This paper explores the important role of critical science, and in particular of post-colonial and decolonial theories, in understanding and shaping the ongoing advances in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is viewed as amongst the technological advances that will reshape modern societies and their relations. While the design and deployment of systems that continually adapt holds the promise of far-reaching positive change, they simultaneously pose significant risks, especially to already vulnerable peoples. Values and power are central to this discussion. (...) class='Hi'>Decolonial theories use historical hindsight to explain patterns of power that shape our intellectual, political, economic, and social world. By embedding a decolonial critical approach within its technical practice, AI communities can develop foresight and tactics that can better align research and technology development with established ethical principles, centring vulnerable peoples who continue to bear the brunt of negative impacts of innovation and scientific progress. We highlight problematic applications that are instances of coloniality, and using a decolonial lens, submit three tactics that can form a decolonial field of artificial intelligence: creating a critical technical practice of AI, seeking reverse tutelage and reverse pedagogies, and the renewal of affective and political communities. The years ahead will usher in a wave of new scientific breakthroughs and technologies driven by AI research, making it incumbent upon AI communities to strengthen the social contract through ethical foresight and the multiplicity of intellectual perspectives available to us, ultimately supporting future technologies that enable greater well-being, with the goal of beneficence and justice for all. (shrink)

The article examines the theories of decolonization that have originated in the north of the Americas and Oceania and Latin America. It compares settler colonial theories developed by Australian historians Patrick Wolfe and Lorenzo Veracini with the theory of the coloniality of power of the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano. The author argues that Wolfe’s and Veracini’s theory of settler colonialism creates a conceptual distancing from what they call exploitation colonialism that is not only theoretically unsound, but also historically (...) inaccurate. The land/labor binary that they build in their theory of settler colonialism holds up only if it excludes Latin America from the analysis. This becomes evident in their analyses of the state, race, and miscegenation. Both theories, however, largely ignore gender in the description of colonization, a gap that Latin American decolonial theorists and feminist indigenous theorists of the north must fill. The differences between the theories determines also the ways they imagine decolonization. (shrink)

What does Édouard Glissant have to contribute to theorizing decolonization and a philosophy of difference? And how is this contribution tied to rethinking place (from Caribbean to Caribbeanness) and world (comprised of creolized culture and identity)? This essay takes up Glissant’s work in the context of questions of history and memory, with particular focus on how historical experience grounds philosophical work on place and world through articulations of identity, language, cultural production, and thinking after catastrophe. Drawing from a contrast with (...) Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin, this essay shows how Glissant’s critical concept “creolization” works as an expression of what I call “the afropostmodern,” and also as an important contribution to decolonial theories of world, culture, memory, language, and subjectivity after the Middle Passage. (shrink)

Contemporary political theory (CPT) has approached questions of plurality and diversity by drawing rather implicitly on anthropological accounts of difference. This was the case with the ‘cultural turn’, which significantly shaped theories of multiculturalism. Similarly, the current ‘ontological turn’ is gaining influence and leaving a marked impact on CPT. I examine the recent turn and assess both the possibilities it offers and the challenges it poses for decentering CPT and opening radical, decolonial avenues for thinking difference otherwise. I (...) take Paul Nadasdy's critique of the ontological turn as an invitation to reflect on the methodological precepts that inform how the field frames the scope and limits of comparison. In pursuit of this, I examine the Zapatistas’ notion of a ‘world of many worlds’, which provides a way of approaching difference that captures the generative aspects of the ontological turn while avoiding the pitfalls of relativism and political inertia. I argue that the Zapatistas’ insights offer ethical guidance towards social and ecological thriving. Ultimately, my goal is to move CPT towards a more capacious form of making sense of what is out there in the world, and thus make room for better ways of inhabiting the Earth. (shrink)

The imperative to decolonise health disciplines underscores the need for a critical examination of the coloniality of nursing knowledge development. Decolonising nursing requires epistemic resistance aimed at exposing and dismantling epistemological hierarchies that marginalise indigenous knowledges. This paper introduces the ‘Pluriverse of Nursologies’ as paradigm to guide decolonial theorising in nursing. Through a four‐part exploration, I first elucidate the coloniality embedded in mainstream nursing knowledge. Next, I offer a decolonial critique of Fawcett's nursing metaparadigm as an exemplar of (...) pyramidal epistemology. I then discuss pluriversality as an approach to decolonising nursing knowledge. Finally, I introduce the Pluriverse of Nursologies (PoN) as a meta‐theoretical paradigm for theory and knowledge development that decentres and dismantles the pyramidal epistemology of colonial/modern nursing, and relinks diverse nursologies from marginalised communities to the centre of intellectual nursing discourse, thereby revitalising the theoretical landscape of the discipline. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a normative reconstruction, from a decolonial perspective of critical theory in Brazil and Latin America, of a democratic ethos that despite its weaknesses and normative deficits is capable of fostering an increasingly deliberative, participatory, and egalitarian democracy by making extensive use of new digital technologies (comprising both AI systems and digital governance). Its argumentative core boils down to the promotion of intersectional egalitarianism (socio-economic, gender, racial-ethnic, environmental) through digital inclusion, which seems only (...) feasible to us from a perspective capable of accommodating the normative claims of a critical decolonial theory combined with a naturalistic view of sustainability, within a research program that I dubbed “mitigated social constructionism” in response to the phenomenological deficit of normative and naturalistic theories (including critical theory and neurophilosophy). If what matters is normativity, then to avoid the divide between naturalism and non-naturalist normativity one nonfoundationalist alternative is to resort to hermeneutical and procedural accounts of normativity as helpful clues to making sense of the naturalism-normativity problem, avoiding reductionist interpretations of both naturalism (Churchland) and normativism (Parfit). (shrink)

