existence as an alternative to the logic of capital, and even through open science and research initiatives that champion knowledge as a common good—that is, an integrative practice that empowers collectives in our territories. It is, therefore, about the possibility of configuring caring existences that require updating sensibilities that allow bodies to draw lines of flight from exclusionary dichotomies, control, and individualism, reclaiming the transformative power of affects and sensibilities. For this reason, it is not enough to recognize that bodies and affects are at the base of a specific way of thinking that contributes to reconfiguring the organizational structure, institutions, and centers of power in a society. It is necessary to advance in the exercise of a micropolitics or politics of singularities that recognizes how each subject, each group, each experience embodies a way of life that can resist or transform the dominant order. Educational and psychotherapeutic spaces, viewed from this micropolitical perspective, are not limited to applying techniques to subjects; they create conditions for desire, difference, and singularity to unfold. A politics of the body, of affects, of encounter. And it is there, within the framework of the digitalization of life, that, for our context, the challenge is not the uncritical use of devices, characteristic of technological determinism, but rather the questioning of existences and the relational interconnections between bios-zoe-techne, and the creative endeavors that emerge from our territories with the potential to propose other, posthuman lives and communicate them in terms of open science.

The theoretical, social, and intellectual relevance of the discursive series "care, affects, and posthuman lives" implies considering the conditions through which the articulation between these three axes of analytical work, and what each represents separately, offers a framework for understanding the situation of Latin America and the Caribbean amidst the tensions inherent in contemporary societies. This includes the unsettling situation presented by ways of living as a stage for both the capture of subjects within the perspective of a political economy of subjectivity and the potential for configuring resistance from alternative, posthuman ways of life, or those that affirm a different kind of difference, situated knowledge, or proposals such as becoming a caregiver, or the profound implications of a shift towards the affective in times when anxiety gallops through the daily lives of our market-driven temporality.

Within this commodification, becoming a caregiver emerges as an act of micropolitical resistance and an aesthetic and political project centered on life, not the market. This becoming is empowered by the Affective Turn, which is not merely a methodological development but establishes itself as an ontological, aesthetic, and political commitment, crucial for liberating thought from cognition and representation. By providing the foundation for multiplicity and difference, the Affective Turn becomes the indispensable conceptual mechanism for dismantling the subjugation of the ego and individualism, providing the basis for a scientific-critical thought that dares to interrogate the present. And within this framework, issues such as the digitization of life, more than a mere technological change, stand as the catalyst for a biopolitical dispute that is brewing around the very foundations of existence. In this context, care and affectivity are at the heart of resistance against the necropolitical forces of market capitalism. It is essential to point out how care, which in its essence is the collective affirmation of life and the interconnected responsibility towards all species, has been captured by economic management and neoliberal culture. This rationality, which promotes entrenched individualism and free competition, obscures the primary intention of care: to sustain all life on the planet, as envisioned in a posthuman ethic and affirmative politics (Braidotti, 2018, 2020).

From this perspective, it is essential to understand that the concept of care possesses a complex multidimensionality, encompassing everything from an ontological structure to a political dimension. Philosophically, Heidegger (2020) defined it as the ontological structure of Dasein (being-there), formally conceived as "anticipating-itself-already-in-(the world) in-the-middle-of (the entity that appears within the world)." This fundamental structure is expressed in the dual existential movement of occupation (Besorgen) and solicitation (Fürsorge). Reflexivity in this practice is key, as it transforms natural care into ethical-conscious care, aligning with Foucault's (2002, 2016) reflection on "care of the self as a practice of freedom."

The affective component is inherent to this notion; Boff (2012) underscores the initial double meaning of the concept as a "loving attitude," which involves attentiveness, diligence, but also "concern, unease, and anxiety" for the loved one. However, the political tension of the concept manifests itself in the Latin American and Caribbean context in its mercantilist appropriation, which generates significant inequalities. Neoliberal culture strategically utilizes the tactical polyvalence of discourses on care within governance mechanisms, confirming that, in effect, every form of care is a form of governance. The stratification of care based on income level, and the restricted and deficient response of the State, exemplify Tronto's (2024) critique: "the effect of market democracy on care is clear: it creates significant inequalities and diminishes the meaning of caring."

From this perspective, the Affective Turn is established as the ontological correlate of becoming a caregiver, functioning as an ontological, aesthetic, and political wager that demands a new image of thought. Its conceptual framework is grounded in Deleuzian practical ontology, which, influenced by Spinoza's concept of the power of bodies, promotes the transition from being to multiplicities and difference. Deleuze (1994, 1980) subordinates being to practices and becomings, focusing on "what these existences can be, not on what they are."

From this process-oriented perspective, affects are defined as intensive forces or fields of intensities that flow autonomously with respect to consciousness and cognition. Massumi (1995, 2002), a philosopher of experience, focuses his study on the autonomy of affect, understanding it as the "emergence of the virtual that provokes multiple and novel interconnections." These affects, operating in an energetic field, drive mutation and transformation into something else, creating a differentiating difference. Affects are distinguished from emotions, which are the subjective and personal manifestation of affects where "the indeterminate becomes determined, the prepersonal becomes personal," thus becoming susceptible to capitalist capture. The Affective Turn, by promoting event-driven becoming, seeks to configure posthuman existences and caring lives that resist models of subjectivation captured by the ego and individualism.

This way of life, characteristic of capitalism, is visible in the current technological context. The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is situated within the context of technoscience and the digitization of life, marking the shift towards algorithmic computational logic. The digital rationality imposed by AI, with its neural networks and computational logic, replaces the narrative force of storytelling with data and argumentation with algorithms. This promotes an algorithmic determinism that threatens the uncertainty and conjecture inherent in abductive human intelligence. Han (2022) posits that AI "does not reason, but rather computes. Algorithms replace arguments." The political risk lies in the transition from freedom to programmed control, a situation that Cortina (2024) links to the risk of "falling into algorithmic determinism, renouncing freedom." Furthermore, authors such as Doudna and Sternberg (2020) warn of the urgent need to discuss the control of technologies like gene editing before "the reins have slipped out of our hands." For the context of the Global South, a critical and pedagogical appropriation of AI that transcends its instrumental use is crucial. AI should not be the oracle that dictates a predictable destiny. Scientific and critical literacy is required to question the meaning and purpose of the technology.

And it is here that the question of ways of existing plays a central role, linked both to the affirmation of situated knowledge emerging in our territories and to the potential of posthuman lives that manifest convergence, distinct difference, and the multiplicity that multiplies. From the Global South, care, conceived as a collective affirmation of life and the sustenance of all living things, has been captured by neoliberal economic management, which manifests itself in Latin America and the Caribbean through vast inequalities and a lack of public care policies, where the exclusionary scheme centered on the dualism of "us and them" erodes affective bonds. Faced with such subjectivation, becoming a caregiver emerges as an act of micropolitical resistance and an aesthetic, political, and communicative project framed within open science.