Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference - New Edition
... It identifies the Anglosphere as a 'default vantage point' in global knowledge production that currently perpetuates a hegemony distinct from that of the conventional centrisms/cores of the West, Europe, and the US. Drawing from the logic of 'provincialization' (Chakrabarty, 2000), it critically examines how scholarly discourses inadvertently dismiss the Anglosphere when assigning ontological status and epistemological significance to areas and centrisms. The premise behind provincialization harkens back to what Paul Ricoeur (1965, p. 278) wrote regarding intercultural encounters: When we discover that there are several cultures instead of just one and consequently at the time when we acknowledge the end of a sort of cultural monopoly, be it illusory or real, we are threatened by destruction of our own discovery. ...
... The term 'provincialization' is widely used by critical scholars of social sciences and humanities but there is no universal understanding of what exactly 'provincializing' an object entails outside of being a mode of decentring knowledge. The concept gained prominence after the publication of Dipesh Chakrabarty's (2000) Provincializing Europe which addressed the problem of European thought constituting a deeply embedded referent in the historicization of modernity in postcolonial non-European places. This work is a critique of Eurocentrism that also addresses the lingering problems with nativism and relativism being responses to universalism. ...
... This leads to the misconception that non-European places lacked certain ideas prior to colonization, thus their modernity is constructed as marginal continuation of a naturalized European history. To this end, Chakrabarty (2000) called for a shift away from 'transitional' to 'translational' approaches to knowledge in which preexisting non-European contexts are recognized as valid and influential. ...
This article rethinks conceptions of ‘the global’ by revisiting the problem of ‘the Anglobal’ [Vucetic, S. (2010). Anglobal governance? Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23(3), 455–474] in the production of knowledge. It problematizes the essentialization of ‘the West’, ‘Europe’, and ‘the US’ as area-based centrisms in critical international relations (IR) and area studies
scholarship. We suggest that the ‘Anglosphere’ is an emerging centrism based on ever-changing perceptions of geography within the West and the ever-increasing dominance of the English language globally. While some scholars have addressed Anglosphere-centrism, they seldom contextualize
the Anglosphere’s relationship with more conventional Western centrisms. Our analysis draws from Global IR, the logic of provincialization, and evolution of other Western-region area studies discourses to question the Anglosphere’s absence. We contend that normalizing the Anglosphere as a valid analytical category allows for deeper engagement between IR, area studies, and other disciplines while enabling a more equitable exchange of
knowledge between the Anglosphere and other regional worlds.
... Dipesh Chakrabarty's Provincializing Europe (2000) also describes asymmetries of knowledge production: There is an 'inequality of ignorance': Europe is a silent referent that non-European scholars need to refer to when writing about their own societies and histories, but not vice versa. Europeans are routinely theorizing about all of humanity while remaining ignorant of most societies of the globe, except European ones (Chakrabarty [2000(Chakrabarty [ ]2008. While Europeans can speak as subjects, subalternized groups "can only be spoken for and spoken of " (41). ...
... Dipesh Chakrabarty's Provincializing Europe (2000) also describes asymmetries of knowledge production: There is an 'inequality of ignorance': Europe is a silent referent that non-European scholars need to refer to when writing about their own societies and histories, but not vice versa. Europeans are routinely theorizing about all of humanity while remaining ignorant of most societies of the globe, except European ones (Chakrabarty [2000(Chakrabarty [ ]2008. While Europeans can speak as subjects, subalternized groups "can only be spoken for and spoken of " (41). ...
... This 'cognitive empire' not only causes 'cultural schizophrenia' and alienation (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2020). It also encourages the construction of a "developing world" whose difference to Europe are cast as "backwardness" and whose people are characterized by a long list of "lacks," "deficits," and "inferiority," justifying external interventions such as colonization or contemporary structural adjustment programs (Chakrabarty 2000;Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2012). As a remedy against coloniality of knowledge, Mignolo suggests 'epistemic delinking,' drawing on work by African scholars Amin, Nkrumah, and Ngugi wa Thiongo (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2020). ...
