Recently, the Aymara intellectual Silvia Rivera Cusicanquí (Bolivia), has pointed out that "the decolonial is a fashion, the postcolonial a desire and the anti-colonial a struggle." Through this, she posits that in the face of the exhausted epistemological horizon of Eurocentric modernity there is a renewed interest in the knowledge that emerges in the context of the struggles for decolonization, however, there is no real political commitment on the part of scientists. The author points out: "the decolonial is a very recent fashion that, in some way, usufructs and reinterprets those processes of struggle, but I think it depoliticizes them, since the decolonial is a state or a situation but it is not an activity, it does not imply an agency, nor a conscious participation. I put the anti-colonial struggle into practice in fact, in some way, delegitimizing all forms of objectification and ornamental use of what is indigenous by the State. All of these are processes of symbolic colonization. "
I am interested in hearing and reading critical opinions about the decolonial turn in academic fashion. My question arises from some observations:
a) Epistemological violence in the social sciences that is claimed to be decolonial continues to be exercised from the Eurocentric "epistemological ratio". Where Latin America becomes a simple field of study. And where those of us who reflect from within the struggles for decolonization are erased from the map of knowledge production, since our texts are not referenced or academic extractivism is simply generated stealing local knowledge, exercising new forms of "indigenous folklorization".
b) The main references of decolonial thought are located in universities in hegemonic countries. The intellectual activists of Latin America who have a conscious ethic and struggle with social movements are excluded from the circuits of intellectual debate.
c) An important fracture of decolonial studies occurs in the defense of the Nation State and the progressive left governments of Latin America, such as Evo Morales and Maduro, and a rejection of radical left or indigenous proposals that are raised from anti-state perspectives , libertarian and autonomous.
d) The depoliticization and lack of ethics of many researchers who claim to be decolonial, who through practices of academic extractivism seek to scrutinize indigenous knowledge, have been financed with multi-million dollar research projects, financed by companies and state research corporations (Por example mitzubichi corporation), and whose impacts have contributed nothing to the struggles of those who dispute the territory.
https://www.elsaltodiario.com/feminismo-poscolonial/silvia-rivera-cusicanqui-producir-pensamiento-cotidiano-pensamiento-indigena
One could say that any "turn" in Social Sciences has been, somewhat, "a fashion" in the sense you are portraying it. The mobility turn, the cultural turn, the affective turn, so on an so forth, are indeed "new" ways to apprehend the reality in a manner or fashion that set them apart from other epistemological spheres (All pretty Eurocentric by the way). However, I guess there is some ambiguity in the conceptualisation of politics you are using for asking your questions. First, Rivera, I guess is referring more to micro politics than macro politics, and if I read the piece correctly, she is also saying that decolonial is a "state" rather than a thing to be turned into some kind of scientific capital. Second, the thing with fundings is a bit tricky, is like questioning about decolonial thought in english on a German funded platform financed in part for Goldman Sachs; and it is problematic in the same line of the entire neoliberalisation and extractivism processes currently happening in the Scientific scene, which are pervasive in such a massive scale that it is almost impossible to live outside them. Therefore, the decolonial should be also posed as the deneoliberal. Plenty of things have been male-whitened over the years, plenty other things have been turn into western-driven ideas and thoughts, and that is the final struggle in all the Sciences I guess. Por ahora te dejo este paper Article Unsettling decolonizing geographies
Brill. Nice point of discussion. I'll write back to you on the weekend. Are you planning to send it to any journal in particular?
Speaking as an early career academic from the Global South, Africa to be specific, I think characterizing decolonial (decolonisation/decoloniality) scholarship as a fashion is very simplistic. Decolonial scholarship is a war/struggle for epistemic freedom. It is a struggle to have multiple centres of knowledge. It is about unlearning the predominantly Eurocentric forms of knowledge and methodologies in order to learn inclusive methodologies, to be able to have our own styles of writing and framing our knowledge perspectives. A lot of our knowledge and scholarship is sidelined in the knowledge industry that follows a Eurocentric script. We need to be acknowledged as centres of knowledge instead of exporters of raw data and importers of theories.
The biggest challenge we have is that we were produced by the very same Eurocentric system that has taken away our epistemic freedoms. That is why we have to continuously unlearn in order to learn. So there is agency in the decolonial scholarship, it is not fashion at all.
