CENTRAL AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN THOUGHT. THE TRADITION OF LATIN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS IN THE REGION
The history of ideas helps us understand how nations and their identity are built. The formation of identity passes through the cultural, geographic and ideological dimensions in which the nation develops. It is therefore important to understand, on many occasions, the discourses that construct the imaginary of a nation or a set of nations. This imaginary is forged by those who have prevailed in the debate. However, in the genesis of the debate itself remain the traces of those who happened to be the losers. Ideas manage to penetrate the deepest layers of human consciousness to become embedded in the Being of a people. That is, the continuity of an idea is a product of the longue durée, which, “repeated endlessly, runs through societies, worlds and psyches” (Braudel, 1970, p. 72).
The history of ideas must be investigated, just as history itself, from “cyclical oscillation and a wager on its duration” (Braudel, 1970, p. 64). We will thus be able to properly enter into a structure that has managed to create an assemblage with stable elements across countless generations over the centuries.
Accordingly, we will address the study of Central American, continental Caribbean and insular Caribbean thought within the framework of the 59th ICA, at the Pontifical Bolivarian University, Medellín, Colombia. As a first objective, we will study, from the history of ideas, the tradition and memory of Latin American thought in the Central American nations within the framework of the bicentennials: independence (1821-2021), the Monroe Doctrine (1823-2023), and the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama (1826-2026). The second objective is to analyze the nations that make up the insular Caribbean, both independent ones and those that remain under some form of protectorate. We seek to bring together researchers of Central American and Caribbean thought with the goal of creating a debate around these ideas. We also aim to compare the different bodies of thought that have built an identity-based tradition in both regions, in order to identify the paths that reveal points of convergence and divergence between Central America, the continental Caribbean and the insular Caribbean. Thanks to the Philosophy of the Americas axis incorporated at the 50th ICA in Warsaw, 15 years later, at the 55th ICA in San Salvador, we launched this traditional symposium for the first time in the history of ICA congresses, expanding it to the Caribbean at the 56th ICA in Salamanca.
Topics to be addressed:
* Thinkers, networks and spaces of socialization of Central American, Caribbean and other Latin American ideas.
* Indigenist thought in Central America, the continental and insular Caribbean.
* Expressions of Eastern thought in Central America, the continental and insular Caribbean.
* Unionist thought in Central America, the continental and insular Caribbean.
* Nationalism, spiritualism and patriotism in Central America, the continental and insular Caribbean.
* Decolonization in Central America, the continental and insular Caribbean.
* Caribbean gastronomy as a meeting point of identities across the Caribbeans.
* Expressions of thought in the visual arts and Central American and Caribbean literature.
* Tricontinental thought—from the First Tricontinental Conference in Havana to the present.
