This commentary seeks to present some key elements of Modernidad, Identidad y Utopía en América Latina by Anibal Quijano, considered a classic of social thought. It is an acute reflection against the current, since in the midst of the debates on postmodernity, the author maintains that the liberating promises of modernity should not be renounced, this on condition of problematizing its eurocentric history, recognizing the contributions of other rationalities and not abandon the question of power. Thus, Quijano presents various intuitions that prefigure what will be his theoretical perspective of the Des/Coloniality of power and anticipate the deployment of the proposals like Buenos vivires in Latin America.

This article aims to conduct a critical review of how the "ecological / environmental" problem has been built since the seventies of the last century. From a dominant perspective, the theoretical approach to ecological conflicts has been largely carried out without considering various relations of power, causing this problem to be analyzed only from an environmental perspective, and from an anthropocentric and instrumental point of view. This mainstreaming perspective has tried in vain to reconcile economic growth or capitalist accumulation with environmental and social balances, with a view to achieving "development" without challenging the contradictions of capitalism. From critical approaches, an effort is recognized to incorporate power relations into the analysis of environmental conflicts. The emphasis on tackling these conflicts has been placed mostly on economic dimension (capita...