A. Rene

Resumen: Este artículo propone una lectura de la historieta chilena Condorito como metáfora de la precariedad laboral en la era de la globalización. Apoyado en la teoría laboral de Ulrich Beck, en particular sus planteamientos sobre la sociedad del riesgo, la precarización y la individualización, el estudio realiza un análisis de contenido de un corpus de 456 historietas publicadas entre 1955 y 2023. Los resultados muestran que la historieta despliega subjetividades laborales sometidas a la inestabilidad estructural, donde el empleo aparece siempre en riesgo de pérdida y las trayectorias profesionales se configuran bajo condiciones de incertidumbre, flexibilidad e informalidad. La multiplicidad de ocupaciones asumidas por los personajes no se traduce en movilidad ascendente, sino en una constante exposición al desempleo y a la inseguridad. Asimismo, el proceso de individualización de las relaciones laborales disuelve mediaciones colectivas y empuja a los sujetos a biografías de “hágalo usted mismo”, en las que el emprendimiento y el endeudamiento se entrelazan como formas dominantes de subjetivación. Desde esta perspectiva, Condorito funciona como un archivo cultural que refleja las transformaciones laborales chilenas de las últimas siete décadas y permite comprender, en clave popular, los efectos sociales y las configuraciones de subjetividad que la modernidad tardía proyecta sobre el mundo del trabajo. Abstract: This article proposes a reading of the Chilean comic strip Condorito as a metaphor for labor precarity in the era of globalization. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s labor theory-particularly his notions of the risk society, precarization, and individualization-the study conducts a content analysis of a corpus of 456 comic strips published between 1955 and 2023. The findings reveal that the comic portrays labor subjectivities constantly exposed to structural instability, where employment is persistently at risk of loss and professional trajectories unfold under conditions of uncertainty, flexibility, and informality. The multiplicity of occupations assumed by the characters does not lead to upward mobility but rather to a constant exposure to unemployment and insecurity. At the same time, the individualization of labor relations erodes collective mediations and forces subjects into “do-it-yourself” biographies in which entrepreneurship and indebtedness emerge as dominant forms of subjectivation. From this perspective, Condorito functions as a cultural archive that mirrors the transformations of Chilean labor over the past seven decades and illuminates, through the lens of popular culture, the social effects and subjective configurations that late modernity projects onto the world of work.

El presente artículo analiza la novela El corredor o Las almas que lleva el diablo (2023), del escritor mexicano Alejandro Vázquez Ortiz. A partir de aportes teóricos de Hartmut Rosa, Zygmunt Bauman y Giorgio Agamben, se sostiene que al recrear una carrera clandestina y mortal en las rutas que unen a Monterrey y Saltillo, Nuevo México/Coahuila, el texto metaforiza el aceleracionismo posmoderno y las formas de movilizaciones puestas en marcha por el capitalismo y el modo en que estas repercute en la formación de identidades subalternas. Entre las conclusiones, se plantea que la novela de Vázquez inaugura formas de recreación de la autopista no explorados hasta ahora en la literatura latinoamericana, lo que pudiese constituirse como un aporte al momento de emprender el análisis de la representación literaria de los regímenes de movilidad capitalista en nuestro continente.

This essay by René Arcilla examines Jean-Luc Nancy's understanding of the “spirit of 1968.” It argues that Nancy's concept can guide a humanist approach to educating citizens for participation in democratic self-government, one that responds to the political challenges facing us today. In particular, it develops a critique of factionalizing identity politics and seeks to renew what it means to address, and be addressed by, “we the people.” The essay proposes an idea of what democracy seeks to affirm: our social being.

O presente artigo se constrói no marco teórico da Análise de Discurso (AD) de linha francesa, considerando as reformulações e ampliações que têm sido propostas no Brasil. A temática abordada é constitutiva do discurso editorialista em torno da Democracia e da dinâmico do jogo político no cenário nacional. Nosso olhar repousa nos saberes próprios das formações discursivas que são constitutivas do discurso da imprensa enquanto forma de produção da opinião pública. Analisamos as marcas linguístico-discursivas buscando tornar visíveis as formas de dizer do discurso da mídia e as relações com suas condições de produção. As estruturas homogeneizadas pelo dizer comportam relações com implícitos e com um imaginário já instituído. No interdiscurso, buscamos o contínuo discursivo desencadeado pelo discurso da imprensa e neste o funcionamento ideológico que se possibilita no jogo discursivo que ali se apresenta.