Thanks to Divane Nzima for reminding us of the generative combination/effort focusing on "unlearn in order to learn". This perspective is probably better translated by the "transmodernity" (rather than the "decolonial") framework. A major source of unlearning comes from cross-cultural/linguistic dialogue and it would be interesting to see more such dialogue among (at least) English, French, and Portuguese.Spanish literature. Significant reflection to analyze the contributions and the limits of the decolonial perspective comes from Achille Mbembe (see for example "Sortir de la grande nuit: Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée", 2013). He identifies the “paradoxe central de la décolonisation: dédoublement stérile et réitération sèche d’une part, et de l’autre prolifération indéfinie”.
In short and briefly the decolonial studies makes a critical judgment related the survival ways of colonization about power relationships. In knowledge building agroecology is a good example. Its origin is in Latinoamerican and the peasant knowledge has been the basis of its epistemology. But as agroecology has grown in the Global North its original basis seems has losted it. It will be our mission to redirect it and build our own academic system.
I don't think is a fashion, but the Internet has probably highlighted inequalities in the access to knowledge and in the hegemonic (i don't even like this word but is true) conditions in which is produced.
The Idea that there's a 'knowledge industry' that follows a 'Eurocentric script' is a bit of Communism-think that entered the South African discourse via Althusser and - it must be said - a type of British Marxism that never did understand what epistemology is all about. There's no such thing as 'Russian' biology or physics, and there's no such thing as 'black' astronomy or 'female' electronics. The last time I looked at maths and science stats for Africa (and especially South Africa) they were the worst in the world. That's not because knowledge (or science and research) is 'Eurocentric' and monopolised there but because the Althusserians (and many other Marxists) think of knowledge as a 'product'. It isn't. Education changes character, the soul, 'identity'. (Not to mention life-chances and career prospects.) It's not a 'product', not a commodity, it doesn't follow the use value/exchange value dichotomy, it can't be industrially produced. Ask any experienced teacher or lecturer. The damage Nzimande has done to the South African education system is serious, and perhaps irreparable. Please look at how schooling and education is organised in Finland, and at the relevant outcome-studies.
I agree fully! In some cases, there are de-colonial scholars to whom decolonializing science and modernity are marketing strategies and interests, their struggles aim nothing, but self-academic interest.
For a brief period of time under Stalin there was a sort of 'Soviet' biology that did not end well and did a lot of harm. . . .Politicization is not absent even from natural sciences. But the real issue is rather whether South should be understood in the context of the original North-South distinction (originally advocated by a West German Chancellor, if I recall correctly) or whether it should be understood as a symbolic topos - as suggested by recent post-colonial scholarship.
Divane Nzima , great statement. One of the goals in decolonizing has to be to also understand that the measure of what matters needs to also be decolonized. So much of what my field has worked on over the years is set by a national agenda that has almost nothing to do with the local community. And then it is set to reflect on what is seen as "alien" and misses how local systems are organized (thereby maintaining the hierarchies that are a part of colonial system--whether exercised by force or through the academy). I think we're starting to change that and for the better, but it will take time to get there.
"The South is rather a metaphor for the human suffering caused by capitalism and colonialism on the global level, as well as for the resistance to overcoming or minimising such suffering. It is, therefore, an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-imperialist South."Santos, B. de Sousa https://issuu.com/fromtheeuropeansouth/docs/2016-1_from-the-european-south
Divane Nzima wrote:
- Decolonial scholarship is a war/struggle for epistemic freedom. It is a struggle to have multiple centres of knowledge.
- The biggest challenge we have is that we were produced by the very same Eurocentric system that has taken away our epistemic freedoms. That is why we have to continuously unlearn in order to learn.
I support Divane. The second citation is in particular important. We have to question economics when we consider colonialism, decolonization, and the strategic way to get independent economy, because economics gives a framework by which we understand economic relations. In this regard, it is not sufficient to criticize neoclassical economics and neoclassical turn in development economics. Some strand of economics that belongs to heterodox economics is also contaminated with the neoclassical economics in the deep layer of the theory. Arghiri Emmanuel's theory of unequal exchange and policies based on that (i.e., simply try to turn terms of trade favorably toward developing countries) were one of them.
The following is a paragraph of my paper
Chapter The New Theory of International Values: An Overview
which is otherwise purely theoretical.
