General intellect and transformative resistances Interview with René Ramírez Gallegos

Abstract

René Ramírez Gallegos is an economist, Ph.D in Economic Sociology with a
specialisation in “Labour Relations, Social Inequalities and Trade Unionism” from the
Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Portugal; Master in Economic Development
from the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands;
Master in Government and Public Policy from FLACSO, Mexico. He did postgraduate
studies in Quantitative Methodologies at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA). He
has been Coordinator of the Millennium Social Research Centre, FLACSO, Ecuador (2005-
2006); President of the National Council of Modernisation (2007); Secretary/National
Minister of Planning and Development (2008-2011); Secretary/Minister of Higher
Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (2011-2017); President of the Council of
Higher Education (2011-2016); President Pro Tempore of the Council of Science,
Technology and Innovation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) (2013-
2014). Also, thematic coordinator for UNESCO-IESALC of the academic axis “Scientific
and technological research and innovation as an engine of human, social and economic
development for Latin America and the Caribbean” of the III Regional Conference on
Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRES 2018). He is researcher at the
“Programa Universitario de Estudios Sobre Democracia, Justicia y Sociedad” of the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He directs the journals Tlatelolco: democracia
democratizante y cambio social (Mexico) and Ucronía (Argentina). He is a member of
Mexico’s National System of Researchers. In this interview he discusses several topics in
depth: the role of the state in the processes of social transformation in Latin America; the
paradigmatic change in the role of the intellectual, understood as the passage from an
individual episteme to a collective one (general social intellect); the buen vivir as a utopia that
requires a uchronia, that is to say, a new temporal construction, previewing thus aspects of
his forthcoming book: La vida y el tiempo. Apuntes para una teoría ucrónica de la vida buena a partir
de la historia reciente del Ecuador.