... The increasing reflections that point to the relationship between knowledge production and colonial inheritance are known to us. The most significant critic made to the modern epistemology is that it has established itself as the only valid and universal perspective, denying other forms of apprehension in the world (Chakrabarty 2000;Mignolo 2003;Quijano 2005;Grosfoguel 2008). This perspective is inadequate because it (i) perpetuates epistemic oppression; (ii) serves as a tool to preserve the Eurocentric global imaginary (which supports the structure of colonial domination); (iii) hierarchizes knowledge and rejects otherness; and (iv) is unable to present a universally valid theory and embrace diversity. ...
... This perspective is inadequate because it (i) perpetuates epistemic oppression; (ii) serves as a tool to preserve the Eurocentric global imaginary (which supports the structure of colonial domination); (iii) hierarchizes knowledge and rejects otherness; and (iv) is unable to present a universally valid theory and embrace diversity. From this criticism and the finding of the inadequacy of modern European epistemology, different theoretical approaches were created-namely, postcolonial (Chakrabarty 2000), decolonial (Mignolo and Walsh 2018), epistemologies of the South (Santos 2014), and Southern theories (Connel 2007)-to challenge the relations with Western thought and to deconstruct the views and interpretations that defined colonial zones as sources of culture and ideology, and the West as the theoretical intellectual matrix of humanity. ...
... While the postcolonial effort aims to deconstruct the "essentialisms" and build a critical epistemology of dominant conceptions of modernity, deprovincializing the world and provincializing Europe (Chakrabarty 2000), the decolonial effort aims to further explore the idea of colonialism. Decolonial theory thinks of modern capitalism as a world-system that imposes a racial and ethnic classification of people as the basis of their power structures. ...
... Turning to theorists like Agamben ([1995] 1998), 127) and Badiou (2002, liv, lv, 7, 12-13) or to broader schools of thought like critical legal studies (Tuschnet 1984, 984), decolonial theory (Casimir 2020, 321), postcolonial theory (Dainotto 2007, 209), the subaltern school of historiography (Chakrabarty [2000(Chakrabarty [ ] 2008, or to Third World approaches to international law (Mutua 2002, 3), we instead encounter a lack of resources to challenge instrumentalism or even manifest examples of instrumentalist assumptions. In this setting, the deconstruction of the bourgeois horizon of right or law in general results in a simple reduction to another term, be it bare life, NATO, the New World Order, democratic totalitarianism, humanitarian individualism, liberal ideology, or ideology in general, the West, the self-satisfied egoism of the affluent West, Christianity, colonialism, imperialism, or social interests in general. ...
... Turning to theorists like Agamben ([1995] 1998), 127) and Badiou (2002, liv, lv, 7, 12-13) or to broader schools of thought like critical legal studies (Tuschnet 1984, 984), decolonial theory (Casimir 2020, 321), postcolonial theory (Dainotto 2007, 209), the subaltern school of historiography (Chakrabarty [2000(Chakrabarty [ ] 2008, or to Third World approaches to international law (Mutua 2002, 3), we instead encounter a lack of resources to challenge instrumentalism or even manifest examples of instrumentalist assumptions. In this setting, the deconstruction of the bourgeois horizon of right or law in general results in a simple reduction to another term, be it bare life, NATO, the New World Order, democratic totalitarianism, humanitarian individualism, liberal ideology, or ideology in general, the West, the self-satisfied egoism of the affluent West, Christianity, colonialism, imperialism, or social interests in general. ...
The critique of the legal form of capitalism by E. B. Pashukanis has risen to prominence once again. However, the negative origin of the concept of the legal form, the critique of formalism and instrumentalism, has received too little attention. This essay substantiates the significance of Pashukanis’s critique, avoiding both overly general and narrow conceptions. Moreover, it proposes that his negative contribution is best understood as a critique of a spectrum between formalism and instrumentalism, containing both differences and similarities. Importantly, while acknowledging notable differences, the analysis of the inner connections between formalism and instrumentalism enables an examination of how the spectrum embodies a circular logic by which formalism unavoidably advances its negation through instrumentalism, and vice versa. The ultimate source of the circularity of the spectrum can be found in moments of circulation and production under capitalism, providing social validation of formalism and instrumentalism, respectively.
... Global supply chains and circuits of labor cannot be investigated without recognizing and understanding entangled histories. A critical translation (recalling Chakrabarty, 2000) of what platforms offer to diverse populations is necessary to overcome the multiple binaries that theorizations are often caught between-(1) Western epistemologies and epistemologies of the South; (2) parochial claims of Asian theories or Southern theories. Such an approach also serves to build global solidarities of workers across borders. ...