This article offers a comprehensive review of Political Choreographies, Decolonial Theo-ries, Trans Bodies, the latest book, a volume edited by Marina Gržinić and Jovita Pristovšek in intensive collaboration with Nomusa Makhubu and Tjaša Kancler, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2023. This volume takes as its starting point the body as a structural signifier, which is conceptualized in seven chapters. Each of them addresses the question of movement, politics, revolt, action, etc., in a variety of ways to de-link ourselves (...) (especially us Whites) from colonial modernity as the organizing principle not only of capitalism but of a whole range of processes that emanate from modernity, i.e., forms of domination and oppression such as racism, sexism, Eurocentrism, and environmental destruction. What makes this book special, however, is not only the positions presented but also the way in which they are presented. Each conversation begins with a carefully selected starting point, linked to the interlocutor’s* work and accompanied by a rich citation system of references and additional information. This opens up the formation of epistemic counter-narratives that confront the violent history of capitalism and form possibilities for yet unidentified bodies, movements, politics, and political action as future potentialities. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the conceptual and methodological points of convergence and divergence of two intellectual currents frequently referred to as the decolonial and ontological turns in social and anthropological theory. Salient points considered are the ways both theoretical projects unsettle modernity’s dominant ontological and epistemological foundations by seriously engaging the conceptual potential of thinking with alterity (ethical dimension) and from exteriority (geopolitical dimension). I compare their subversive methodological contributions, examining, in particular, Enrique Dussel’s analectical hermeneutic approach (...) and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s ethnographic method of controlled equivocation. Lastly, I discuss how both theories and approaches complement each other’s efforts to destabilize Western modernity’s philosophical and anthropological foundations. (shrink)

This article considers the critical theory of the Frankfurt School in the context of decolonisation and asks whether it can have continuing relevance given its foundations in white, western traditions which bear the hallmarks of colonialism. Despite critical theory, particularly in its early radical figurations, situating itself as an alternative to traditional western philosophy it undoubtedly shares some of the myopic and Eurocentric traits of this tradition. Mindful of not wishing to perpetuate colonial impulses to appropriate Indigenous philosophies, (...) this article harnesses the twin ideas of a decolonial conversation and interacting in a third space, both of which foreground historical power imbalances and injustices. Only on that basis can a genuine engagement occur between western and Indigenous thought. My aim, as a western scholar, is to explore the relevance of critical theory in this decolonial age. By highlighting intersections, while acknowledging crucial differences, between critical theory and Indigenous philosophies I seek to show that critical theory can play a crucial role in how western scholars respond to and embrace the necessary and compelling movement of decolonialisation, but only first by acknowledging their own shortcomings, particularly in relation to race, racism and colonialism. (shrink)

This article offers to outline a direction for a decolonial political theory based on Aimé Césaire’s and Frantz Fanon’s thoughts. In doing so, I will first discuss some work of comparative political theory that could be associated with an attempt to decolonize political theory. Rather than a systematic critique of these works, this article aims to outline some of their limits from a decolonial perspective, such as their embedment in a continental ontology/logic, and their over-emphasis (...) on methodology that can lead to an instrumental account of politics. In contrast, I will argue for a decolonial existential political theory that grounds its investigation in what Frantz Fanon called ‘the zone of nonbeing’ and that takes politics as first philosophy. To make my point, I will discuss Aimé Césaire’s Letter to Maurice Thorez and Frantz Fanon’s Political Theory of the Damnés. (shrink)

