Educación de adultos

In this essay some key questions about the so called "empowerment processes" in the current Latin American contexts are addressed. In the first place, the characteristics of a context defined by poverty, social and gender inequality, and structural violence are pointed out, as majar phenomena that seem to be related to the expansion of global markets and the cultural emptiness of neoliberal proposals for change. In the second place, the main challenges faced by popular education's efforts aimed at the articulation of an ethical and political project based on the notíon that "a different world is possible", are laid out in the essay. In the third place, in the essay some experiences of "empowerment" carried out in Santo Domingo's poor neighborhoods are described in order to ascertain their potentials for new political and cultural practices. Finally, a critical dialogue with the World Bank proposals about community empowerment is opened in order to offer in the conclusions a perspective whose horizon is constituted not just by the micro social level (as is the case of the World Bank proposal), but also by the macro social level, linking the latter with the notion of "empowerment".