Extant research on the gendered dynamics on digital labor platforms and care work is divided in terms of focus: (migrant) men involved in supposedly “masculine” work such as driving and delivery, and home-based repair work, and the feminized invisible work performed by women in home-based care-work such as domestic work and beauty work. While such scholarship has merit, it completely dismisses the particularities of the South Asian context where beauty work, considered to be ritually impure work, has historically been performed by men from the marginalized Nai caste. Foregrounding the views of men in beauty work, particularly Nai-barbers (on and off platform), our findings reveal that Nai-barbers find the relocation of work from barbershop to customer’s home by platforms particularly humiliating. The transition from being entrepreneurs, in charge of their barbershops, to mere workers supervised by both platforms and customers, evokes memories of the servitude their ancestors endured. The humiliation and degradation of work they experience are rooted in caste and colonial histories. Our findings underscore the need to go beyond the immediate temporal context to identify the conditions of work that workers find degrading, and situate the feminization of platform economy within the context of coloniality and casticization of power, thus bringing a necessary intersectionality that recognizes but goes beyond gender.
... Neste contexto, a crítica ao carácter selectivo das fontes dominantes de produção e transmissão de conhecimento e à forma como estas cobrem apenas uma reduzida porção da complexa história das religiõescom as respectivas mitologias e perspectivas de género associadasassume particular relevância, ao apontar-se um aparelho taxonómico com um peso desproporcional do espaço europeu/ocidental (vide Masuzawa, 2005) em detrimento de uma aceitação e consciência da igualdade de importância e pertinência não só de diferentes culturas religiosas e/ou de género, mas também de formas de conhecimento (cf. Chakrabarty 2000). Torna-se, assim, clara a natureza não-objectiva e não-neutra de qualquer investigação, incluindo a incidente sobre questões religiosas (Flood, 1999, p. 168), posto que todo o conhecimento é situado (cf. ...
O volume 38.3 da Diacrítica reúne o dossiê temático Divino Masculino, Divino Feminino, Divino Outro: Teorias, Práticas e Expressões Generizadas do Fenómeno Religioso, que explora as intersecções entre género e religião sob múltiplas perspectivas teóricas e metodológicas. Resultado de uma reflexão plural e conjunta, inicialmente espoletada pelo colóquio Género e Religiões (2022) e pelo subsequente ciclo de conferências homónimo, que visaram fomentar um debate interdisciplinar em torno das implicações do género no fenómeno religioso em diversos contextos históricos, culturais e sociais, este volume apresenta estudos de caso referentes a diferentes temáticas, cronologias e geografias. Para além de uma apresentação sumária dos contributos, a presente introdução oferece um breve enquadramento conceptual, ao mesmo tempo que traça um panorama sintético da evolução das abordagens ao género e à religiosidade, destacando o impacto do aparato crítico pós-moderno e feminista, e enfatizando a contribuição dos aportes académicos ibero-americanos para o tema. Além disso, sublinha-se o caráter dinâmico e permanentemente (re)negociado do género e da religião, vistos como construções sociais interligadas, realçando-se a importância das abordagens interseccionais. Em suma, o volume não apenas reflete os debates académicos prévios, como também se propõe como um passo adicional num diálogo contínuo, promovendo olhares plurais que transcendem os limites cronológicos, geográficos e teóricos tradicionais.
... She told me that she waited for hours before replying to the men's messages, prompting them to send multiple messages ("Did I do anything, jaanu?"), enjoying their anxiety and frustration caused by her lack of response. Her practices were examples of an inversion of well-established gendered power dynamics that consider those waiting, normally women, as less powerful (Chakrabarty 2000). And yet when I asked Jyoti about hurting the men's feelings even when some discussed marriage and seemed serious, she rhetorically asked me, "Well, why is he a man?" (Woh ladka kyun bana). ...
