Dfter the genocide of the 1980s and the peace process in Guatemala, a process of territorial dispossession was launched linked to the activity of extractive industries and megaprojects. The response was a mobilization of the affected communities that became the axis of the indigenous and anti-neoliberal organization in the country, to which the State has responded with the delegitimization, repression and criminalization of leading activists and community authorities. In this context, a group of activists invited me to participate in a political project to support these communities through analysis, dissemination and reflection. The same context forced the project to end up becoming an alternative communication initiative - Community Press - and actions against criminalization. In this text I reflect on my experience in this space and this process, as a case of political use of the profession of social researcher. I dwell on the challenges and possibilities that the processes in which the social sciences are transformed into tools for communicative and legal action pose, and I show the tensions that were present.

ANDOn 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.