Contributions to Public Policy from Critical Discourse Studies: Inputs and Challenges in Latin America Presentation of the dossier

Abstract

The development of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) in Latin America has always maintained an emancipatory vocation and a commitment to equity and to human and social rights. In pursuit of that vocation and that commitment, we consider that, today, thinking about the relationship between CDS and public policy in our region entails, more than ever, recognizing the complexity of the social fabric within which we intervene through our analytical work. This means acknowledging that our research does not take place in a vacuum, but rather in territories crossed by historical inequalities and by the prioritization of financial profit over an economy oriented toward social development, which gives rise to growing inequities and the symbolic disputes that follow from them. In this context, we believe that public policies, today, demand, more than ever, to be conceived in terms of their potential for transformation.