Decolonial approaches to technical design are part of a broader category of design methodologies, which actualize unfulfilled sociotechnical potentialities. In this paper, I present some decolonial theory concepts and discuss three decolonial approaches to illuminate philosophical debates that: 1) Can find in them clear traces of a third set of elements that shape every design/technology, along with the well-analyzed technical-scientific and ethical-political ones. In dialogue with Walter Vincenti and some others, I call these elements structured procedures, (...) imagery lexicon, and aesthetical values, which constitute the central aspects of Eugene Ferguson’s art of engineering; 2) Identify, starting from some Gilbert Simondon’s and Andrew Feenberg’s ideas, any invention as triply situated ; 3) Can be taught by these decolonial approaches about some of the mainstream philosophy of technology’s colonial limitations, becoming thus able to widen it. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that decolonial theory can offer a distinctive and valuable ethical lens. Decolonial perspectives give rise to an ethics that is fundamentally global but distinct from, and critical of, moral cosmopolitanism. Decolonial ethics shares with cosmopolitanism a refusal to circumscribe normative commitments on the basis of existing political and cultural boundaries. It differs from cosmopolitanism, though, by virtue of its rejection of the individualism and universalism of cosmopolitan thought. Where cosmopolitan approaches tend to articulate (...) abstract principles developed from within a particular Western tradition, decolonial approaches reject abstract global designs in favour of inter-cultural dialogue amongst multiple people, including peoples who deem collective and non-human entities to be of fundamental moral importance. In addition, decolonial global ethics rejects universality in favour of ‘pluriversality’. (shrink)

This book explores Ngugi wa Thiong'o's epistemic journey from a communalist, communist, nationalist, post-colonial theorist, and ultimately an established decolonial spokesperson of the Global South. This book offers a fresh perspective for scholars and readers interested in decolonial theory and African philosophy.

Beyond Decolonial African Philosophy dives into decoloniality discourse, challenging some of its shortcomings and offering alternative perspectives on the nature of Africanity and Afrotopia (Africa's better future) from leading African philosophers. Beginning with an overview of philosophy in contemporary Africa, the first half of the book goes on to critically interrogate and rethink decoloniality's deconstructivist approach. The second half of the book considers a range of alternative new conceptualizations of Afrotopia and Africanity that transcend decolonial theory, drawing (...) on constructivist and creative approaches. The book considers key questions such as: Is Africanity immutable (essentialism), or mutable (nominalism)? Should we emphasise idealist, identitarian concerns, or pragmatic, developmentarian concerns? Should we prioritise African agency, or structures and circumstances? Should Africa embrace hybrid interculturality and creative self-manifestive identity or essentialist purity? Drawing on rich insights from African philosophers across the continent, this book challenges students and researchers to think beyond the concept of decolonization to alternative forms of African identities and African futures. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to provide a diffractive reading of the concept of ressentiment through decolonial theory. I would like to see what sort of light this sheds on the psychological undercurrents that impose barriers on colonial and decolonial thought, as well as on the conceptual dynamism of ressentiment. This essay is split into two different experiments in thought. The first will be to diffract ressentiment through the works of Gloria Anzaldúa, Édouard Glissant, and Gilles (...) Deleuze. To this end, I will begin by providing an analysis of ressentiment as developed by Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals and then supplement this with Deleuze’s analysis of ressentiment in Nietzsche & Philosophy. I will create a bridge with decolonial thought by interpreting Anzaldúa’s concept of the nopal de castilla and mestiza consciousness through the interpretive lens of ressentiment to show the affinity that exists between the work of Anzaldúa and Nietzsche. I will finish the first experiment by looking at ressentiment through some of the concepts Glissant offers us in the Poetics of Relation. In particular, I will argue that ressentiment resists the creolization of identity and culture, and that Glissant’s demand for the right to opacity for all is the sign of a thinking that has overcome ressentiment. The second experiment is to diffract ressentiment through Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Cannibal Metaphysics, beginning with an analysis of the most relevant points of that text for our discussion then putting our diffracted version of ressentiment in conversation with Amerindian perspectivism. However, this does not mean that I am aiming at a synthesis of ressentiment with Amerindian perspectivism. Rather, in the spirit of the Brazilian author’s post-structural anthropology, this essay sees only a disjunctive synthesis of the two: a ressentiment becoming-Amerindian perspectivism and an Amerindian perspectivism-becoming-ressentiment (we will focus on developing the former). I hope that, by the end of this experiment, we may have a richer conceptual understanding of ressentiment by offering this concept an image of itself that only our decolonial thinkers and an Amerindian perspective can offer. (shrink)

A distinctive form of anticolonial analysis has been emerging from Latin America in recent decades. This decolonial theory argues that important new insights about modernity, its politics, and epistemology become visible if one starts off thinking about them from the experiences of those colonized by the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas. For the decolonial theorists, European colonialism in the Americas, on the one hand, and modernity and capitalism in Europe, on the other hand, coproduced and coconstituted (...) each other. The effects of that history persist today. Starting thought from these LA histories and current realities enables envisioning new resources for social transformations. These decolonial insights seem to receive only a passing recognition in the Latin American social studies of science and technology projects that have begun cosponsoring events and publications with northern equivalents. My focus will be primarily on the decolonial theory and on just two of its themes. One is the critical resources it offers for creating more accurate and progressive northern philosophies and histories of science as well as social studies of science. The second is insights from Latin American feminists that carry different impacts in the context of the decolonial accounts. (shrink)

