Inthis newissue ofthe Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios sobre Cuerpos, Emociones y Sociedad (Latin American Review of the Study of Bodies, Emotions and Society), authors from different latitudes –Argentina, Mexico, Brazil Spain, and China,– engage in a dialogue which allows us to think of bodies/emotions in the new millennium. Experiences subjects go through in cities, with the arrival of the digital economy, the laws that, seemingly, impact the ways we interrelate, the ways we date and we search for partners, are some of the nodes that the articles included in this issue lead us to think about the current modes of structuration.

This year is the last of the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and it finds us as the only species that disconnects, in a planned manner, reproduction and sexuality –at the same time that we are the only species that can totally self-destruct –with modified epistemological, theoretic and methodological paradigms, and in the process of being modified by the inception of quantic physics, which questions the fundamentals of orthodox scientific knowledge, and with an increase of world population and of subjects suffering from hunger, enslaved, displaced, and under worldwide unequal conditions (Scribano, 2015).

Alongside this, the twenty-first century relations are configured in a context of concentrated mirroring of individuality, also in conjunction with normed sociability of an immediate and self-centered enjoyment. In the pornographic act of systemic reproduction, sensibilities are linked to the centrality of experience as a commodifiable object and as relations between “new” technologies and desires, and the modes in which we relate in the context of new practices (Scribano, 2015). This implies, in turn, new forms of thinking about the senses: to “touch” has become a mode of articulation and enacting events, meetings, and purchases, likewise, “looking” at the screen becomes a mode of knowledge, being present and/or participating in the world. This is why bodies/ emotions of the twenty-first century, the experiences they transit, and the sensibilities they weave, conform an environment conductive to rethinking the scaffolds we use to understand and analyze in the social sciences. If living in today’s world has impacted our senses, this must also impact on and reconfigure the known modes of seeing/looking/observing.

All said, the writings in this issue reinforce the persistent bet by this journal for seeing (from) bodies/emotions and presents us with new pieces and dimensions to think and understand our –already 20 year old –new century.

The issue opens with a text by Anne Sophie Marie Frederique Gosselin (Brazil), titled “From the social construction to the artistic desconstruction of the body on stage. An analisis of the dance of Corpornô”, which presents research on the establishment of links between choreographic creation and political dynamics. The author reflects upon the artistic production of the body in Brazilian society, deconstructing the representations of the body linked to contemporary dance. The article allows for –from the analysis of the choreography of a dance production –the problematizing of the use of the naked body as linked to “the natural”, the intimate, and the universal, in the conception of the subject as a socio-historical construction, as well as an artistic tool of expression, experimentation, and reflection.

Our second article, by Elisa Herrera Altamirano and Begonya Enguix Grau (Spain), is titled “Running bodies: urban becomings and continuums from a feminist ethnographic approach”. Understanding bodies from a process of embodiment, the authors carry out ethnography in the cities of Barcelona (Spain) and Querétaro (México), by which they reflect on the values entailed by running in contemporary society. With the active body as an axis, the authors deploy their research work by thinking the human body in continuity with other urban and digital materialities of the practice of running. This practice of mobility of the everyday life of the subject who runs, conforms a continuum between the bodies, space, and technology, and the dimensions of digital materiality in relation to the world.

Our third article, titled “Let’s play! Emotional energy in speed dating events”, is by Mariana Palumbo (Argentina). Palumbo deals with emotional energy and its changes in multi-dating events. Speed dates are interaction situations in which participants put into play their erotic capital and in which emotional energy fluctuates in diverse forms. The aim of the article is to describe and analyze this fluctuation. In order to do this, the author places herself from the standpoint of interaction analysis and, from a qualitative perspective, engages in the environment of multiple dating as affective market, in which capitals are mobilized in emotionally charged interactions, which are distributed unequally.

