“How can the exclusive, ethnocentric “we” be articulated with the inclusive “we”—a homeland for everyone—that envisions decolonization?” (Cusicanqui, 97)

Sylvia Rivera Cusicanqui, in this question on how to be inclusive in decolonizing movements, brings forth her salient argument on how to practice indigenous hybridity in the colonizing hegemonic order in her writing of “Chi’ixianakax utxiwa: A reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization.” Cusicanqui is asking in her question, how multilingualism and multiculturalism can truly function within state policy to create new structures of development and wellbeing.

“O’tan/heart becomes a space and center in the in-corporation of people’s everyday life experiences and the source of our culturally situated knowledge.” (Intzín, 7)

In Juan López Intzín essay, he defines “the spirit of community,” in his discussion on epistemologies of the heart of his Mayan ancestry, echoing Rivera’s argument on creating hybrid knowledge within colonizing regimes to celebrate indigenous life. Intzín argues that in prioritizing both the original languages and daily practices of his community, the “O’tan/heart” of indigenous identity becomes part of the hegemonic structures of colonialist  “knowing”, and creating knowledge that erases indigenous identity.

The question of who this collective “we” is articulated in depth again in Boaventura de Sousa Santos’, Epistemologies of the South. En su manifesto para “buen vivir” Santos manda la pregunta y la respuesta.

“Who are we? We are the global South, that large set of creations and creatures that has been sacrificed to the infinite voracity of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy,” (Santos, 2)

El sacrificio infinito de la gente, cultura, tierra, y lengua del Sur global abajo del colonialismo del Norte indica la importancia del argumento de la teoría y practica para una epistemología inclusivo del mundo entero. En su libro, Sousa indica el proceso necesario de dejar de la modernidad occidental como paradigma hegemónico sociocultural.

In his essay on, “The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities: Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century,” Ramón Grosfoguel argues again against the Top to Down regime of Western knowledge systems. Grosfoguel echoes our reading of Mbembe’s Necropolitics in his discussion of the practice of death in history of genocide and epistemicide. Queiro venir al trabajo de mi compañera de clase, Susana, sobre “alianza etica” in la discussion de Grosfoguel. Sin entender la practica de mujeres como Susana, Cusicanqui, Diana Taylor, y las millones otras,  nunca habia una hegemonia de literatura, universades, y poder etica. Eso es el fundamental argumento de Grosfoguel sobre el sexismo y racismo que es la fuerza unica de la epistemología del Norte.

“The struggle to assert and claim humanity has been a consistent thread of anti-colonial discourses on colonialism and oppression.” (Smith, 27)

Decolonizing Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith argues what is the authentic understanding of what it means to be dehumanized by colonization. Smith argues how in processes of hegemonic structures of power, indigenous group conscious identity is lost in the Western order of individualized self. What is at stake here is then, the epistemological loss too of the group consciousness of struggle and resistance within colonized spaces, arguably a very complicated process in state creation of illegality and land ownership. In her conclusion, Smith brings us back to the “heart” in Intzín’s writing:
“At the heart of such a view of authenticity is a belief that indigenous cultures cannot change, cannot recreate themselves and still claim to be indigenous. Nor can they be complicated, internally diverse or contradictory.” (Smith, 77)
While Smith does argue that in this essentialism does lie effective strategy in resistance and claiming of indigenous rights, but also how essential it is to know that indigenous collectives do indeed come from an essence that is rooted in indigenous spirituality. I wanted to know why Smith ends with the performative notion of “yet” to end her argument on the critical strategic importance to place resistance in the space where colonizing hegemonies target indigenous spirituality. Is this a de-linking, that Walter D M’ignolo, on “De-linking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality,” introduced by a powerful quote by Franz Fanon from The Wretched arguing how colonizing links between past present and future control group consciousness of indigenous people. In Smith’s performative, “yet,” in her conclusion, I sense a performance of de-linking that M’ignolo proposes. Smith is taking us directly into the space of colonizing power in her last word, she is taking us to the seat of power in which it is possible to create another future of control mechanisms that generate epistemologies that further de-territorialize the indigenous and continue to attack their essentialism within human history of our Earth, yet leaving us with the essential knowledge of strategic resistance in her argument on decolonizing methods. In M’ignolo’s argument on “de-linking” he proposes the renewing and replacing danger of violent colonizing power regarding the creation of the future based on an erased and abstract past that is part of Smith’s “yet” in her conclusion.

Works Cited:

Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia. “Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization.” South Atlantic Quarterly 111. no. 1: 2012. Accessed 12 Oct 2018.

López Intzín, Juan. “Sp’ijilal O’tan: Epistemologies of the Heart.” 1 Jan 1970: Print.

de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2014.

Grosfoguel, Ramon. “The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities: Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 11. no. 1: 2013. 73-90.

Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. “Chapters 1-3” Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.20-79. London & New York: Zed Books, 2012.

Mignolo, Walter D.. “Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality.” Cultural Studies 21. no. 2: 2007. Accessed 10 Oct 2018.