This article claims that, despite their critical-political stances, three current and influential theoretical frameworks – intersectionality, decoloniality, and ‘Indigenous localism’ – unconsciously accept global capitalism. The article focuses on the work of Crenshaw, Mignolo, Coulthard, and Tuck and Yang, respectively, to argue that, by ascribing to identity politics (intersectionality), a pluriversal politics of authenticity (decoloniality), and a decentralized ‘incommensurability’ (Indigenous localism), each engages in the culturalization and/or localization of politics – one that disavows the dimension of political economy, and because (...) of that, one that conforms well with, and poses no threat to, capitalist liberal globalization. The article concludes by reflecting on what such disavowal says about our late capitalist times, as well as the potentialities and perils of a contemporary subaltern anti-capitalist politics. (shrink)

In this article, I link Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory of constructed emotion1 to decolonial perspectives that also challenge this universality of affect in cross-cultural facial expressions. After first outlining some of the present-day political stakes of these questions, I turn to Sylvia Wynter on the "ethnoclass of Man" in Western modernity, where she asks: how were concepts of not only being, truth, power, and freedom but also affect—the intelligibility of one's feelings toward others—framed by histories of colonial violence (...) and refusals of imaginative identification?2 Wynter argues that the overrepresentation of the Western ethnoclass results in the naturalization of a limited and contingent mode of being as... (shrink)

ABSTRACT I discuss the issues raised by Alcoff, Arya, and Táíwò in their responses to Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. I pay special attention to a fact I think all nonideal theorists, particularly ones who care about reducing oppression, must take seriously: the fact that oppression characteristically faces its victims with tradeoffs such that attempts to advance their interests usually come with significant costs. I discuss how this fact bears on the situations of poor women and those oppressed by (...) sexism and imperialism simultaneously. I also discuss how the nonideal universalist perspective I develop in Decolonizing Universalism supports criticism of neoliberalism, how it takes seriously concerns about the locus of enunciation in Latin American decolonial theory, how it supports transnational solidarities, and its upshots for thinking the relationships between feminism, culture, and modernity. (shrink)

This article relates four concepts present in the thought of Édouard Glissant (poetics, optionality, exteriority, and unlearning) to show that they are also present in different authors of decolonial theory. These concepts lead us out of the framework of modern hypercriticism and allow us to enter into a philosophy of relation that opens up new possibilities for intercultural encounters. Through the constant recourse to the contrast between Glissant and the decolonial school, the text goes through its classic (...) themes, such as the coloniality of power, knowledge and being, and decolonial pedagogy and feminism. (shrink)

The present work considers the communicative dimensions of intellectual practices in an effort to discern how these practices can take full account of their own placement within and accountability to the human communities and cultures they cultivate. The discussion is framed with a focus on intellectual communities who have struggled against the dominance of Euromodern epistemological orientations that have constructed their own cultures and intellectual practices as irrelevant or, at best inferior. This struggle is a decolonial praxis. The development (...) of communicology during the post-World War II period in the United States is taken up as an approach to theory construction that allows for the fullest possible examination of the very human condition in which thought and action emerge. Chicana and Latina phenomenology constitute a further development of this decolonial praxis consonant with the sensibilities of communicology. Chicana and Latina phenomenology is shown to advance our understanding of philosophy as an intellectual (i.e., communicative) practice that takes place in a world of other human beings to whom we are accountable. Theory construction as it relates to boundary conditions is taken as an important point that spans the all too common gap between the existential and the cultural and aids in constituting a theory construction project that is also a decolonial praxis. (shrink)

What does it mean to theorize Christianity in light of the decolonial turn? This volume invites distinguished Latinx and Latin American scholars to a conversation that engages the rich theoretical contributions of the decolonial turn, while relocating Indigenous, Afro-Latin American, Latinx, and other often marginalized practices and hermeneutical perspectives to the center-stage of religious discourse in the Americas. Keeping in mind that all religions—Christianity included—are cultured, and avoiding the abstract references to Christianity common to the modern Eurocentric hegemonic (...) project, the contributors favor embodied religious practices that emerge in concrete contexts and communities. Featuring essays from scholars such as Sylvia Marcos, Enrique Dussel, and Luis Rivera-Pagán, this volume represents a major step to bring Christian theology into the conversation with decolonial theory. (shrink)

