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Over the last 40 years, investigations have shown the discipline of International Relations to reproduce the American influence on its methods, paradigms, and institutional dynamics. This article explores the case for the Latin American community, based on the survey data from the Teaching, Research, and International Politics project (TRIP) 2014 developed by the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations of the College of William and Mary, Virginia (USA). TRIP evaluated International Relations communities in 32 countries around the world. The article aims to answer two main questions: (i) is American influence still dominant over epistemological, methodological, paradigmatic, and institutional representative terms in Latin American International Relations communities, as has been considered in the past? (ii) Is there in the region any contestation to this supposed influence? Primarily, the present article shows an affirmative answer for the first issue. Therefore, and most importantly, the data analysis shows upcoming local pressures rooted in American influence, especially on its epistemic and paradigmatic terms. The data strengthens the miscegenation tendency on its epistemological and paradigmatic aspects, which underlines a lack of consensus over the structure of American dominance over the discipline of International Relations in Latin America, especially if one observes the most numerous and structured group in the region: the Brazilian International Relations community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three perspectives of Library and Information Science (LIS) are discussed: The first one is about the increasingly nearness between the point of view of the librarian and of the user about their information needs and information-seeking strategies; the second perspective points out on the Latin American position regarding more developed countries; the third one, states LIS needs to permanently ask itself about its ontological and epistemological foundations. The perspectives are examined taking into account its global aspects, because of the characteristics of the dynamics of the relations between individuals and societies, as that is what the current context requires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this work is to interpret four alternative movements for rethinking the social sciences based on a liberating episteme from the South. In addition to re-thinking, this article also deals with recreating the other Latin American scientific socio-political logos from the viewpoint of intercultural philosophy. To achieve these goals, the alternatives are conceived as i) an epistemic project that allows for complex research and the trans-disciplinary training of researchers; ii) an ethical project that permits establishing public coexistence values and rights to peace between men and nature; iii) a political project that allows for developing intercultural states in favor of plurality for civic identities; and finally iv) an economic project based on criticism of techno-scientific consumerist production, that, at the same time, justifies the development of an economy of necessary goods. These days, when models of Cartesian rationality are in crisis, it is in Latin America where alternative praxes make it possible to discover those insurgent origins of emancipation in the face of decolonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the pattern of scientific knowledge implies the epistemological platform of the western civilization model associated with the capitalist system, closely linked to situations of injustice against which social movements arise and act, what characteristics does wisdom assume consubstantiated with the interests in transforming society associated with those movements? The purpose of this essay is to describe some of the particularities that this “knowledge in movement” assumes. At the same time, the essay will try to sketch the tensions among these and determine certain conditionings of scientific knowledge, expressed in the canons that regulate social science publications. “Knowledge in movement” has two dimensions: one denounces and the other contributes epistemological “novelty.” They originate within and outside of academe from multiple patterns and become legitimate in the same transformation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]