- At one time, the lack of an appropriate theory of trade pushed development economics in the wrong direction. A typical case was the dependency theory. People who embraced this theory worried that the terms of trade for developing countries were worsening, and they recommended import substitution industrialization policy. Emmanuel’s (1969) theory of unequal exchange provided a reason for their orientations. Dependency theorists argued that the high wages of developed countries worsened the terms of trade for less-developed countries. It is evident that they were aligning themselves with John Stuart Mill: for Mill, the terms of trade are not determined by production relations, but by the law of demand and supply.Dependency theorists thought that these terms of trade were ultimately determined by power relations between developed and developing countries. (Shiozawa, 2017 p.61)
I am not saying that dependency theory itself was wrong. It is true that colonized economies were put in a structurally dependent situation, but theory of unequal exchange led people in a wrong direction. It was a kind of epistemological obstruction in understanding what is happening economic field.
If some readers of this discussion page want to read the above paper, please ask me through RG e-mail system (Open my page and push "Experience" button. You will find "Send Message" button at your upper right). I will be happy to send you the PDF.
Frederik van Gelder wrote that "there is no Russian biology." Victor N. Roudometof mentioned Soviet biology.
They gave no proper name for this affair. The problem of Lysenkoism (or Lyssenkisme in French) is a serious problem for all those concerned to the relations between science and ideology.
See
en.Widkipedia> "Lysenkoism" and "Trofim Lysenko"
fr.Wikipedia > "Lyssenkisme" and "Trofim Lyssenko"
I think there were some scientific contents in what Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (Ivan Michourine in fr.Wikipedia) had discovered, on which Lysenko drew much. There are now some movement for a rehabilitation of Michurin (even some aspects of Lysenko's claim) because of recent development of epigenetics and developmental biology. However, the core lesson for sciences and for social sciences in particular is that some theories were denounced (and even repressed) by the fact they seemed to represent a world-view or an ideology (bourgeois, capitalist, metaphysical, or mechanistic [in opposition to dialectic]). Wikipedia (en. and fr.) does not tell what happened in Japan. Japan was not occupied by Soviet Union but there were many biologists who aligned to Lysenko from various reasons. We cannot say that Lysenko case is a story that can only happen from the intervention from the ruling political power.
Similar things easily (more easily) happen in economics. There were many good-conscious biologists who were involved in the Lysenkoist movement. There were experiments and logical analyses even among those who supported Lysenko and its currents. It was, however, often difficult to distinguish whether some contentions were made from scientific reasons or from ideological reasons. Even in biology, it was so difficult to distinguish between the two. It would be much more difficult to separate the two in social sciences. There are always some aspects that are not clear. We should learn seriously from the Lysenko case.
I'm reposting from a comment of mine on another 'postcoloniality' thread:
"One should pay attention to the fact that those who demand the 'decolonization' of knowledge are generally among the most ignorant while the best and brightest make no such demands." https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/how-did-this-come-to-pass
For a view on this from the global south, this is interesting, for all kinds of reasons:
Chapter Crisis and Critique: Critical Theories and the Renewal of Ci...
Academia: "How do we decolonize?"
Everyone: "Give back the land"
Academia: *creates Dean for Decolonization*
(Jes Battis)
Greetings,
Great concerns and loving the comments I glanced at. If anyone is interested, I wrote an intervention speaking to some of these issues : Dunlap A. 2020. Compost the Colony: Exploring Anarchist Decolonization. Tvergastein Journal, Available at: https://medium.com/tvergastein-journal/compost-the-colony-exploring-anarchist-decolonization-5e3f4301664a.
There will hopefully be a full article related to this, but it is on its 4th month on the second round of reviews).
I am becoming less convinced that universities are a viable institution for social change. Subordination to infrastructure, bureaucracy and digital systems are powerful devices that keep this structure and relationship in tact... not to mention the generalization of discrimination....
Alexander Dunlap ... and we should mention the corruption intrinsic in Italian universities, with their 'concorsi truccati' (managed competitions) which discriminate and exclude all competitors who are not actively entrenched within a specific academic 'tribe' often on the basis of family, affective or servile ties... the digital system just gives a technologically lush appearance to a feudal power pyramid that conceives of no change whatsoever...
Frederik van Gelder that quotation is very problematic and attempts to flatten the diversity of voices within that movement. Some of the best and brightest do the work of decolonizing and have strong international networks.
Alexandra D'Urso - If you'd be a bit more specific then perhaps it would be possible to get this discussion out of the realm of competitive moralisation.
Frederik van Gelder, the quotation itself comes from a article that makes a sweeping generalization based upon a few examples. The author fails to move beyond symbolic examples within South Africa to acknowledge those scholars who are working to build (and have built) networks that aim to change, for example, possibilities for scholars to collaborate across African countries and beyond, and provide new ways of understanding challenges that are of a global nature.
