Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) will host, under the auspices of the International Council of Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH), UNESCO, and the Association of Universities of the Montevideo Group (AUGM), the Second International Conference of Humanities: sustainability, well-being and human rights, to be held in Belo Horizonte, from 9th to 11th December, 2019. The event aims to provide a space for interdisciplinary debate, involving researchers and managers of universities and representatives of the society.
The South American region has been marked by serious problems related to sustainability, the promotion of well-being and the defense and guarantee of human rights, demanding the construction of solutions that articulate these dimensions. Issues related to migratory flows in the region, xenophobia and violation of the human rights of migrants and refugees, intolerant practices and policies in relation to diversity, and the attack on fundamental rights such as health and education are some of these problems common to the countries of the region. In the state of Minas Gerais, two socio-environmental disasters related to mining, which occurred in Mariana in 2015 and Brumadinho in 2019, highlighted the complexity of these problems and have demanded the urgent contribution of the humanities field.
On the other hand, Latin America has developed specific and innovative contributions to the various priorities defined by the World Humanities Conference, held in Liege, Belgium, in 2017, ratified by UNESCO’s General Conference in November of that year: on strategies for adapting to environmental changes, on identity and migration issues, on the co-construction of knowledge and the defense of historical knowledge with scientific rigidity and not merely opinion, on the full and considered use of digital resources, etc. This Second Conference gives continuity to the South American International Conference: Territorialities and Humanities, held from 4 to 7 October 2016, at UFMG, which was an important preparatory activity for the World Conference of 2017. The event will also be the first Conference in which the UNESCO-UFMG Chair Territorialities and Humanities: the Globalization of Lights, established since September 5, 2019, will act as co-organizer.