“Sp’ijilal O’tan: Knowledges and Epistemologies of the Heart”
by Juan Lopez Intzin
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 eases that transition?
“The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities: Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century”
by Ramon Grosfoguel
Grosfoguel lays bare the four episodes of violence constituting “ego extermino” (conquest of Al-Andalus, conquest of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, the North-Atlantic slave trade, and burning of women as witches) as the condition of possibility that allowed for Cartesian philosophy to take hold as the root of Western hegemonic epistemology. Referring to Silvia Federici’s research on the correlation between the witch hunt, primitive accumulation, and global capitalism, Grosfoguel outlines something that is often the case and makes my skin crawl: the powers-that-be confirm at the exact same time as they attempt to deny alternate forms of knowing. By burning women’s bodies, they are burning bodies of knowledge (86). Yet, I can’t help but think of the recent trend of human libraries (Mette Ingvartsen, for example).
“Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization”
by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
Whereas Grosfoguel outlines the condition of possibility for western hegemonic epistemology, Cusicanqui argues “the condition of possibility for indigenous hegemony is located in the territory of modern nation” (95). I read “modern nation” to mean indigenous peoples are modern beings who live in a past-present spiral. The pachakuti (renewal of the world) will come from links of alterity, like the woven links of fabric created by the autonomous indigenous feminine practice that creates bodies of knowledge. Cusicanqui warns, much like Barbara Johnson, that when it comes to academic theory formation “nothing fails like success” and subaltern studies are at risk of becoming dead jargon lacking any decolonial practice. In this case, failure is the reification of discourse into mere ornament.
“Delinking”
by Walter D. Mignolo
Incredibly difficult to read after Cusicanqui’s critique. I have to admit that after reading this piece, I didn’t have a strong sense of what “delinking” was or how to activate that theory in my own process and writing. Smith opens the first chapter of Decolonizing Methodologies with Audre Lorde’s famous statement “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (20). When reading Mignolo with Smith, I had a sense that delinking might be related to a realignment of those tools. Is delinking a process of decolonizing methodologies?
“Decolonizing Methodologies”
by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Chapter 1: Imperialism, History, Writing and Theory
Imperialism brought complete disorder and systematic fragmentation to colonized peoples. Smith writes indigenous peoples approach issues “with a view to rewriting and refighting [their] position in history… to bring back into existence a world fragmented and dying” (Smith, 29-30). Histories are stored in systems of knowledge, therefore constructing alternative histories is crucial in constructing alternative epistemologies that generates, as Moraga states, “…[writing] to clarify my resistance to the literate” (41).
Chapter 2: Research through Imperial Eyes
Western methodologies and epistemologies present as a cohesive, positivist system based on quantifiable conceptions of time, space, subjectivity, knowledge, language, and structures of power (yet Foucault’s storehouse is filled with fragments of subaltern knowledge traditions). Alternative research methodologies need to address different concepts of time, space, and more that eschews notions of scientific verification and destabilizes notions of legitimacy.
Chapter 3: Colonizing Knowledges
This chapter brings to mind the process of “enfranchisement”. In Canada, indigenous peoples who were given the legal status of “Indian” under the Indian Act could lose their status if they achieved enfranchisement. Enfranchisement could by triggered by completing a university degree for example. Mastering Western knowledge would magically turn a person from an Indian to a citizen while simultaneously reducing the “Indian” population in Canada and disenfranchising them from their rights negotiated under treaty.
For further reading see “Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Issues in Canada” by Chelsea Vowel.
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London & New York: Zed Books, 2012. 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. âpihtawikosisân "Treaty Talk With âpihtawikosisân." Accessed 13 Oct 2018. http://apihtawikosisan.com/2012/05/treaty-talk-with-apihtawikosisan/. 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.