The academic presented a set of reflections that she has been developing throughout her extensive career of research and reflection on Chilean society and its individuals from the field of social sciences, based on the ways of building society and the social bond that from there it emerges.
With a degree in Psychology from the Pontificia U. Católica del Perú and a PhD in American Studies from the USACH, Araujo stated that –among some challenges– we face the consequences of rapid technological advances, the impacts of environmental erosion, the health threats and the need to insert ourselves into the world economy in a scenario like the current one.
To these challenges he added others, such as the way in which we face the production of well-being for the population, how to deal with interregional migration, the educational deficits of children and young people, as well as everything derived from organized crime and delinquency.
Dr. Araujo maintained that in order to address each of these challenges, “adhesion to society, involvement with it and its tasks, relatively peaceful ways of carrying out the ordinary interactions of social life, the capacity to produce an idea of the common and the production of moral consensus, respectful of plurality”.
“All of them make it possible to achieve the levels of regulation, coordination and collaboration necessary for a society to face its tasks and the challenges that arise,” he added.
critical knots
Among the most urgent critical issues, Kathya Araujo identified two main ones. On the one hand, the processes of detachment that affect adherence to society and the rest of its members and, on the other, the difficulties in managing asymmetries of power and the exercise of authority, which are “a factor of irritation, permanent friction in interactions, an obstacle for social coordination and for the fulfillment of many social tasks”.
Regarding detachment and adherence, the researcher postulated the existence of what she calls the detachment circuit: a process that leads to different forms and degrees of disidentification and distancing from society, with its logics and principles, from which social and political life is organized. Process that affects in a very important way the idea of the common and the social bond, but that, nevertheless, is not anomie.
And regarding the management of power asymmetries, the USACH academic explained that in Chile the most important and widespread type of exercise of authority that people recognize is authoritarian. “A type of exercise that -people maintain and the historical material demonstrates- has a long historical permanence in the country” still in force, which is characterized by being discretionary and by what the author calls the requirement of a machine intelligence, which is translates into getting the other to obey.
In this way, he warned that the management of power asymmetries, consistent with the values that each society considers, “is essential for social life, but above all to have a relatively peaceful coexistence, which is the foundation of all development ”.
To close, Araujo stressed that the great challenges that we currently face and that we will face in the future require a strengthened society. “The strength of a society will depend on the nature of the bond or social bond,” he assured.
In the case of Chile, he said, it will depend -at least partially, but profoundly- “on the way in which this society is capable of promoting, on the one hand, forms of adherence to the collective, to a broad and comprehensive idea of the common and, on the other hand, that society is capable of producing ways of managing power asymmetries that are effective for regulating social coexistence and social tasks, and that, at the same time, are not erosive for the individual and the ideal principles that give foundation to our society”.
