The Borderlands is a porous territory, a locus of hybridity of ethnicity, race, language, and gender, as Anzaludúa poignantly proposes. She sees herself as atravesada por la frontera, split, rajada. Y esa raja, that split, positions her being in a state of open possibilities. It is the Coatlicue state, el estado de la serpent, a […]
The Question of Present(E) Form
“Presente”, to be present, in the present, a wrinkle that merges time and space together, to be present, a call for embodiment and attention to our surroundings, an interpellation of the environment …. shouting to us: “stop… and listen”. Reading Diana Taylor’s text “Presente” is especially relevant in the progression of our class, the text […]
Dicen: What Remains Unwritten; What can’t be Translated
(Inspired by Manifesto for Intellectual-Activists) They say. They said, they said. They also say that they said. This is what is said that they said. They say that they said, they said. They also say that they said. This is what is said that they said. They say. They said, they said. And not only […]
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 […]
Mascaras y Traducción: Trayectorias de la Hegemonía en Rivera Cusicanqui y Mbembe
Había leído hace un tiempo el gran ensayo de Achille Mbembe donde se acuña el tan necesario concepto de “Necropolítica”. Sin embargo, leerlo de nuevo a la luz del “Principio de Potosí” de Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui fue revelador; la forma y el lenguaje del texto de la última no se parecía en nada a la […]
Catch Me Blah-ing (About Pedagogies & Practices)
When Mom said, “knowledge is power” I thought she was trying to motivate me. Now I understand – she was warning me. Freire’s POTO discusses how knowledge production can allow students to sink or swim (71), and in order to avoid the latter we must reject alienating, (86) hierarchical teacher-student dynamics and opt for more […]
Cisma epistêmica, ferramenta do Oprimido
No Kenya colonial, Ngugi wa Thiong’o aponta o quanto as crianças sofriam diversos tipos de abuso para que abandonassem sua subjetividade, forjada na língua materna, e que aderissem às duras diretrizes da educação anglocêntrica . Esta universalização do pensamento, base do esquema de dominação das metrópoles, silencia violentamente um amplo léxico de linguagens e experiências. […]
Protocols of Translation: Re-thinking the Languages of the “Oppressed”
“…So we learnt the music of our languages on top of the content” writes Ngugi wa Thiong’o about the oral heritage and the importance of storytelling in Kenya. I perceived the echo of this voice, that craves moments of creative co-operation, in the frustrations of young Freire trying to grasp the shortsighted methodologies of still […]