Community social organization as a strategy for reducing human vulnerability to planetary collapse

Abstract

Assuming infinite resources, a development consisting of unlimited economic growth was proposed, at the expense of the exploitation of nature in order to build a society of well-being, but we have become a society of risk. The World Economic Forum (2024) considers the climate crisis as the main long-term global risk, disinformation derived from artificial intelligence in the medium term. However, Latin America faces more urgent socioeconomic challenges such as poverty, inequality and public insecurity, which trigger migrations and the uncontrolled exploitation of nature, a situation that has motivated alliances and guidelines with transnational support, but do these strategies manage to reach communities, or do they add to local forms of management? The objective of this work is to evidence, within the framework of the epistemologies of the South, the way in which community social organization reduces its vulnerability to these risk scenarios, proposing its own forms of relationship with nature, beyond exploitation. Community experiences in search of sustainability were reviewed, in which it is evident that their organization is a determinant of collective achievements, materialized in environmental protection and the transformation of production modes.