Book excerpt: A New Social Contract in a Latin American Education Context is committed to what has become known as "perspective of the South:" understanding the South not as a geographical reference but as a vindication of the existence of ways of knowing and of living which struggle for their survival and for a legitimate place in a world where the respect for difference is balanced with the right for equality. The metaphor of the new social contract stands for the desire to envision another world, which paradoxically cannot but spring out of the entrails of the existing one. Could the same contract under which the colonial orders were erected serve as a tool for decolonizing relations, knowledge, and power? Consequently, what kind of education could effectively help structure a new social contract? These are some of the questions Streck addresses.