In “Two Cheers to Constitutionalism” Karl Klare and Dennis Davis take us through a longue durée analysis of South Africa’s constitutional democracy, its genesis, essence and implications for the future. Their reflections about the 25 years of South Africa’s constitution coincide with the 30-years milestone since the dawn of the so-called democratic breakthrough. In this article, I grapple with some of the epistemic and axiological specificities that define both the constitution of 1996 and the notion of a constitutional democracy in (...) the afterlife of apartheid and colonialism. More directly, I invite both Klare & Davis to attempt to contend with South Africa through a decolonial lens. I invoke my own positionality, not only as a locus of enunciation, but as a legitimate marker in discussions about the constitution, and constitutionalism; my contention is that frank conversations about our own positionalities will help us sieve through and decisively discern between the [p]olitics and [P]olitics of the constitution. In fleshing out the four dominant themes/positions in ongoing debates about the constitution, I lean towards the grammar of constitutional abolitionists, to conclude that the fundamental crisis about the South African constitution and present conceptions of constitutionalism is that they are a normal framework in an abnormal society. Given our history/present of anti-Black racism, the systemic dehumanization of indigenous people, colonial theft/dispossession, epistemicides, historicides, linguisticides, et cetera, I insist that ours is an abnormal society, consequently an abnormal constitution/constitutionalism would have been a more just outcome. (shrink)

The article explores the location of Central and Eastern Europe in transnational feminist studies. Despite the acknowledgement of the situatedness of knowledge, feminist theorising nevertheless seems to continue to be organised around a limited number of central axes and internalised progress narratives. The authors argue that there is a pressing need for theories which can approach the near absence of Central and Eastern European perspectives from transnational feminist theorising, and challenge the limited number of discursive tropes associated with post-socialist Central (...) and Eastern Europe – especially that of a ‘lag’, where difference is translated into a temporal distance. Instead, the authors suggest that a more inclusive vision of transnational feminist studies can be achieved by applying the decolonial framework to the post-socialist context, as explicated in the work of Madina Tlostanova. (shrink)

The decolonial theory understands that Western Modernity keeps imposing itself through a triple mutually reinforcing and shaping imprisonment: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of being. Technical design has an essential role in either maintaining or overcoming coloniality. In this article, two main approaches to decolonizing the technical design are presented. First is Yuk Hui’s and Ahmed Ansari’s proposals that, revisiting or recovering the different histories and philosophies of technology produced by humankind, intend to decolonize the (...) minds of philosophers and engineers/architects/designers as a pre-condition for such decolonial designs to take place. I call them top-down approaches. Second is some technical design initiatives that, being developed alongside marginalized/subalternate people, intend to co-construct decolonial sociotechnical solutions through a committed, decolonizing, and careful dialog of knowledge. I call them bottom-up approaches. Once that is done, the article’s second half derives ontological, epistemological, and political consequences from the conjugation of top-down and bottom-up approaches. Such consequences challenge some established or not yet entirely overcome understandings in the philosophy of technology and, in so doing, are meant to represent some steps in PT’s decolonization. Even though both top-down and bottom-up approaches are considered, the article’s main contributions are associated with decolonial technical design practices, whose methodologies and outcomes are important study cases for PT and whose practitioners can be taken as inspiring examples for philosophers who want to decolonize/enlarge PT or make it decolonial. (shrink)

In this article, I re-evaluate critiques of Levinas's Eurocentrism by exploring his openness to decolonial theory. First, I survey Levinas's conceptual confrontation with imperialism, showing that his early Eurocentric work is revised in his later writing. Second, I explore the contextual reasons that led him to take that path, such as his previously overlooked conversations with the liberationist South American intellectual Enrique Dussel. Finally, I present the case for a revisitation of the current theoretical frameworks of Jewish thought. (...) I explain how Levinas's encounter with Third World discourses helps to add a needed decolonial layer to contemporary Jewish intercultural conversations. (shrink)

A turn from the “whither” to the “whence” of anarchism is at stake in Catherine Malabou’s interpretation of Latin American decolonial theory. This is a turn from a materialist philosophy that seeks to open the space of anarchism within the modern state toward one that discerns anarchism as already operative in the modern state given the social implications of colonial legacies. In tracing this turn, I propose a development of Malabou’s work insofar as I put her in dialogue (...) with María Lugones, who is much closer to Malabou than the more canonical decolonial figures she actively engages, especially in view of anarchism as a form of social–political plasticity. Understanding Lugones’ critique of earlier iterations of decolonial theory helps make explicit an immanent anarchic resistance to domination as an explosive inhabitation of everyday loci of tension. (shrink)

This article considers how diplomacy can be refined and amplified within the field of multicultural education. Focusing on Native American peoples in particular, I argue that the multiculturalist emphasis on cultural diplomacy overlooks the political difference of First Nations peoples. In contrast to a multiculturalist cultural diplomacy, the article develops diplomacy according to a decolonial framework that seeks to dismantle colonial perspectives of Native American political difference. Drawing upon theorists and historians of diplomacy, as well as Indigenous and (...) class='Hi'>decolonial writers, the article seeks to provide the terms through which teacher identifications as decolonial diplomats can be fostered toward Native Americans. (shrink)

Museum practice remains rooted in its historical ontology of nature-culture dualism. This article moves beyond this dualism by combining Bhaskar’s dialectical MELD schema with cultural historical a...

