Latin America and the Caribbean are territories marked by dynamics of dispossession that have intensified in recent decades. The advance of extractivism, agribusiness, mega-infrastructure projects, and real estate speculation have created a landscape of socio-territorial conflict that demands situated and politically engaged analytical frameworks. From the Global South, our region faces the deepening of an accumulation model that reproduces colonial logics of appropriating territories, bodies, and natural resources.

As we have pointed out in our previous arguments, geography in the region originated as a response to the cadastral survey and detailed inventory of natural resources, towns, and populations. However, the representation of geographic spaces was created and imposed from a Eurocentric, colonial, modern, and patriarchal perspective, rendering invisible the diverse knowledge and wisdom of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. Faced with this colonial legacy of geographic knowledge, our Working Group has maintained the need to renew hegemonic and conservative thinking through a critical review of analytical and methodological categories.

Critical geographical thought in our region weaves together multiple perspectives with a strong interest in advocating for the transformation of socio-territorial realities. The struggle for property, housing, the production of differentiated spatialities, and population displacements are processes rooted in disputes over power and territories. Neoliberal policies are intensifying, affecting different groups and communities, which are repressed, displaced, and marginalized from their territories of origin and belonging.

Our proposal has defined its vocation as a space open to dialogue, critical reflection, and dissemination of the multiple voices and varied realities experienced across the diverse latitudes of our Souths. This formulation—"Souths" in the plural, multiple voices, varied realities—constitutes the epistemological and political foundation for moving toward the designation "Critical Geographical Thoughts of Latin America and the Caribbean." Our Souths refers especially to Latin America and the Caribbean, but also represents a commitment to disrupting regional barriers and transcending into multiple spaces in connection with the thoughts, struggles, and resistances that emerge from here.

A decolonial perspective allows us to understand that coloniality did not end with the independence movements of the 19th century, but rather persists as a power structure that organizes social, economic, epistemic, and territorial relations. The coloniality of knowledge operates through the systematic discrediting of knowledge produced outside of Western canons. Maps, territorial planning categories, and imposed notions of development reproduced an external gaze that fragmented Indigenous territories, rendered ancestral borders invisible, and legitimized dispossession in the name of modernization.

We have emphasized the importance of feeling and thinking in, with, and from the territory, recognizing the body-land-territory triad that articulates the struggles of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, and community feminisms. The renewal of critical thought that highlights feeling and thinking also presupposes a renewal of perspectives, practices, and knowledge. The choice of a critical method is imbued with values ​​and emotions that express worldviews which lead to political positions marked by the struggle over the unequal production of territorial knowledge.

It is crucial to advocate for the strengthening of critical geographical thought, which enables dialogue among different forms of knowledge and listening to other voices—those that emerge from the ongoing processes of resistance, struggle, and social movements in defense of territories and life. These "re-existences"—a central concept in our collective work—emphasize that the resistance of peoples is not merely reactive but constitutes alternative ways of existing, of inhabiting the territory, and of generating situated geographical knowledge.

Our proposal also involves forging connections with South-South movements across the globe, creating bonds of collaboration and solidarity not only within our continent but also with Africa and Asia, fostering internationalist relationships from academia and social movements. This South-South commitment stems from the understanding that processes of territorial dispossession operate in a coordinated manner on a global scale and require equally coordinated responses from the affected communities.

The trajectory of our Working Group reflects a process of progressive political and epistemic expansion. In the period 2016-2019, we established ourselves as "Latin American Critical Geographical Thought," a name we maintained from 2019 to 2022. For the 2022-2025 cycle, we proposed incorporating the Caribbean, recognizing that the Caribbean—with its experiences of plantation farming, African diaspora, and island resistance—constitutes a specific territorial matrix that cannot be subsumed under the umbrella of "Latin America." We now propose the plural as a recognition of "us" among "others": we acknowledge that we produce knowledge from territories shaped by distinct histories, conflicts, and forms of resistance.

Spatial justice articulates the territorial and social dimensions of inequality. It is not simply about redistributing resources in space, but about transforming the power structures that produce unjust spatial configurations. In Latin America and the Caribbean, spatial justice is inextricably linked to ethnic-racial, gender, and environmental justice. The most polluted, disaster-prone, and dispossessed territories are predominantly inhabited by racialized, impoverished, and feminized populations.

The plural we propose does not fragment: it politically articulates from difference. It allows for dialogue between diverse critical geographies—Andean, Amazonian, Caribbean, Central American, Southern Cone, urban, and rural—without subordinating one to another. It recognizes that each territory under threat generates its own ways of understanding and defending space. Naming in the singular makes these differences invisible and reproduces the colonial logic that imposes a single valid way of knowing.

The territories in struggle across Our America and the Caribbean call upon us to produce critical geographical thought that rises to the challenges we face: the advance of extractivism, the militarization of territorial conflicts, the criminalization of defenders, and the climate crisis that hits hardest those least responsible for its creation. In response, we advocate for geographies of the commons that subvert the geopolitics of power and knowledge and build horizons of dignified life from within these territories.

