Navegar contra el viento. O las perspectivas de América Latina en la era de la información

Abstract

This paper is a synthesis of the main trends found in a research on multiculturalism, development and politics. Eleven national studies were conducted, besides sharing and discussing a cognitive map of the problem; four research issues were promoted, all of them closely linked both by the capacity of action of development actors and by the particular historical processes of each country. The dynamics of economic development and its relationship with human development were studied, and both types of development were linked with techno-informational and cultural changes experienced by each country. It is also assumed that the strength of the various political orientations and socio-cultural conflicts in each one of them organized their development models. The study did not reach all Latin American and Caribbean cases that warrant such a claim, but moved toward a relatively representative picture, certainly incomplete. Also it must be taken into account that processes are nationally different and that an accurate understanding needs to refer to the case studies. It is a diverse national reality that nevertheless shares a number of problems, challenges and common options. There are three issues combined in this study: the central role of social conflict and power in human development, the conditioning character of informational development and the central role played in them by the cultural idea of a dignified life. The dignified life was interpreted as the indivisibility of human rights and as the foundation of freedom and justice and consequently of human development. The dignity underlies the very idea of real freedom. It would be a sustenance of life values, therefore of intercultural sustainability of development.