For Mauss, the gift encompasses innumerable phenomena, but, more than a phenomenon, he considers it a relationship. They are goods, words, people, visits, parties, music, gestures, violence, signs, among other significant realities, which may or may not circulate as commodities, from which, once given, emanate some forms of retribution; they are "obligations," says Mauss.

The Anthropocene, as a concept and framework for thinking and producing knowledge on contemporary issues, has given rise to multiple debates on the validity and scope of its proposals. The natural and Earth sciences debate whether or not it is a new geological era, in which the intervention of the human species would have a primordial role; however, other debates arise from the social sciences and humanities.

For some, perspectivism is a revolution in anthropological thought, while for others it is not a theory, but rather an ideology forged by bringing into the arena of discussion old, unearthed and outdated paradigms that were long ago superseded.

Sex has been problematized and is no longer considered only a biological phenomenon, to give way to the discussion on sexuality and to make the body visible as the space where meaning-producing relationships materialize.

In the last decade, a wave of accusations has been launched against brands and companies for using cultural elements of indigenous groups. In Mexico, several cases have had considerable resonance: the complaint by the Mixe community of Tlahuitoltepec against the French company Isabel Marant for copying its Xaam nïxuy blouse; the protest by the Secretary of Culture, Alejandra Frausto, against the fashion house of Carolina Herrera for the use of embroidery from Tenango de Doria and the sarape from Saltillo; and on three different occasions the fashion clothing company Zara has been accused of plagiarism for using designs from Aguacatenango, Chiapas.

The covid-19 pandemic and the confinement it brought with it led the whole world to seek new ways of organizing daily life. They also imposed the need to rethink the way we relate to nature and the meaning of our individual, social and species existence.

We have invited three specialists from the field of medical anthropology to reflect on their respective experiences and knowledge of Mexico, Great Britain, the United States and India, all of them countries deeply affected by the pandemic, even if in very different ways, and whose management of the pandemic has been oriented in different directions. This allows us to contrast the diversity of official responses to the health and economic crisis.

The social sciences in Latin America have received numerous impulses for their development from the hegemonic countries. Research expeditions, teacher training, the dissemination of books and magazines provide feedback on the relationship between the center and the periphery. In our region, the social sciences have developed confined within the borders of each country. This can be confirmed by looking at the topics and titles of theses, articles and books produced in Latin American countries. However, lasting links at the horizontal level have been built through the exchange of professors and students and the activities of the congresses, and lately on the pages of electronic journals. In this section of Discrepancies we will explore what role fostering open science has to play in the social science locale.

In this edition, the Discrepancies section intends to address the triggers of the social upheaval of 2019 in Latin America, its scope and limitations in the formation of the social subject, its instituting processes, destituyentes or constituents under various imaginary collective-community on parties, social movements or political regimes.

The crises that we are seeing in the Mediterranean, on the northern and southern border of Mexico or in South America, derived from the massive mobilizations of people fleeing their countries, force us to reflect on the role that the States in the face of the arrival and / or transit of displaced persons and refugees, in the face of what appears to be a regressive global policy, based on the externalization of borders, restriction and selectivity.

The consolidation of conservative projects supported by political and religious actors in Latin America is not a novelty: the continent has seen advances and crises of popular governments, bloody dictatorships, violent speeches and rights expansion processes that are carried out with different intensity and decoupled temporalities in different countries. The ways of naming this trend are the subject of discussion in this section, since the naming itself is a problem: they are expressions made up of diverse sectors socially and even politically, claiming transformations of varying thickness as the context allows them. Based on these ideas, we organized our discussion around three questions, which the authors answered based on the experience of each country.

The arrival of sexual and reproductive rights on the public agenda marked a new moment in the dynamics between law and society in Latin America. But despite important regional and international advances in guaranteeing sexual and reproductive rights in recent years, these often provoke tensions between those who favor their recognition and those who oppose them. In the discrepancy of this issue of Inserts, we hope to clarify some of the main points of the debate around this topic so fundamental for the life and health of women, and for social equality in Latin America.

WOn October 12, 1492, the ships chartered by the Crown of Castile under the command of Admiral Christopher Columbus touched down in what would later be known as America. This date is so charged with symbolism that it is part of the civic calendars of almost all the countries of the subcontinent, referring to the relationship between the "mother country" and the republics, their "daughters" despite the sacred independence. We take this date to ask three social scientists how the always conflictive relationship of the Latin American republics with their colonial origins, with the original populations and with the Creole legacy in their formation as nations occurs in their respective countries.

In December 2006, the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, declared the “war against drugs” and called out the Army to confront criminal groups in the streets. This public security task does not correspond specifically to the functions of the Armed Forces and, among other consequences, has led to a disproportionate increase in homicides and disappearances in the country. Despite this, the Internal Security Law is presented, which institutionalizes this militarization process and justifies, regulates and legalizes the role of the armed forces in the fight against organized crime. There are many questions that arise in this context and we hope that the guests of this Discrepancies section will contribute to animate the debate, perhaps to clarify it.