HUMAN SECURITY, RESISTANCES AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE AMERICAS, EUROPE, ASIA AND AFRICA
This symposium seeks to create a space for interdisciplinary dialogue on the contemporary dynamics of organized crime, understanding this phenomenon not only as a threat to state security but as a factor that profoundly alters social imaginaries, territorial governance, and the community fabric in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa.
The central objective is to comparatively analyze the tensions between the persistence of structural violence and the various forms of citizen agency, civil resistance, and collective memory that emerge in contexts of high criminal influence. Drawing on a human security approach, the symposium invites researchers, academics and social leaders to reflect on how local societies process, confront, and give meaning to violence in the twenty-first century.
This proposal, coordinated through a strategic alliance between Santo Tomás University (Colombia), the Università degli Studi di Salerno (Italy), and Externado University of Colombia, aims to integrate diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, including public policy analysis, public history, digital mediation, and political sociology.
Papers addressing, among others, the following thematic axes will be accepted:
1. Criminal governance and power vacuums: Impacts on state legitimacy and democratic cohesion.
2. Imaginaries and representations: The role of media, digital narratives, and public discourse in constructing the reality of violence.
3. Resistances and memories: Experiences of civil association, artistic practices, and support networks in the face of criminal territorial control.
4. Public policy and human security: Challenges for building a culture of territorial peace and protecting vulnerable populations.
The symposium aims to consolidate an international academic network enabling the comparison of case studies, fostering the exchange of knowledge across different regions of the world, and contributing to the development of analytical models that go beyond traditional punitive approaches.
