The CALAS approach “Creating horizons” focuses on future-oriented horizons that particularly arise from strategies to cope with crises. CALAS defines the horizon as a field in constant motion emerging from the tension between the space of experience and the horizon of expectations. Accordingly, the horizon is not a distant line, but rather encompasses the moving space-time that extends between the experience of current actors and the limits of a future, partly emerging and partly unknown. From a political and social point of view it is important to note that horizons are shared and can be experienced collectively; currently however we are experiencing a fragmentation of horizons in response to growing social unrest, fears, uncertainties, and a sense of vulnerability in the face of the collapse of the social, economic, cultural, ecological, and political order on a global scale.

In this context it is necessary to analyze what societies in Latin America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere do to create imaginaries and visions for the future. Special attention is given to creative and utopian horizons, which often have a special imaginative capacity to enhance new notions of social, political, and cultural transformation, temporal and spatial interdependencies, community building, and ideas of dialogue and coexistence. The horizon of experience represents a space that often folds in on itself making moments of fundamental reversal and transcendental transformation possible.

Beyond the question of how horizons are constituted, the way in which they are constructed serves as an important line of research for the new CALAS program; the latter proposes to investigate the “creation of horizons” in a close exchange between academic and non-academic actors during the four years of the transition phase (2025-2029). The work program evolves around three substantial axes: Accelerations, transformations, emergencies; each addressed by two Knowledge Laboratories.

 

Axis A: Acceleration of social processes

At liminal moments when the new has not yet originated, the acceleration of social processes is not solely regarded as a supposed collective utopian progress. Rather, acceleration currently permeates all areas of social life, potentially calling forth various forms of alienation, responses, and the formulation of knowledge that has not yet been consolidated.

This research axis seeks to contribute to a transnational reflection from a relational perspective on mobilities, human displacements, and new temporalities. In doing so, the project hopes to enhance debates about and create solutions for various aspects of knowledge production and the latter’s strategic role in times of multiple accelerations.

Laboratory A1: In Horizontality: Knowledge and education to overcome inequalities and polarizations (2025B)

Laboratory A2: A region in motion: Accelerated human mobilities and multiple circulations in Latin America and the Caribbean (2026A)

Axis T: Transformations in worldviews

The world is undergoing profound transformations that undermine traditional certainties and challenge the foundations of our societies. These changes affect ecosystems, economies, social structures, geopolitical orders, democracies, cultures, and our very perception of reality. This global uncertainty poses unprecedented challenges for knowledge, science, as well as education, all of which face the historical task of building new horizons for radical transformations: just, inclusive, ecological, and democratic.

This axis will analyze in greater depth the clash between emancipatory and reactionary strategies for change. The investigators involved will also examine the role of science and the importance of diverse forms of knowledge in transformation processes. Being aware that the production of knowledge is never neutral, it can nevertheless play a key role in self-reflective participation in change, for example, through critical analysis of current impasses, inertia, and policies. Special attention will be given to epistemologies from the South and to critical political, cultural, and social responses, seeking future narratives of just transformation designed from social, aesthetic, and cultural perspectives.

Laboratory T1: Accelerations and transformations of the world of work in Latin America and the Caribbean from a global perspective (2026 B)

Laboratory T2: Political polarization and radicalization (2027 A)

 

Axis E: Emergences of new practices

In Latin America and the Caribbean, cultural production has played a leading role in times of emergency or when it comes to revealing ideas about the social order in which we live. In this sense, Latin American cultural production (understanding culture in its broadest sense) has been a propelling force when freedoms such as freedom of expression have been altered in difficult times, when consensus is broken, or when new hopes are woven. That is why CALAS intends to develop the concept of emergence not only as a reflection of movements or strategies of resistance, but as urgent and key historical counterpoints on the continent.

Bearing this in mind, the research axis seeks to reflect and generate a corpus of artistic and political-cultural actions, their potential, their changes, and their diasporas in Latin America. It also attempts to explore epistemic proposals that reflect on the relationship/confrontation between the care of the earth and human beings, as well as healing processes.

Laboratory E1: Potentialities of artistic actions (2027 B)

Laboratory E2: Earth care as a Emergency and transformative force (2028 A)