Orlando Fals Borda by Adrian Scribano

Orlando Fals Borda by Adrian Scribano

This book explores Orlando Fals Borda’s trajectory as a pioneering Latin American sociologist, highlighting how his life, political commitments and methodological inventions helped to re‑found social science from the standpoint of peasants, popular sectors and the Colombian Caribbean.

It foregrounds key themes such as feeling‑thinking (sentipensar), participatory action research (PAR), and the peasantry as a historical subject, showing how Fals Borda wove rigorous theory, artistic narration and militant research into a single praxis oriented towards social transformation. The chapters trace his biography, his work on violence, agrarian reform and the “double history” of the Caribbean coast, while also reconstructing his methodological work on longue durée, subversion and utopia as tools to understand and change unequal, dependent capitalism.

The book will be of particular interest to scholars, students and activists in sociology, social work, political science, history and Latin American studies, as well as to those engaged in critical pedagogy, decolonial thought and community-based research. It offers a rich resource for researchers, educators, social leaders and social movements seeking conceptual and methodological tools to link knowledge production with collective action and the struggles of rural and urban popular classes.

Adrian Scribano is an Argentine sociologist and researcher affiliated with the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and the Gino Germani Research Institute at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina. His research interests centre on the sociology of emotions, participatory action research, social theory in Latin America and creative-expressive methodologies for social intervention. Scribano has made significant contributions through works such as Sociología de las emociones (2015), Investigación social basada en la creatividad-expresividad (2016), and recent publications including Las emociones cotidianas y la política planetaria (2021), Sentipensar la investigación militante (2023) and Sociología de la esperanza (2025). His scholarship bridges emotional dynamics, social movements and transformative praxis, influencing debates in critical sociology and decolonial studies across Latin America.

Camila Amézquita Torres is a Colombian social worker, graduated from the Universidad Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca, Master’s in Educational and Social Development from the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional and PhD in Social and Human Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia. Her research has focused on the perceptions of informal and formal caregivers and the circulation of emotions in teaching–learning relationships in higher education. She has work experience in teaching and academic coordination.

Mauricio Romero Cruz is a Colombian lawyer, graduate of Universidad Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca, public administrator from ESAP, Master of Law from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and PhD candidate in Legal Sciences at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. His career is centred on academia, with expertise in Law, Political Science, Public Administration, Organisational Theory and Philosophy. As a researcher, he has contributed to projects on popular education, open government territorial development and legislative knowledge management, and has authored academic publications, including a book chapter on legislative transparency for the Senate of the Republic of Colombia.