This issue continues with an article by Catalina María Tabares Ochoa (Colombia), titled “Confidence, Hope and Fear in Public Discourses of Peace Process between the Colombian Government and the guerrilla FARC-EP (2012-2016)”, in which she engages in the study of emotions in political rhetoric. The author analyzes 124 discourses and public statements made during the peace dialogues between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Popular Army (FARC-EP), and identifies the main emotions. Thus, the article deals with trust, fear, and hope as emotions linked in clear political functions, and at the same time it emphasizes the pertinence of researching from emotions for the analysis of political rhetoric.

The article by Julián Ortega (Argentina), titled “Effects of the equal marriage act at the nursing workplaces in Argentina”, deals with the phenomenon of labor violence, with special attention paid to modern forms of discrimination known as selective lack of civility against gays and lesbians. The aim of the article is to explore the significations of the Law of Equal Marriage and its potential incidence on labor spaces in order to stablish to what extent this normative has operated as a relevant socio-political variable in the social-labor interactions in the healthcare sector, specifically in the nursing sector. The text is grounded on in-depth and allows for the problematizing or the ways in which, despite the existence of new laws, the discriminatory practices continue to operate, finding more subtle and –seemingly –imperceptible channels, challenging all the “good feelings” which seem to have been stablished around non-discrimination.

As our sixth article we include “Where was the family? Reviewing female emotions around migration”. In this text the authors - Ivy Jacaranda Jasso Martinez and María Soledad De León Torres - propose an analysis of narratives by women from towns in Michoacán (La Piedad) and Jalisco (Totatiche), which standout among the places that have most contributed migrations to the United States since the first half of the twenty-first century. The interviews by the authors explore visions by the population with respect to the migration by its members, accounting for the fact that the common denominator in these narratives is the negative assessment of the impact, or possible impact, of migration in their lives. The authors stress the centrality of dealing with emotions and how this contributes to public policies on the impact of migration processes in the everyday lives of people that live through them.

Our seventh article is a text by Felisa Zhang Jingting (China) titled “Emotions and consumption of the netizens in China’s digital economy”. This article not only exhibits several aspects which “approaches” the knowledge of other places and, like the previous article, considers emotions as an indispensable path for the analysis of the social; it also allows us to observe how the modes of being and perceiving are transformed by the intensification of Internet use. The text establishes a link between emotion and consumption practices, which in the case studied reveals certain specificities due to the changes induced by digital economy and the modalities of consumption, temporalities, and flows made possible by them.

This issue closes with two book reviews. The first is by Danilo Martuccelli (Perú) about the book “La cocina de acogida. Migrantes andinos en Lima: memorias, sabores y sentidos” (“Welcome cooking. Andean migrants in Lima: memories, flavors, and senses”), by Pedro Pablo Ccopa. The review presents a short but enlightening biography of the author and allows us to think cooking by Andean migrants from the perspective of the historical changes and social and cultural struggle which are implied by the fact of being city migrant. Cooking is revealed as a space for interpretations of historical changes and body feelings.

The second review is by Wenceslao Melgarejo Ramos (México), about the book “La piel y la Huella” (“The Skin and the Footprint”) by David Le Breton. The book, as revealed by its title, emphasizes the different forms of impingement on the body as reconstruction of identity: self-infliction, not necessarily resulting as expressions madness and/or insanity, is a path for the reclaiming of control of the self, to get rid of something, and feel less pain in specific experiences, such as imprisonment.

We thank the authors and all those who have sent us their manuscripts. We would like to remind you that we are permanently receiving submissions for publication.

Finally, we would like to restate that as from the 15th issue of RELACES we are publishing up to two articles in English per issue. As we have been stating for some time, all of RELACES’ editorial team and editorial council believe it is necessary to take each one of our articles as a node that allows us to continue in the path of dialogue and scientific/academic exchange as a social and political task in order to attain a freer and more autonomous society. Therefore, we would like to thank all those who see us as a vehicle to open the aforementioned dialogue.

References

SCRIBANO, A. (2015) “Comienzo del Siglo XXI y Ciencias Sociales: Un rompecabezas posible”. Polis, N° 41. Disponible en: http://polis.revues.org/11005.