Social abortion: outline of a category for the critique of the processes of interruption of human formation

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article presents the concept of social abortion (aborto social) as an original analytical category for understanding the processes of interruption of human formation in educational and territorial contexts. Distinguishing itself from necropolitics (Mbembe), biopower (Foucault), social exclusion, and symbolic violence (Bourdieu), social abortion designates the historical, institutional, political, and territorial mechanisms that block the full constitution of the subject before he or she can achieve social, educational, and existential realization. The socially aborted subject remains biologically alive, but has his or her formative possibilities, belonging, autonomy, and life project interrupted before they can mature. From a critical perspective situated in the Acrean Amazon, the article proposes the theoretical foundations of the concept, engages in dialogue with thinkers such as Plato, Marx, Foucault, Bourdieu, Durkheim, and Mbembe, and points to horizons for its application in the fields of education, educational policy, and studies on youth and student permanence.