The decolonial twist and its contributions to the analysis of the social protection in Latin America

Abstract

In Latin America, especially in Brazil, the topic of the social protection, its institutionalization process and its configuration, has been approached, historically, from an European theoretical and practical perspective, therefore, this study seeks to contribute with an approach from the point view of the subordinate side of the power relations. In light of this, the objective is to reflect on social protection in Latin America from a decolonial perspective. The research is from a qualitative nature and had a bibliographic review. Historically constructed perspectives for social protection analyzes are presented, in particular the classifications of welfare regimes and explanatory theories. The work demonstrates that the analysis, in the decolonial perspective, allows us to identify (in) visible elements in the literature about the social protection systems. The Contributions start from the indivisibility between the economy and the culture; it considers the perspective of race, class, gender intersectionality as structuring peripheral capitalism; and, it demonstrates that the European social protection system, transported to America, reinforces hierarchies and social roles of class, race, gender, which is, therefore, one of the faces of the coloniality of power.