Networked communication. International academic cooperation and the construction of collective intelligence from the UNESCO Chair Comunic.ar

Abstract

UNESCO Chairs within the UNITWIN programme constitute institutional devices for international academic cooperation that, in the Global South, operate in tension with the historical hierarchies of the scientific system. This article analyses the trajectory of the UNESCO Chair "Public Communication for Social Justice, Human Rights and Territorial Development" (Comunic.ar), based at the Universidad Nacional de Villa María (Argentina) and alongside an International Network of associated universities, during the period 2022–2026. Drawing on perspectives from public communication, Latin American decolonial thought, and South-South cooperation, it examines how this Chair articulates Latin American and global academic networks to produce situated knowledge in public communication from the Global South. The results of the study, based on documentary analysis and systematisation of experiences, evidence a sustained expansion of inter-institutional ties with impact on communication, democracy and human rights agendas at regional and global scales.