Theoretical relevance

Latin American and Caribbean critical geographical thought constitutes an epistemic field in constant development that engages with the traditions of regional critical thought—from dependency theory to the decolonial turn—and contributes situated analytical categories for understanding contemporary socio-territorial dynamics. In contrast to a hegemonic geography that historically served colonial land surveys and the inventory of resources for appropriation, our field proposes an epistemological break that recognizes territory not as a mere physical support but as a social production permeated by power relations, collective memory, and contested life projects.

The category of territory, reinterpreted through the struggles of peoples, acquires in our perspective a theoretical depth that transcends functionalist definitions of state territorial organization. Following Porto-Gonçalves (2001), we understand territory as appropriated space, inscribed within relations of domination and/or solidarity. This conception allows us to analyze how contemporary capitalism produces territories for dispossession—sacrifice zones, extractive corridors, precarious urban peripheries—while peoples construct alternative territorialities from their lived experiences.

The concept of r-existence constitutes a fundamental theoretical contribution that transcends the notion of resistance as a mere defensive reaction. R-existences imply alternative ways of existing, of producing space, and of generating territorial knowledge from civilizational matrices that the modern/colonial project sought to eliminate. This category engages with the contributions of the decolonial turn—particularly with Quijano's (2000) coloniality of power and Lander's (2000) coloniality of knowledge—by demonstrating how territorial struggles are simultaneously epistemic struggles against the imposition of a single valid way of inhabiting and knowing the world.

The proposal to move towards "Critical Geographical Thoughts" in the plural responds to a theoretical imperative: to recognize that there is no single matrix of critical geographical thought, but rather multiple traditions that emerge from differentiated territorial experiences. Brazilian critical geography with its Miltonian imprint; Andean geographies traversed by the horizon of buen vivir (good living); Caribbean geographies marked by plantations and the African diaspora; Central American geographies forged in contexts of violence and migration; and feminist geographies that consider the body as the primary territory, constitute irreducible expressions that the singular renders invisible. As De Sousa Santos (2009) points out, there is no global social justice without global cognitive justice.

Social relevance

Latin America and the Caribbean are experiencing a surge in socio-territorial conflicts. The expansion of extractive industries—large-scale mining, agribusiness, fracking, and hydroelectric megaprojects—generates forced displacement, contamination of water sources, destruction of ecosystems, and violence against communities and land defenders. Our region has the highest number of murders of environmental and land defenders worldwide, demonstrating that defending territory is a high-risk activity.

Critical geographical thought cannot remain detached from this reality. Our social relevance lies in our capacity to produce situated knowledge that supports territorial struggles, makes spatial injustices visible, and provides analytical tools to communities and social movements. As we have stated in previous arguments, we seek a dialogue of knowledge and listen to other voices—those that emerge from the re-existence and evolution of resistance processes in defense of territories and life.

The urban dimension of dispossession constitutes another fundamental field. Latin American cities experience gentrification, forced evictions, privatization of public space, and socio-spatial segregation. Popular, racialized, and feminized sectors are expelled to precarious peripheries exposed to environmental risks. Critical geographical thought provides frameworks for understanding these processes not as collateral effects of development but as expressions of a capitalist production of space that unequally distributes territorial burdens and benefits.

The climate crisis adds urgency to our work. The territories most vulnerable to its impacts coincide with historically dispossessed territories and racialized populations. This unequal distribution highlights what political ecology calls environmental racism. Critical geographical thought has a responsibility to make these injustices visible and contribute to building alternatives from the ground up.

Intellectual relevance

Our Working Group is part of an intellectual tradition spanning almost a decade that has made significant contributions to the field of regional and international critical geography. The Geocrítica Latinoamericana bulletins, collective publications, virtual seminars, and participation in CLACSO Conferences constitute a body of work that engages with the main discussions in contemporary critical thought.

The intellectual relevance lies in three dimensions. First, the articulation between academic production and political commitment to territorial struggles, overcoming the false dichotomy between scientific rigor and social relevance. Second, the South-South dialogue with critical geographies of Africa and Asia, recognizing that processes of dispossession operate in an interconnected way on a global scale. Third, the openness to non-academic geographical knowledge—territorial knowledge of Indigenous peoples, social cartographies of Afro-descendant communities, spatial knowledge of women's organizations—which enriches the categories inherited from the disciplinary tradition.

Naming our critical geographical thoughts in the plural is an intellectual contribution that seeks coherence between what we say and how we name ourselves. If we affirm that the coloniality of knowledge operates through the imposition of a universal singularity that renders plurality invisible, we cannot reproduce that logic in our own naming. The plural is an act of epistemological coherence and cognitive justice with the multiple traditions of territorial thought that converge in our Working Group.

The connection with the Commission for Latin American and Caribbean Studies of the International Geographical Union and the articulation with other CLACSO GT ?Political Ecology(ies) from the South/Abya-Yala, Bodies, territories and feminisms, Indigenous Peoples, autonomies and collective rights? strengthens our intellectual relevance by inscribing critical geographical thought in broader networks of committed knowledge production.

In short, the relevance of our Working Group lies in its capacity to produce situated, politically engaged, and epistemologically pluralistic knowledge that supports the struggles for the defense of territories and life in Latin America and the Caribbean. The disputed territories call upon us to think critically from and with the peoples who resist dispossession.