In the introduction to Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide, Boaventura de Sousa Santos discusses “strong questions” whose “weak answers … do not challenge the horizon of possibilities” . Among these, de Sousa Santos describes how “it is as difficult to imagine the end of colonialism as it is to imagine that colonialism has […]
UN MUNDO DONDE QUEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS
Para Ramón Grosfoguel la racionalidad moderna-colonial basada en el universal abstracto y el solipsismo cartesiano tiene su origen en los epistemicidios perpetrados contra musulmanes y judíos, pueblos indígenas americanos y africanos y mujeres portadoras de sabiduría no-occidental que fueron quemadas en la hoguera acusadas de brujería. Hay una asociación directa entre el genocidio y el […]
Epistemologies of the simple versus the complex
The book Epistemologies of the South recognizes that there is a ghostly relationship between theory and practice, since those who produce progresist changes, in more recent times, have been precisely social groups totally invisible to Eurocentric critical theory, as they are, women, indigenous people, peasants, the unemployed. That is to say, it recognizes that a […]
Many Responses
Zapatistas, insurgents, use Sp’ijilal O’tan (knowledges and epistemologies of the heart) as a way to “hearten ourselves” and rebel against hegemonic structures of knowledge and the capitalist hydra. I wonder if Intzin, as an academic who employs culturally-developed epistemologies, feels a division between his academic and community life or if his use of culturally-developed epistemologies […]
Breaking the pact: epistemologies, history, and modernity
This week’s readings played a debate on the hegemonic epistemologies of forgetfulness and denial. Western colonial capitalism modes of producing knowledge have disenchanted and disregarded the indigenous and colonized ancestral culture, turning a “vast experience into merely things and commodities” (Intzín, pg 11). In search of emancipatory transformations in the world, the authors approach from […]