Political Ecology in Latin America and Critical Thinking: Rooted Vanguards

Abstract

This article presents the inclusion of the ongoing Ecology policy in Latin America (besides being new, its development has academic acceptance resistance) with regional traditions of critical thinking. Several authors that analyze this field agree that Political Ecology of Latin America has its own characteristics and dynamics, distinguished from other international chains, an Anglophone inspiration and one of French tradition. To support of this particularity on the basis of a different story, in which are the structural brands of Latin American societies: the persistent situation of colonialism in the region; the relevance of the exploitation of natural resources for export and which shape the social structures; the reproduction of the structural heterogeneity; the continuity of subaltern actors, people with alternative views of relations with nature. However, there is a plural tradition of theoretical and political reflection, the Critical Thinking, with which the Political Ecology presents homologies. To refer us to this tradition, we use the name "Rooted Vanguard" from Professor Alfredo Bosi when referring to Mariátegui and his socialist core of Peru in the 20’s of last century.