The focus of this Special Section stems from research presented in the 2019 PILAS Conference held at the University of York. The conference theme 'Communities of Knowledge, Communities of Action' sought to bridge the gap between scholarly research and Latin American activism. The collegial exchange of ideas between a new generation of engaged and innovative researchers at the conference represented a critical alternative to the traditional isolation of academia -a reality that has since been exacerbated and magnified by the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. This Special Section of the Bulletin of Latin American Research seeks to offer a platform that will advance these new epistemologies and propel the voices of a new generation of engaged scholars.It is organised around the theme of 'Intersections of Activism and Academia'. The theme further develops the efforts of the 2019 PILAS Conference in emphasising interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches that will promote new forms of scholarly activism. In turn, this Special Section actively engages with the movement to decolonise academia at research and curriculum level, and across university campuses. Different decolonial approaches are adopted by the contributors. Some are grounded in Latin American scholarship and others materialise the intersection of this approach with global understanding of decolonial methodologies, especially by focusing on the transindigenous dialogue necessary today. Our focus on decolonisation is prompted by the fact that we cannot possibly see our current world as a 'postcolonial' one in speaking about social developments even in the twenty-first century. Indeed, while formal colonialism comes to an end, imperial practices do not; they are maintained socio-politically and economically through racial and structural inequalities across the globe. Hence, we engage with the concept of decoloniality as defined by a wide range of authors including Ng ũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1992), Quijano (1999), Fanon (2002,

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This article examines the limits of ‘engaged art’ via two case studies: Vik Muniz's photoseries Pictures of Garbage (2008, Brazil) and Alejandro Cartagena's photoseries Carpoolers (2011–2012, Mexico). Both highlight an ongoing need to decolonise the process of narrative creation and the scholarship/viewership that responds to this form of art. By exploring the different issues that arise when considering ‘engaged art’ alongside the urgent need to decolonise scholarly approaches to such works, the authors consider the literal and metaphorical toxicity of neoliberal societies, and the academic and media discourses analysing art produced in this context.

This article argues that gothic tropes are central to depictions of the ocean across different genres and forms, but there is a colonial and decolonial trend in the use of horror in portrayal of the sea. This article identifies how gothic depictions of the deep-sea form part of a specific tradition of ecophobic representations of the deep in western narratives aiming to control and commodify. These depictions are profoundly marked by colonial legacies, as this paper shows by analysing briefly Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘The Deep-Sea Cables’ (1896) and William Eubank’s film Underwater (2020). The article then considers how gothic tropes persisting in post-colonial and decolonial cultural productions serve to identify, first, structural colonial violence still present today; and second, an anxiety about our ecosystem in a time of climate crisis in Rita Indiana’s novel La Mucama de Omicunlé (2015) and works emerging from the Caribbean and Latin America.