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Objective: this paper aims to discuss development practices through the presentation of two case studies from Latin-American contexts. This reflection was done during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Post-development perspectives were mobilized to explore new analytical dimensions in the epistemological and socio-political critique of the capitalist mode of appropriation of nature in América Latina and their potential implications amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Methodology: two study cases from Brazil and Costa Rica were elaborated. The qualitative methodological framework used to identify actors and their complex interactions became a useful tool in reconstructing different socio-political expressions, symbolic narratives, and survival/resistance strategies emerging from local groups. Results: social-environmental crisis emerging in the Anthropocene context suggest the need for different points of view and ontological turns to gain a better understanding of social change occurred in the margins of in the Western world. Latin-American societies are multiple and diverse. Both, Brazilian and Costa Rican experiences discussed in this paper, represent situated realities which cannot be generalized, but this is a rather important and critical issue. These case studies help illustrate how the non-critical adoption of hegemonic categories of sociotechnical control and securitization is inadequate to understand and explain the contingency emerging from these situated realities. Conclusions: we suggest in the final part of the paper that these reflections contribute to bring a different perspective on how science, political and nature converge in knowledge systems and how these systems are contested for different people, groups, and communities around the world. This reflection is crucial to the study of processes concerned with political legitimacy, democracy, and territorial political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will present and discuss the data extracted from a course of continuing education of teachers of the area of Natural Sciences, held at the Federal University of Pampa- Unipampa of the campus of Caçapava do Sul, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The experience indicates the development of skills in the process of elaboration and problem solving that can be carried out in the course of immersion with teachers of the Natural Sciences areas and this is linked to the formation of a group of continuing teacher training, as well as justifies the need to establish a teaching group based on the study of Problem Solving in Science Teaching. The results show that the work developed facilitated the improvement of skills in teachers, as well as contributed to minimize the difficulties encountered in teaching practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding institutional change remains a major theme on the agenda of social sciences. Thus, this working paper analyzes, through a comparative perspective, the different institutional transformations of the Portuguese and Spanish intelligence systems after the transifition to democracy and after 9/11. We applied an institutional change model centered on the relationship between ideas and interests, and used process tracing as a technique in order to identify the key drivers and inhibitors that explain the different institutional paths observed in the intelligence systems of both countries after two critical junctures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The community is built from the integration and different exchanges between collectives. As a human form of groupment, it is defined by two central elements: politics and space. Thus, with modernity, the dependence from what is outside outweighs what is within, where the hegemonic actors manage to renew the social relations, the means of production and even the understanding about these spaces. Human sciences are also responsible in reproducing different views about the concept of community and its' applications. In Brazil, the political relations stand out on the conformation of communities. The authoritarianism of hegemonic classes imposed in the daily living and the discourse based on local relevance hide the conflicts lived within the communities and hinder internal and external political action of the populace. This paper discusses these questions from a theorical review of authors who work with the theme in order to explain a given local reality. It is stressed the necessity of a political and historical analysis about how the communities spatialize, their dynamics and transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potentialities and limitations of network analysis, not only as a methodological tool that may be used in Social Science research but also as a separate discipline, with its own well-tested theories. Providing a framework for the use of network analysis involves discussing the role that it can play in understanding objects using a field that is sometimes accused of being too technical. Despite the fact that it has increased in popularity over recent years, driven by new communication technologies and especially social media channels, network analysis has a much broader use, and we therefore aim to demonstrate some innovative approaches that may be used in Social Science research. Finally, because it is an interdisciplinary methodology, we discuss some of the associated risks and biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposal of this study is part of the debate about interdisciplinarity in research and graduate study. Its objective is to analyze the approaches and interpretations of "development" and "rural" as concepts and practice in the social sciences, based on a case study. To this end, we shall take as a basis the interdisciplinary scientific production (theses and dissertations) focused on the issues of the rural world, generated by the graduate program of Social Sciences, Development, Agriculture and Society of the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro - CPDA/UFRRJ. The analysis of the construction of the Social Sciences in Brazil is significant to the understanding of the choices and interdisciplinary theoretical-methodological stances of many graduate programs, in order to elucidate their research, formulations and interpretations of social processes. As a result, we present within a broad universe of academic papers, examples of studies recognized as being interdisciplinary in their approaches to development and the rural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the initial ideas of Luiz Beltrão about folkcommunication (1967) and discusses the interpretation about the theoretical basis of this field is the functionalism. For this research was chosen a literature review and the reading of works sources (in the sense suggested by Ruiz, 2002), to verify the bonds between folkcommunication and functionalism (or if they even exist). After the examination of the thesis that led to folkcommunication and of the characteristics in the paper works of the main functionalist authors mentioned in the Beltrão's thesis, the results point that the hypothesis that the folkcommunication is related to functionalism does not hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some applications and limitations of the use of ethnographic methods as a way of understanding and study of organizational culture. Search this topic shows to be relevant because the study of ethnographic method - aims at the understanding of organizational culture - can provide important clues to understanding and identifying processes that form the institutions. Much of the literature is concerned with investigating specific industries and processes in different organizations. However, the ethnographic method is only referenced in the topics of methodology and/or results, however not, have suggestions for innovative ways of application and there is little debate about its limitations. It is emphasized that as we get more dense reports of problems faced by researchers during the process and the solutions proposed to solve them, and discovered new paths can be used by researchers in future research, enabling a deeper ethnography - with the construction dense descriptions - and historical difficulties and construction of new perspectives on their problems, for more effective and consistent with the organizational reality interventions. This information is essential for the development of management policies that aim the process of deploying attentive to the demands of the institutions organizational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]