Call for papers for the volume 11, number 1, year 2026
In order to encourage academic production in the field of State sciences, the Editorial Team of the Journal of State Sciences (REVICE) makes this call public regarding the composition of the dossier of volume 11, number 1, year 2026. The theme of this edition's dossier will be IDEAS FROM AN OTHER PLACE: LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES.
Our efforts in the last two dossiers have focused on seeking questions and answers that probe the concept of the State, putting into question its histories, its values, and its forms of institutionalization in relation to the universality attached to the concept of the State — if such universality is possible at all. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that dualistic tendencies are persistent in the field of the Humanities, making it difficult to conceive the universal without its other face, the particular. Thus, it may be necessary to take a step back and restart our discussion.
The particular face of the State is the one that materializes in reality, that emerges and asserts itself, to some extent, as the truth of a people, bearing its own history, singular values, and specific ways of organizing power. For several decades, intellectuals have sought tirelessly to distance themselves from the forms of colonization that continue to plague thought produced in the central-southern regions of the Americas. They defend, fight for, and participate in the development of alternative forms of knowledge production that are not confined solely to that which originates from hegemonic centers of power. On the other hand, placing these Latin American studies strictly within the category of particular studies would not lead to a reaffirmation of this colonial dimension? That is, that the center is them and the different is us?
Etymologically, the word “other” comes from the Latin alter, meaning that which is different, the second between two, the other of two. Already here a decisive element appears: alter is not simply the absolute stranger, but the one who is distinguished in relation to a first, often within the same order. Thus, the other is not defined by total exclusion, but by an asymmetrical relation in which its difference is constantly measured, translated, or subordinated to parameters that are not its own. To speak of “ideas from elsewhere” therefore does not mean claiming a pure exteriority or an isolated identity, but rather placing tension upon the center from a historically situated position, marked by experiences, conflicts, and forms of life that resist complete assimilation. This “elsewhere” is not merely geographic; it is epistemological and political, for it reveals the limits of concepts that purport to organize the world in a universal manner, while simultaneously demanding reflection on for whom, by whom, and from which realities thought becomes possible.
To question this particular is to inquire into the questions that arise from here, into one’s own aspirations. Perhaps it is more appropriate to speak of a certain singularity rather than particularity, not as an exception to the universal, but as a proper production of meaning capable of placing tension upon, displacing, and reconfiguring the very terms in which the universal is conceived. An investigation into foundations, limits, and possibilities thus invites a movement of critical introspection regarding the bases of our own political knowledge.
When we turn our gaze to Latin America, the supposed universality of theoretical structures collides with the concrete reality of the margins. Far from constituting an aporia or a mere ontological inadequacy, this shift becomes a privileged locus of meaning-production. It is in the tension between theoretical categories and social experience that culture ceases to be a mere reflection and asserts itself as a matrix that produces institutions, political practices, and forms of resistance.
We therefore invite authors to engage with these epistemic horizons in which these ideas from elsewhere are taken as a point of departure. The objective is to elucidate how identity and resistance intertwine in the construction of a political rationality that, while in dialogue with the universal, is deeply rooted in the disputes, contradictions, and complexities of our time and territory.
This dossier therefore proposes to lay bare the veins of Latin America, probing the fissures of public authority and the mutations of sovereignty not through the lens of deficiency or backwardness, but from the standpoint of the power of institutional imagination. In a context in which global power dynamics, as well as climate and social crises, place intense pressure on the boundaries of political communities, it becomes imperative to ask:
How can subordinated practices and forms of knowledge reconfigure theoretical categories considered universal? When is this “elsewhere” not exclusion, but the production of meaning and resistance? How does institutional imagination open pathways for thinking about public and collective policies outside Eurocentric frameworks? In what ways can culture be understood not as a reflection but as a producer of institutions and political forms? How does Latin American thought challenge disciplinary, geographic, and methodological boundaries? Do classical ideas of State, society, and politics acquire new meanings when displaced into the Latin American context? Do they create new perspectives? What are these concepts that organize us: power, politics, State? Or rather, for whom are they? For the sake of what? In what ways do practices and knowledges historically situated at the margins of imperialism reconfigure our understanding of the whole? How do Latin American theories and praxes, by challenging teleologies and determinisms, offer new categories of thought and behavior to humanity? What do the recurrent social and institutional crises in Latin America reveal about the limits of traditional theories of the State? How does the State incorporate (or fail to incorporate) non-hegemonic forms of knowledge, practice, and rationality? What conceptual disputes emerge when the center is no longer Europe and/or North America and the “other Americas” become the horizon of knowledge? What contributions do decolonial studies offer for rethinking knowledge production in the field of State sciences? What are the challenges and possibilities of applying concepts such as “space” and “territory” outside hegemonic theoretical matrices? How can institutional knowledge production be thought from a Latin American experience without resorting to the logic of backwardness, incompleteness, or normative correction? What new categories may emerge when the “elsewhere” is assumed as a starting point? How can the peripheral position of Latin American countries be transformed into theoretical horizons rather than restricted to conditions of historical and institutional subordination? With which Latin America do we find ourselves when we question these particular forms of institutionalizing power, doing politics, and organizing the State? Ultimately, what is Latin America?
This issue thus encompasses works on: State Sciences and Epistemologies, including Theories of Knowledge, Decoloniality, Geopolitics of Knowledge, Knowledge Production, and Interdisciplinarity; Institutions and Forms of the State, covering Latin American Neoconstitutionalism, Sovereignty, Democracy, Republicanism, Justice, Political Culture, and Contemporary Politics; History and Resistance in Latin America, focusing on Dictatorships, Human Rights, Human Dignity, Identity, Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Knowledges, Multiculturalism, and Social Crises; Territorial and Economic Dynamics, addressing Geopolitics, Imperialism, Capitalism, Development, Space, Territoriality; in addition to cross-cutting contributions from the Human and Social Sciences, particularly in Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Education, and Geography, as well as—transdisciplinarily or post-disciplinarily—contributions that dialogue with Physics, Biological Sciences, Engineering, Neurosciences, and other areas that contribute to frontier knowledge in relation to the Humanities.
I - The publication of REVICE will take place in a continuous flow.
II – REVICE will receive papers for the present of the dossier from the date of its publication until April 12, 2026.
III - Papers whose evaluation and correction process are not completed by June 30, 2026 will be published in the following issues of REVICE.
IV - All REVICE's submission policies, as well as its editorial policies, can be found on its official website.
V – Only articles, essays, reviews, unpublished translations and historical memoirs will be accepted. VI – Papers with free themes continue to be accepted by REVICE.
Belo Horizonte, January 14, 2026.
Theo Augusto Apolinário Moreira Fonseca
Editor-in-Chief of REVICE
Lucas Antônio Nogueira Rodrigues
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of REVICE
