1. Building a Sand String: Social Representations for the Anthropocene

In this chapter, we present the main objectives and contents of this book, and the theoretical discussion bridging Social Representations Theory and the Anthropocene as societal era, introducing some of the main research groups and emerging scholars in Latin America. This first volume centres on Brazilian contributions, since they are the oldest and most visible in the continent, although there are also works from Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia. The structure of the chapter is as follows: following the ‘Building a Sand String’ opening quote, we present the objective of the book and a brief outline of the regional research groups represented in this text. The second section discusses the common sense relationship between the Anthropocene as a societal era and social representations. The last sections detail the structure and contents of each chapter of the book.