CENTRAL THEMES : 1st ASF Quito 2004

The five central themes aim to reflect the specific character of the hemispheric agenda and to facilitate grouping of topics that will be broached through the different initiatives under the ASF umbrella. Similarly, the sub-themes indicated obviously cannot cover the totality of themes that could be included. Further input is invited in relation to these sub-themes, such as those that relate to implicit aspects or that are not reflected here.

Theme 1

The economic order: human and environmental impoverishment, debts, corruption, total market; the public space and economic rights; reproductive economy. Resistance, views of the future and the construction of alternative models.

• Implantation of the total market under the postulates of free trade: WTO, FTAA, subregional and bilateral agreements. Commercialization, privatization and corporate control of production and life. Their scope and impact in all spheres.

• Mass impoverishment and new forms of exclusion in North and South. How to characterize, identify and prevent them?

• Other roads for regional integration: are the CAN, MERCOSUR, CARICOM short term alternatives? The perspective of Latin American integration as a historic project.

• External debt as a mechanism of economic subordination and imposition of the model. Present processes of challenging it: illegitimacy, non-sustainability, etc. Are there short term solutions?

• We are creditors: environmental debt, historical debt, debts owed to women. How can they be recovered?

• The hidden face of the economy: sexual division of labor, reproduction and the caring economy. Macroeconomy and gender. Economic and gender justice; how to redistribute responsabilities, time, resources and recognition?

• The other economy: alternatives for organzing production, reproduction, exchange, finance. The solidary economy. Environmental and economic sustainability.

• The role of international cooperation and the new development trends.

Theme 2

The violent face of the neoliberal project: imperial hegemony, militarism, strategic control over biodiversity, sexist violence. Resistance and the emergence of new subjects.

• Scope and implications of the US strategy. Resistance; peace and cooperation initiatives. Sub-regional military plans and the interrelations between war, the economy and politics. The strategic control of resources.

• Regional peace and cooperation initiatives. Weaknesses and resistance in the Empire. Hemispheric routes for interconnecting peoples.

• Military-authoritarian logic vs human rights. Expressions and responses in North and South.

• Food sovereignty: a strategic proposal for rural and urban areas, for North and South. How to build it?

• Privatization of protected natural areas and the role of NGOs in pursuing this goal. How to respond from a posture of national sovereignty and from peoples and local communities?

• Bio-prospection and bio-pirating; intellectual property rights and the risks of negotiating profit-sharing.

• "Environmental services" as an expression of commercialization and privatization of nature. How to respond from a posture of national sovereignty and from peoples and local communities?

• Sexist violence: expressions and resistance in the context of militarization.

Theme 3

Power, democracy and the State: changes, continuity and views of the future.

• How to build democracy, sovereignty and human rights in a period of breakdown of international structures.

• Opportunities, limits and perspectives in experiences of social movements and alternative political forces in government.

• Power dynamics and relations with international institutions at the sub-regional, regional and "world government" levels.

• Ethics and politics of the democracy we aspire to.

• Defense of social rights and the public space. A means of redefining the State and democracy?

• Corruption and impunity: roots, scope and citizen responses.

• Initiatives of advocacy in public policy, mechanisms and spaces for dialogue and negotiation. Towards a new public institutional framework?

• Power dynamics in society and the private sphere.

• Power dynamics in society and the private sphere.

Theme 4

Cultures and communication: resistance, memory, construction of identities; spaces and practice of creation; critical and alternative language; democratizing communication.

• Culture and memory: "shields" against the imperial project.

• Peoples, communities, ethnic groups: identities and resistance.

• Building new urban identities.

• Worldviews and spirituality.

• Cultural aberrations: sexism, homophobia, racism: challenges for change.

• The right to communicate and public policies.

• The monopolization of the media and communication systems.

• The commodification of information, journalistic independence and ethics.

• Independent, alternative and community media.

• Social appropriation and control of new technologies; civil rights vs. Control and surveillance.

• Communication, gender and diversity.

Theme 5

Indigenous peoples and African descendents: territories; autonomy; diversity and multiculturalism; knowledge and intellectual property.

• Democracy and collective rights: the State and rights in relation to indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants.

• Sovereignties, institutionality and systems of representation.

• Conceptions and practices of indigenous and afro economies, their contributions for an alternative economy.

• Building multicultural, diverse and egalitarian societies.

• Alternative proposals to globalization of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants.

Transversal themes:

Gender and diversities.