Facing the accumulation of data that suggest near‐future dramatic changes in our way of life, current visions of transition are anchored in an incremental paradigm that excludes radical change. Using science fiction literature and cinema, this article aims to build such drastic change hypotheses and explore the political–ecological features of future societies emerging from a rupture phenomenon. These post‐ecological societies need to be imagined and analyzed in order to better prepare for eventual dramatic changes and to engage in prospective exercises that contemplate the possibility of flourishing for all in the future. Our work builds on the idea that other forms of knowledge, such as artistic and creative insights produced by science fiction literature and cinema, are promising sources of imagination and must be engaged in a dialog with sociology and other social sciences in order to develop hypotheses of possible futures. The paper introduces six such hypotheses called “scenarios” that were induced from the systematic study of a body of work in classical science fiction production.

Ecological developmental biology (eco‐devo) explores the mechanistic relationships between the processes of individual development and environmental factors. Recent studies imply that some of these relationships have deep evolutionary origins, and may even pre‐date the divergences of the simplest extant animals, including cnidarians and sponges. Development of these early diverging metazoans is often sensitive to environmental factors, and these interactions occur in the context of conserved signaling pathways and mechanisms of tissue homeostasis whose detailed molecular logic remain elusive. Efficient methods for transgenesis in cnidarians together with the ease of experimental manipulation in cnidarians and sponges make them ideal models for understanding causal relationships between environmental factors and developmental mechanisms. Here, we identify major questions at the interface between animal evolution and development and outline a road map for research aimed at identifying the mechanisms that link environmental factors to developmental mechanisms in early diverging metazoans.Also watch the Video Abstract.

In this study, we explore the impact of Machiavellian rhetoric on fundraising within the increasingly important context of online crowdfunding. The “all-or-nothing” funding model used by the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, may be an attractive context in which entrepreneurs can utilize Machiavellian rhetoric to reach their funding goal, lest they get no funding at all. This study uses data from 76,847 crowdfunding projects posted on kickstarter.com and develops a dictionary for computer-aided text analysis (CATA) of Machiavellian rhetoric to measure the relationship between the frequency of Machiavellian rhetoric use and crowdfunding performance, operationalized as either reaching a funding goal or the number of backers who funded the project. Machiavellian rhetoric is segregated into eight facets, which are categorized into hard and soft influence tactics. Hard tactics include revenge, intimidation, betrayal, and manipulation. Soft tactics include ingratiation, supplication, self-disclosure, and persuasion. Results reveal that signals of revenge, self-disclosure, and intimidation have negative effects, whereas signals of ingratiation and persuasion have mixed positive effects on crowdfunding performance. Ingratiation is found to increase the number of backers, but not funding success. Conversely, persuasion is found to increase funding success, but not the number of backers. Surprisingly, betrayal rhetoric is positively related to both measures of crowdfunding performance. Thus, this article complements the literature on backer decision-making, entrepreneurial methods, reward-based crowdfunding, and ethics in entrepreneurship by demonstrating how the displays of potentially negative phenomena, such as Machiavellianism, have complex consequences for entrepreneurial outcomes.

In both social science and medicine, research on reproduction generally focuses on women. In this article, we examine how men’s reproductive contributions are understood. We develop an analytic framework that brings together Cynthia Daniels’ conceptualization of reproductive masculinity with a staged view of reproduction, where the stages include the period before conception, conception, gestation, and birth. Drawing on data from two medical sites that are oriented to the period before pregnancy, we examine how gendered knowledge about reproduction produces different reproductive equations in different stages of the reproductive process. We conclude with a new research agenda that emerges from rethinking the role of men and masculinity in reproduction.