This article approaches contemporary European debates on the subject of realism through the lenses offered by two decolonial thinkers: Fanon and Dussel. Whereas both share with realism a fundamental emphasis on reality as the starting point for theory – an assumption shared by much decolonial thought – they nevertheless provide another layer of specificity in their consideration of the colonial condition, diagnosing a fundamental absence of reciprocity that dictates the course of decolonization as a transformation of reality. (...) Reconsidering the debates on realism in light of these insights therefore provides a powerful basis for both formulating a specifically decolonial realism and for engaging in comparative political theorizing more generally. (shrink)

This paper draws attention to the significance of incorporating decolonial methodologies in analyzing political discourse in a postcolonial world, particularly in Africa. The decolonial approach to political discourse focuses on the ways politics in postcolonial context is imbricated in the logic of coloniality. Decolonial approach is considered necessary rather than sufficient in interrogating the hegemonic structure of colonialism in Africa's political discourse. The paper uses critical discourse analysis situated within decolonial methodologies to analyze former President of (...) Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan's declaration-of-intent speech to seek re-election. The paper specifically draws on [Mignolo, W. (2011). The darker side of western modernity: Global futures decolonial options. Duke University Press.] and [Macgilchrist, F. (2014). Media discourse and de/coloniality: A post-foundational approach. In C. Hart & P. Cap (Eds.), Contemporary critical discourse studies (pp. 385–405). Bloomsbury Publishing] decolonial frameworks and [Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse. Routledge] legitimization model. Situating decolonial approaches together with Chilton's legitimization model is, on the one hand, a way of interrogating hegemonic structures in Goodluck Jonathan's speech and on the other hand works to show the limitation of Chilton's theory in analyzing discourses from Africa. This limitation of Chilton's model underscores the need to bring decolonial approaches in constructing a nuanced understanding of Africa and its epistemic diversity because it is impossible to think of overcoming the coloniality of power without approaching it from the perspective of the colonized. (shrink)

In this article I caution that María Lugones's critiques of Kimberlé Crenshaw's intersectional theory posit a dangerous form of epistemic erasure, which underlies Lugones's decolonial methodology. This essay serves as a critical engagement with Lugones's essay “Radical Multiculturalism and Women of Color Feminisms” in order to uncover the decolonial lens within Crenshaw's theory of intersectionality. In her assertion that intersectionality is a “white bourgeois feminism colluding with the oppression of Women of Color,” Lugones precludes any possibility (...) of intersectionality operating as a decolonial method. Although Lugones states that her “decolonial feminism” is for all women of color, it ultimately excludes Black women, particularly with her misconstruing of Crenshaw's articulation of intersectionality that is rooted within the Black American feminist tradition. I explore Lugones's claims by juxtaposing her rendering of intersectionality with Crenshaw's and conclude that Lugones's decolonial theory risks erasing Black women from her framework. (shrink)

In this article, Ingrid Andersson discusses the decolonial philosophy of Sylvia Wynter, with a special focus on addressing her concepts of the hybrid human and origin stories. Andersson shows how Wynter's philosophizing about the being of being human is premised on an entanglement of nature and culture that is on par with the posthuman understanding of the ontological inseparability of matter and discourse. She goes on to interrogate some productive tensions between Wynter's decolonial philosophy and posthumanism by pointing (...) out how Wynter's hybrid human formulates an understanding of human nature that is different in itself and not solely in relation to other nonhuman entities. In the final part of the article, she proposes how we, with Wynter, can devise a pedagogical approach that seeks to counteract harmful taxonomizing practices. (shrink)

This article explores the queer qualities of feminist scientist Donna Haraway's ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’. In the first part, the article investigates the similarities between ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and the ideas circulating in queer theory, including the hybridity of identity, and the disruption of totalizing social categories such as ‘Gay man’ and ‘Woman’. In the second part, it is argued that ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ evinced a decolonial feminist form of queerness. The article references the African-American, Chicana and Asian-American feminist (...) sociology, theory, literature and history that ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ takes up. The article does not wish to position Haraway's white-authored text as an authoritative voice on decolonial feminist queerness, instead arguing for the role of ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ as a bibliographical work that readers may reference in their exploration of decolonial feminist beginnings of queer theory. (shrink)

