The contemporary world challenges sociology
The Brazilian Society of Sociology organized the 22nd Brazilian Congress of Sociology “ The contemporary world challenges sociology ”, from July 15 to 18, at the University of São Paulo, with the participation of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.
On the fourth fair, day 16, in Painel «Horizons of Latin American and Caribbean sociology in the face of contemporary policrise» – Session 1: “Latin America and global sociology in times of great transformations” participated Pablo Vommaro , Executive Director of CLACSO, together with Geoffrey Pleyers , Université Catholique de Louvain, President of ISA; and Ana Rivoir , University of the Republic (UDELAR, Uruguay), Executive Committee of ISA and Ex-President of ALAS. Coordinator: Edna Castro , UFPA, President of SBS and Directorate of ALAS.
In his intervention at the opening ceremony, on third day 15, Pablo Vommaro gave the space for reflection, encounter and community construction in a world convulsed by a policrise that poses multiple challenges to social and human sciences.
He said: «I deeply appreciate this space of encounter, of epistemic and intellectual community, in a world that challenges us to sustain and strengthen these dialogues. A congress that challenges us to connect with other social spaces and advance the intervention of social sciences.
We live in a global policrise – economic, political, social, cultural, environmental – that demands innovative responses to intertwined crises. In a world once torn apart by wars, with geopolitics in transformation and multilateralism in dispute, we need to build spaces of peace, where difference is not an issue, but a possibility of unity.
The growing, persistent and multidimensional inequalities challenge us: how to create equality policies that recognize and support diversity in the construction of common benefits?
Democracies are being weakened by authoritarian forces and hate speeches, but they are also being challenged from within, by unease and disillusionment that demand answers. We must ask ourselves how to strengthen them, how to dispute meanings and how to sustain them in contexts of crisis.
Today, or critical thinking, science and universities are under attack: with persecution, censorship and courts, there are serious attempts to delegitimize the social role of research. Recovering that place also implies rebuilding the links with our societies, showing the transformative power of social sciences, humanities and arts.
We need to relaunch South-South cooperation, review the responsibilities of the global North and make critical progress in the fields of artificial intelligence, the digital world and its inequalities. And, above all, we need to do this together with new generations. Sem elas, no possível future.»
17/07/2025, 9am to 10:30am
Panel: Horizons of Latin American and Caribbean sociology in the face of contemporary policrise
Session 2 – Latin American and Caribbean critical thinking: trajectories and intersections on the global scene
Coordinator: Breno Bringel – UERJ; Vice-President of ALAS
Members:
Jesús Diaz (Autonomous University of Santo Domingo; President of ALAS)
Karina Batthyány (University of the Republic, Uruguay; Former Executive Director of CLACSO)
Marcelo Rosa (CPDA/UFRRJ)
Edna Castro (UFPA; President of SBS and Directorate of ALAS)
Location: Filosofia e Ciências Sociais, room 14
A set of new and unexpected economic, political, social, cultural, environmental and technological challenges impõe-se the contemporary social world. These questões challenge the sociological knowledge that I have seen consolidating since the last two centuries.
The uses of Artificial Intelligence, subjective and collective life organized by means of digital networks, the global aquecimento ea piora da quality do ar, a elevation of the level of two oceans, the fragility of two methods and instruments of environmental protection, the circulation of previously unknown viruses putting on the brink the lives of thousands of human beings demanding rapid responses based on science, precisely at the moment when scientific evidence is placed under suspicion.
This contemporary scenario is still aggravated by the threats of wars that make use of sophisticated technological resources and react to the risks of nuclear conflicts. In the same direction, different forms of violence and organized crime, corrupting companies and governments, become vulnerable to global security. No less important, the crisis of democracies is the rise of conservative waves bringing uncertainty to everyday collective coexistence, breaking with consolidated civilizational patterns and social and political modernity.
New and growing inequalities of various types, to a large extent stimulated by the disaggregation of work relations and the concentration of two meios of appropriation of scarce material and symbolic benefits, drastically limit the possibility of a dignified life for broad social groups. Furthermore, contemporary forms of social integration, such as multiculturalism and policies of affirmation of gender, sexuality and religion, are threatened by political extremism that begins to guide new forms of intolerance.
The speed with which these problems have appeared in public and spread to more different territories requires rapid solutions and pathways with profound impact. The great sociological tradition inspired by modern rationalist ideas, which demands time for reflection and intellectual maturity, seems to be confronted with these events.
Presently, it is inegável to reconceive a sort of gap between the time of evolution of two problems and the capacity of sociological thinking to understand and explain them. Are the conceptual and methodological instruments, perfected over the long history of sociological thought, still solid to decipher the enigmas that are put together in contemporary times? How to innovate sociological explanations for the contemporary malaise that challenges us in a more complex way?
The 22nd Brazilian Congress of Sociology seeks to explore these concerns. It seeks to reactivate the sociological imagination, valuing interdisciplinary dialogues and new ways of constructing sociological research problems at different scales, as new mediations between global and local. This broad objective will be achieved through some traditional formats such as conferences, symposia, round tables, meetings of research committees and work groups, as well as special sessions, such as two Sociologists of the Future.
The Congress also aims to innovate in its organization. It foresees the realization of integrated sessions between Research Committees and Work Groups, greater interaction with the Latin American societies of sociology and better communication of activities in real time, through interviews, podcasts and online fragments of some sessions, such as conferences.
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