This axis seeks to generate a space for discussion and presentation of research and interventions from the field of social work that shows how current social movements bring about changes, challenging democratic forms. It will show the different forms these challenges and conflicts take in collective terms, challenging local and global contexts. The discussion proposes to distinguish conflicts, projects, and political stakes of life in common, considering the democratic limitations that become more acute in crisis contexts, alerting us to the exclusion of citizen participation and authoritarianism in securitarian forms.

After the dictatorships in Latin America during the 1960s and 1980s, the recovery of democracy held out the promise of greater political participation and social rights. However, citizens’ disaffection with democracy gradually emerged as a problem. This diagnosis, interpreted almost exclusively as a subjective position resulting from cultural changes, was redefined by the emergence on the public scene of social movements in different spheres (educational, labour, economic, indigenous, environmental, feminist, anti-racist) as in different parts of the world. These movements – indigenous and colonial movements, the Arab Spring, the Wall Street movement, the environmental movement, the feminist May 2018, the popular revolts, and Black Lives Matter –  make it possible to explain that the disaffection with democracy does not only respond to the risk of reinstalling authoritarianism or abulia, but also to the loss of legitimacy of the classical institutions of democratic liberalism in the face of the inability and minimal will of states to fulfil their responsibility towards their inhabitants in the face of successive global crises (1997, 2008, 2020). On the contrary, states that have insisted on applying neoliberal policies with monetary and financial traits developed hand in hand with colonial, extractivist, patriarchal and racist paradigms, which exclude life and peoples. The current crisis also expresses a crisis of democracy.

New actors and processes have come to energise the democratic possibilities in this crisis. We observe processes of intensification of conflicts and political and social movements, environmental, feminist, new social and territorial groupings, and diverse organizational articulations that push for more direct democratic practices under diverse modalities of representation and reflection, contributing, to theoretical, methodological and epistemological terms, to the recovery of forms of life and movements beyond those imposed by the global economy, contributing to the visibility and exercise of forms of representation and democratic expression different from those imposed by the current political system.

1. Conflicts, territorial movements, and socio-environmental conflicts.
2. Feminisms, dissidences, and new forms of political organisation.
3. Citizenship, constitutional processes, and political change.
4. Anti-racist, counter-hegemonic, and educational proposals.

Chilean or foreign research social workers. Research professionals with proposals and data to develop presentations aligned with the congress axes and sub-axes.

Social workers and social science professionals working in public institutions and/or non-profit organisations: professionals who have developed research projects and public policies with meaningful impact or replicable good practices related to some of the congress axes.

Undergraduate or postgraduate students developing their final research projects (thesis): students from all types of higher education institutions developing or finishing research projects in areas related to the congress axes.

Leaders from communities, indigenous groups and social organisations, and public policy actors: to be invited by the congress organisers.

Those interested in presenting papers must send the abstracts through the congress platform with an extension of between 800 to 1000 words. Abstracts have to be sent through the congress website.

The deadline for sending the abstracts is between June 15 and September 9, 2022.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the congress academic commission, accepting proposals with different degrees of progress (i.e., research projects at the beginning, middle or end-stage) but associated with the five congress axes.

The abstracts must contain the following information located at the top of the document:

• Thematic axis where the paper proposal is inscribed
• Level of progress (for research or intervention projects (ongoing investigation, research results, experiences systematizations, among others)).
• Name and last names of authors (maximum 2)
• Position (if applicable)
• Organisation or institution (if applicable)
• Country and city of residency
• E-mail
• Phone number

In order to develop a proper evaluation of proposals, we recommend that abstracts be clear regarding the following elements:

1. 1. The argument, object, phenomenon, or problem to be exposed
   2. The theoretical, methodological, and empirical fundamentals
   3. The relevance and originality of the topic
   4. The knowledge contribution made by the proposal

Abstracts must be sent in Word format, Calibri or Arial fonts, word-size 11, 1.15 spacing, and justified text. Presentation titles in bold and centred. Subtitles in bold and right justified. Citation style APA, 7 edition.

• The proposal is inscribed in one of the congress axes
• The argument is clear
• Theoretical, methodological, and empirical fundamentals
• Topic originality and appropriateness
• Contribution to professional and disciplinary knowledge

The results will be known on September 30, 2022.

Enrolment and payments will be available on the congress website based on the following categories and prices:

• • Presentations: $ 25.000 (USD 30.25)
  • Professionals and general public: $ 30.000 (USD 36.3)
  • Postgraduate students: $ 15.000 (USD 18.15)
  • Undergraduate students : $ 5.000 (USD 6.05)

Leticia Arancibia, Gloria Cáceres, Daniela Calderón.
Responsible contacts of the axis.
consultas@congresointernacionalts.cl