Alexandra D'Urso - Perhaps you'd like to provide us with the quotation, of which you say that it makes "a sweeping generalization based upon a few examples". If it's contained in that article by R.W. Johnson we should perhaps discuss this further. In what way does the author "fail to move beyond symbolic examples" in such a way that it vitiates the arguments made? (R.W. Johnson is an Oxford scholar and a widely respected specialist on Southern Africa.) I'm interested in that judgement - whatever it was - of which you then deduce so emphatically that it is a 'sweeping generalization' devoid of empirical underpinnings. (... "based upon a few examples ".) Your whole argumentation suggests: 'R.W. Johnson is full of prejudices. I'm not'. Would you mind providing the quotation which you seem to claim is prejudiced?
Hi again Fredrik! You provided the quotation yourself here. "One should pay attention to the fact that those who demand the 'decolonization' of knowledge are generally among the most ignorant while the best and brightest make no such demands." https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/how-did-this-come-to-pass
For those who are interested in exploring this issue in the area of discourse studies, Suresh Canagarajah recently published an article entitled "Language diversity in academic writing: toward decolonizing scholarly publishing". Link to the article here on ResearchGate: Article Language diversity in academic writing: toward decolonizing ...
A similar article was published in Progress in Human Geography by Martin Müller (2021) . Link to the article here: Article Worlding geography: From linguistic privilege to decolonial anywheres
Two points worth making here. 1.) R.W. Johnson’s quote has, as context, the specificities of South African politics, and most especially, of what there - under the aegis of the ruling ANC Alliance - is meant (and is/has then been translated into ‘practice’ via legislation), under ‘decolonisation’ or ‘post-coloniality’ or ‘democratisation’. If you’re going to claim, in a sweeping generalisation, that there’s something prejudicial about what R.W. Johnson has to say about it, you'll have to take in more of the context. (If you're going to try to back up your claim in any way. Like, for instance, the degradation and in some cases the collapse of governance functions in many areas, in that country, including education at all levels. [Which is what that R.W. Johnson statement refers to.])
2.) The connection to ‘discourse studies’ comes via a Habermas thesis that has now gone around the world, namely that of the ‘colonisation of the life-world’, something that has happened, to use his terminology for this, in as much as 'the objectifying stance' has come to dominate all other types of discourse. (My Ph.D. thesis on this, written in part under Habermas, has been published, and can be consulted here https://amsterdam-adorno.net/fvg1990_hbhm_aTOC.html ) That “colonisation of the lifeworld” thesis, together with the meaning of ‘discourses’ in Habermas, in turn has next to nothing to do with what usually goes under ‘post-coloniality’. In the SA context, that R.W. Johnson quote is spot on, and you'll find few educationists to contradict him.
Hola Pablo! Lo que publicaste como inici o de esta discusión, lo tenés publicado en algún lado? Estamos trabajando con unos colegas en este tema y quisiéramos citarlo. Gracias!!!
This is a great conversation! I find that the moment -colonial is added to a discussion, we give too much credit to the colonizers and remove indigenous agency from the conversation. We shouldn't assume that a colonizer had this power over the communities ..we need space to ask deeper questions that may or may not elucidate the colonizers.
Parallel to that, when working with my counterparts from the Pacific Islands, I find a road block around this academic tradition of 'building on theory', of 'standing on the shoulders of giants.' All of these are eurocentric and based on European languages.
I think there are some good projects out there seeking to support indigenous universities. It's too early to tell if they will have the dramatic paradigm shifts needed, but I am hopeful. Knowledge production shouldn't be limited by 'the giants' or confined by English.
I've always had this feeling that -colonial studies, at least in the small island context, in veiled neo-colonialism.
Where did Silvia Rivera Cusicanquí (Bolivia) say this? "the decolonial is a fashion, the postcolonial a desire and the anti-colonial a struggle."
The worse part is I probably read it and forgot...
Hi, Alexander.
I'm not sure if there's another source, but the conversation with Cusicanquí at https://viewpointmag.com/2016/10/25/silvia-rivera-cusicanqui-against-internal-colonialism/ has this interviewer/writer Veronica Gago write this at some point:
“The postcolonial is a desire, the anticolonial is a struggle, the decolonial is an obnoxious fashionable neologism,” she synthesizes.
Thank you! I am surprised I missed this. This article might interest this thread:
Article ‘I don’t want your progress! It tries to kill … me!’ Decolon...
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