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The aim of this paper is: first, to show that the relationship between Latin America and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a faithful reflection of a class struggle on a world scale, where the correlation of internal and external forces has been articulated over the years in favor of capital; second, to analyze the concrete possibilities that the region will face in the future if it intends to reverse this unfavorable history. The paper argues that the IMF has played a key role in the reconfiguration and extension of the dominance of international finance capital over the productive resources of Latin America by favoring the consolidation of a local capitalist class subordinated to the designs and power of transnational capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the archaeology and history of labor is based on organized labor, unions, and strikes, and the common rhetoric emphasizes the success or failure of union strike activities. This frames labor activism with clear winners and losers and inadvertently adopts the vantage point of capital. Given the modern world where union membership is plummeting, "success" seems even more unlikely. In this paper, I use the case of the Coalwood lumber camp to argue that labor's "success" was much more complicated than simply winning strikes. Recognizing the difference between concrete and abstract labor provides a way to think about worker's decisions to structure their lives based more on concrete than alienated labor that gives them more autonomy over their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the homilies of the Bishop of Cuernavaca, Sergio Méndez Arceo, in the 1970s. The objective is to deepen the multiple messages that economic problems take up, by contextualizing these ideas, within the general framework of Liberation Theology. The main axes of the homilies focus on two positions: 1) conversion and 2) dualism. By conversion, Méndez Arceo constantly returns to the idea of “class struggle”, at the same time, from the perspective of Holy Scripture, he emphasizes the Liberation of the man. While by dualism he insists on the division between a ruling class of wealthy businessmen or landowners and a dominated class of workers and peasants, dividing society into good and bad Christians. It is worth highlighting that this article takes up a novel theme, considering that an in-depth analysis of the economic problems in the homilies has not been carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the variety of agrarian classes of labour and the challenges they face in organizing and pursuing their interests. By taking the cotton sector in Burkina Faso as a case study, it analyses how various 'classes of labour' organize and mobilize for collective action to raise their claims: poor cotton farmers and workers in the cotton factories. Poor and middle farmers recently came to the fore when they boycotted cotton production in large numbers. The study focusses on the boycott campaign, and more broadly on class struggle and collective action by farmers and workers, on interclass alliances, and on capital's attempts to play the classes of labour against one another. The boycott campaign provides an outstanding case to analyse the interests of the various classes of labour and of opportunities for rural–urban mobilization and alliances across classes of labour. I argue that poor farmers and factory workers along the chain of cotton production can be considered as various classes of labour that are not necessarily antagonistic to one another but, first and foremost, to capital. In order to achieve radical transformation in the agrarian context, what is needed are networks and organizations to establish interclass solidarity and alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the notion of taste for teaching a subject, especially science, as a conceptual framework to analyse the aesthetics of teacher development as a lifelong process. We draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and John Dewey in order to account for how teachers distinguish admirable practices and, in doing so, distinguish themselves as inspiring professionals. In order to illustrate this framework, we report a narrative inquiry on the life story of Tomas, a white man nationally prized for his science teaching. This inquiry was inspired by sociological portraits recommended by Bernard Lahire. Results indicate how a practical disposition (as opposed to a theoretical one) played an important role in developing Tomas's individual taste for science teaching, producing a strong continuity between his early experiences as a masculine boy raised in a family of construction workers, on the one hand, and his later experiences as a biologist and a science teacher enacting inquiry-based activities. The significance of the findings for science education is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the first false messages composition on the new coronavirus and Covid-19 that circulated in Brazil. The analysis problematize the relationships between form and content that give legitimacy to the messages and how they are inserted in the class struggle. We used the contributions of the Circle, especially Volóchinov, on the nature of language associated with contributions from the field of historical and dialectical materialism, to analyze 11 messages, two of which were analyzed deeply. The results indicated that false communications are inserted in the class struggle seeking to manipulate the interlocutor and they appropriated and mobilized elements, mainly from the spheres of Science and Journalism, to give the effect of credibility and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]