This review article proposes that Aníbal Quijano’s conceptualization and elaboration of the coloniality of power can be understood as part of a third major moment of the decolonial turn that is related to the activities of Indigenous and Black organizations and collectives in the context of the 500th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of the Americas in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While Quijano frequently insists on the special status of ‘Latin America’ in his accounts of coloniality and decoloniality, (...) this article makes the case for the relevance of the Caribbean and all other sites that have served as laboratories for the formation of modern/colonial power in the unfinished project of decolonization and decoloniality. Finding limits in arguments that overstate the role of sensibilities that are rooted in geopolitical locations, the article emphasizes the role of decolonial collectives in the formation of combative decolonial attitudes. (shrink)

This edited volume seeks to critically engage with the diversity of feminist and post-colonial theory to counter hegemonic Western knowledge in mainstream community psychology. In doing so, it situates paradigms of thought and representation that capture the lived experiences of those in the global South. Specifically, the book takes an intersectional approach towards its reshaping of community psychology, centering African, black, postcolonial, and decolonial feminist critiques in its 1) critique of existing hegemonic Euro-American community psychology concepts, theories, and (...) practice, 2) proposal of new feminist, indigenous, and decolonial methodological approaches, and 3) real-life examples of engagement, research, dialogue, and reflexive qualitative psychology practice. The book concludes with an agenda for theorization and research for future practice in postcolonial contexts. The volume is relevant to researchers, practitioners, and students in psychology, anthropology, sociology, public health, development studies, social work, urban studies, and women’s and gender studies across global contexts. (shrink)

Feminist relational theory can provide a theoretical framework for understanding and affirming the agency of women Cambodian religious leaders; an agency that can be overlooked if one assumes it co...

This paper examines phenomenology as a living form of thought with significance for decolonial epistemic practice. After discussing how phenomenology addresses concerns of living thought, the author outlines disciplinary decadence as a form of colonial epistemic practice and offers his theory of teleological suspensions of disciplinarity among the decolonial epistemic practices that could be devoted not only to the decolonization of thought but also ideas pertaining to normative life.

In recent years postcolonial and decolonial feminisms have become increasingly salient in philosophy, yet they are often deployed as conceptual stand-ins for generalized feminist critiques of eurocentrism (without reference to the material contexts anti-colonial feminisms emanate from), or as a platform to re-center internal debates between dominant European theories/ists under the guise of being conceptually ‘decolonized’. By contrast, this article focuses on the specific contexts, issues and lifeworld concerns that ground anti-colonial feminisms and provides a brief survey of the (...) literature. Because the terms implicated in the analysis (Third World, transnational, women of color, postcolonial, decolonial and indigenous feminisms) are highly contested on their own, I only provide provisional and non-foundational histories and definitions for the purposes of resisting philosophical appropriations of anti-colonial feminist theory. (shrink)

The author explores the metaphysics of social identities by using non-ideal theory as a method. She aims to understand what social identities are by examining the experiences of marginalized people – the experiences of people having a social identity as X (e.g., “Latina,” “Muslim woman”) in the non-ideal world, where they are marginalized by virtue of being X. To this end, the author delves into the decolonial feminist philosophies of Uma Narayan, Mariana Ortega, and María Lugones, and engages (...) their conceptual frameworks with Asian and Asian American experiences. Drawing on these analyses, she develops an account of social identities as processes of navigating power: A social identity as X can be best understood as the process as a whole, in which the subject lives as an X by navigating power dynamics, bargaining with them, and highlighting different meanings of being X. By employing non-ideal theory, which centers on power-as-oppression as a factor shaping marginalized people’s lives, we can achieve this nuanced understanding of social identity. Ideal theory, by excluding power from its analysis, is incapable of capturing how social identity is experienced as a process. (shrink)

This book stands as a critique of racial capitalism and heteropatriarchy. Vergès, a Réunion-born independent scholar, defends a decolonial feminist approach to fight against the coloniality of power and advocates for a maroon political disobedience grounded in the possibility of futurity (38). Her book, soon to be translated in English, calls for a depatriarchalizing of revolutionary struggles (19) and questions the privilège de la blanchité (49) in the making of a civilizational feminism that continues to dismiss the experiences of (...) racialized bodies today. Astonished by France's constant dismissal of slavery and colonialism in the contemporary understanding of its society, she poses that such avoidance is grounded in France's "passion pour les principes abstraits plutôt que pour l'étude des réalités" (52). While the first part of the book opens with the racialized figure of travailleuses domestiques, leading Vergès to critique the constant overlooking of indigenous struggle in imperial feminism, the second half of the book calls into question the fundamentalism of laïcité that subsequently develops against the background of a certain Orientalism centered around the white liberal elite. She highlights how "[l]es femmes racisées sont acceptées dans les rangs des féministes civilisationnelles à la condition qu'elles adhèrent à l'interprétation occidentale du droit des femmes" (79). (shrink)

