Trade unions and social movements. A theoretical-methodological confluence from Latin America

Abstract

The debate that the study of collective action and social conflict aroused in Europe and the United States had its autonomous expression in Latin America. This distinction between "old" and "new" social actors was not so present. The disputes in these latitudes were more associated with local processes such as development projects, dependency, liberation, etc. However, the social convulsiveness registered in the different Latin American territories in recent decades confirms the need to inquire about the configuration that these struggles adopt and what they make visible and denounce regarding a context of exclusion and growing inequalities. Specifically, this implies for us to propose an approach conducive to understanding the configuration of union disputes based on a synthesis between union studies and collective actions. We take a tour through the tensions that these proposals generate, and we elaborate a theoretical and methodological proposal to understand these phenomena.