Memories and Futures in the Territory of the Americas: Situated Cultures for Regenerative Development
From south of the Rio Bravo to the Strait of Magellan stretches the territory that sustains the highly complex Latin American condition: territories and cultures of mestizaje and hybridization between traditional, modern, and postmodern patterns, according to Canclini. In approaching this territory, it seems possible to perceive a territorial “unity,” one that arises more from a will than from a given condition. This unity, as Marina Waisman proposes, is “more than a given fact, a problem,” one that opens up multiple options for addressing the memory and future of our territory.
We share with Milton Santos the understanding that territory is “the image of the reality of a society expressed through tangible and intangible assets (…). In this process, one always operates on two basic dimensions: identity and difference.” If we understand identity, memory, and tradition as forms of belonging and participation: where do we belong and in what do we participate? What is our future, our possibilities for facing change, for resolving innovations in the Latin American territory?
To delve into the problem posed by this territory, its culture, and its future, we propose to reflect from the affirmation that culture is a facilitator of sustainable development, in accordance with the World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, MONDIACULT 2025. Faced with the need to respond to sustainability, climate change, and the pursuit of well-being in our territory, we understand that “culture contributes to the full exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms, to peacebuilding, to inclusive economic growth, as well as to climate resilience, well-being, and sustainable development,” according to the UNESCO World Report on Cultural Policies, Culture: The Missing SDG, 2025.
This symposium is presented as a space for thinking about American culture as a factor of sustainable development, as an “objective” capable of addressing the world’s most urgent challenges, yet with its own identity, because historically it has fostered innovations that have shaped desired futures, whose material and immaterial constructions are today memory. Looking to the future, what today is defined as a “sustainable cultural ecosystem”…
Through a multidisciplinary approach, this symposium proposes to explore contributions from architecture, environmental sciences, territorial studies, history, and cultural heritage, showing how culture shapes our perceptions of territory, landscape, and our relationship with nature; how it acts as a factor of cohesion, inclusion, and the construction of shared identities; and how it generates creative resources that drive innovation. We invite the submission of papers, situated in Latin American territory, on:
– climate change and environmental sustainability through culture,
– culture at risk,
– inclusive and sustainable cultural ecosystems that drive economic development,
– culture as a tool for achieving resilience, peace, and security,
– processes of territorial development built through culturally mestizo means,
– preservation of cultural heritage as a contribution to environmental and social sustainability,
– culture as a focus of development policies that integrate inclusive, equitable, and effective strategies,
– territorial and architectural urban design as a regenerative tool.