The three volumes I am considering in this review essay constitute a living archive of the political and epistemic movement called decolonial feminism. Together, Tejiendo de Otro Modo: Feminismo, Epistemología, y Apuestas Descoloniales en el Abya Yala, Feminismo Descolonial: Nuevos aportes metodológicos a mas de una década, and Decolonial Feminism in Abya Yala, collect the principal contributions to the profoundly important production of critical theory and radical politics. The editors and contributors include a diversity of key figures (...) in decolonial feminism, reuniting intellectual-activists mostly from Latin America and US Latinxs, a geohistorical landscape denominated Abya Yala, an Indigenous Kuna category that stands for “the territory of all of us.” The publication of this review essay as part of a special issue of Hypatia is a meaningful move because it was in this journal that María Lugones published her foundational articles on what she termed “the modern/colonial gender system,” as well as an invitation to cultivate decolonial feminism. (shrink)

It is one thing to consider what human rights have been and another to inquire into what they could be. In this essay, I present a history of human rights vis-à-vis decolonization. I follow the scholarship of Samuel Moyn to suggest that human rights presented a “moral alternative” to political utopias. The question remains how to politicize the moral energy around human rights today. I argue that defending what Édouard Glissant calls a “right to opacity” could politicize the ethical energy (...) around human rights today. Glissant’s right to opacity outlines a blueprint for the praxis of human rights to shift from a “functional model” to a “critical model,” to use Enrique Dussel’s distinction. My ultimate aim is to show how social movements around human rights and decolonization could converge today. (shrink)

This paper argues for the concept of a decolonial humanism at the heart of C.L.R. James’s theoretical and political engagements. In exploring the concept of decolonial humanism, the paper moves through three major sections dealing with some of the definitive epistemic and political aspects of James’s work: a critique of Enlightenment Humanism and European Marxism without disavowing the aspirations of universal human emancipation; James’s work with the Johnson-Forest Tendency, the Pan-Africanist movement, and his attempts at labor organizing in (...) Trinidad first alongside Eric Williams in the People’s National Movement and later in his own Workers and Farmer’s Party ; and the practicality of decolonial humanism in terms of its adoption by Tim Hector and the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement. (shrink)

Indecent Theology has provided both Feminist Theology and Liberation Theology with new contours for rethinking bodies, power, dominance, and submission. With regard to the logic of dominance that radically pushes the margins of the margins into a form of inexistent living, I suggest a material turn to rethink the contours that are evoked with Indecent Theology. Materialism has long stood as a philosophy opposing the overwhelming dominance of language and the poststructuralist emphasis that has emerged as the ‘linguistic turn’. Considering (...) ‘new materialism’ as a theoretical platform to reread Indecent Theology provides theologies and ethics an opportunity to re-imagine indecent methodologies through indecency, a sort of ethical perversion. I suggest an indecent turn in mobilizing materialism and kink as theories to reread indecent theology for a productive queer materialist sexual theology. The feminist liberation theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid pushes both feminism and liberation into new contours of power and submission and initiates new contours of queer sexuality into the discourse. When analysing Althaus-Reid’s work, we are brought to attention to the margins of the margins, an awareness of the struggle for power and control by those deemed less than. There are contours of power at and in the margins of the margins, those who occupy ‘bottom space’. From a kink/bdsm orientation, I propose to reread Alrhaus-Read’s feminist liberation theology as decolonial erotics that helps to generate a productive materialist queer sexuality. The overarching methodology of this article is a quasi-auto ethnographic investigation into the ways in which the contours of race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, and ability affect power and submission and in turn reframes both queer theology and queer sexuality that is rooted in the living out of a very particular theology and ethics, which is rooted in queer relating. Theology can neither materialize in a vacuum nor in isolation. An indecent turn to a queer sexual theology that is rooted in a queer relationality demands attention to the interdependence of queer relating that is materialized through the interdependency of the growing queer desires of bodies, power, dominance, and submission. (shrink)

Despite the growing debate about scholarly impact, an analysis of the onto-epistemic grammar underlying impact has remained absent. By taking a different analytical approach to examining impact, we interrogate the concept through the lens of decolonial thought. We offer an empathetic review of the impact scholarship and illuminate the limits of the modern imaginary that circumscribe critiques of impact in the literature, making visible the Eurocentric and provincial horizons of modern reason underlying these critiques and impact in general. Drawing (...) on Śūnyatā ontological perspective, we seek to articulate from modernity imaginary’s edges and suggest imagining and being otherwise. We argue that the question of scholarly impact is intimately structured by and connected to the modern subject’s desire for ontological security. (shrink)