Some young middle-class women in Ghaziabad have little hope that love will lead to a desirable future. Therefore, they kindle desire in casual encounters that they describe as “enjoyment” and cultivate a sensibility of living in the moment. Enjoyment departs from love (pyaar) as depicted in mass media like Bollywood that leads to marriage. Instead, through enjoyment, college-attending women move through fantasies of love (pyaar) leading to marriage under conditions of urbanization, the rise of women’s education, and pervasive unemployment. In the process, they uncouple flirting and erotic play from its progression to love (pyaar) or marriage. In so doing, women ironically and unintentionally create an alternate form of love (enjoyment). This version of love is playful, creative, and fun. It allows women to access pleasure and to enact a version of love not latched to marriage. By paying attention to these alternate forms of love, this essay shows how women work past the “cruel optimism” of love, reconstituting it as a site for self-affirmation, pleasure, and play.
... Just as new states in the post-imperial space constitute historical memory and find structures to legitimize their own existence in history (national heroes, national culture and literature, historical battles and others), the peripheral empire also seeks to use its history to provide justification for its own existence. Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000) argues that postcolonial societies seek to "provincialize" Europe, that is, to revise hegemonic historical narratives in which Europe (or, more broadly, the West) has been central as the standard of civilizational progress. Russia, as a former empire on the periphery of the global system, also participates in the process of "provincialization" of the West, but with unique features: unlike classical post-colonial states, Russia was not an object of colonization, but acted as an empire itself, which now must challenge the global dominance of the West. ...
The present paper offers a comprehensive analysis of anti-Americanism as a multidimensional phenomenon with a focus on its manifestations in contemporary Russia, especially in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The authors note that anti-Americanism remains a subject of active academic debate, as its interpretations range from hostile actions and statements towards the United States to criticism of specific American policies. Historically, anti-Americanism has manifested itself in various forms, including the French demarche under Charles de Gaulle and numerous protests against US foreign policy in Europe and the world. The article focuses special attention on the Cold War period when the confrontation between the US and the USSR was a prime example of creating an enemy image through ideological propaganda, economic policies, and cultural conflicts. The main goal of the article is to identify the ideological features of the construction of anti-American policy of modern Russia and its impact on ideological orientations in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. An important place in the analysis is occupied by the ideas of Edward Said and Louis Althusser, which allow us to consider anti-Americanism through the prism of orientalism and ideology. The authors offer the author's matrix of comparative analysis, which helps to identify the key features of the ideological interpretation of Russian anti-Americanism. The article emphasizes that contemporary Russian anti-Americanism is not only an instrument of internal legitimization of power, but also a means of establishing new configurations at the regional and global levels. Russia, positioning itself as an alternative to American hegemony, actively uses anti-Americanism to strengthen its position in the international arena, especially in its relations with the states of the "Global South".
... Efetivamente, a referência a seus trabalhos moldou a teoria social como a conhecemos hoje, no entanto, é necessário tensionar as razões de tal acontecimento, visibilizando as assimetrias. De igual modo, é preciso enfatizar a existência da ignorância assimétrica entre centro e periferia (Chakrabarty, 2000), o que foi denominado por Ribeiro (2006) de provincianismo metropolitano e cosmopolitismo provinciano. Afinal, aqueles que estão na metrópole conhecem apenas sua própria tradição intelectual, enquanto que os que estão na província conhecem, além de sua própria, também a tradição intelectual da metrópole. ...
Refletimos sobre debates que Raewyn Connell tem feito acerca das teorias do sul. Apresentamos sua discussão sobre autores clássicos da sociologia e sua crítica à teoria social desde o Sul global. Connell não exclui a importância dos cânones, mas visibiliza o valor das teorias do sul para as ciências sociais e algumas de suas características, como a especificidade, a contextualização, o debate sobre as desigualdades sociais.
... Las perspectivas sobre la descolonización del saber poscolonial (Spivak 1983, Chatterjee 1993, Bhabha 1994, Chakrabarty 2000, la construcción de conocimiento situado (Anzaldúa 1987;Haraway 1991) y los transfeminismos (Valencia 2010, Solá y Urko 2014Guerrero y Muñoz 2018) han tomado relevancia en las últimas décadas dentro de las academias críticas del Sur global. ...
La epistemología comúnmente aceptada para la investigación sobre las relaciones México-Estados Unidos y de la frontera Norte de México suele estar dominada por las corrientes y autores establecidos en el centro hegemónico de producción de pensamiento, particularmente la academia de Estados Unidos. Las corrientes dominantes en la Ciencia Política y las Relaciones Internacionales estadunidenses son el funcionalismo y diversas expresiones de realismo, neorrealismo e institucionalismo, las cuales dejan poca cabida para el pensamiento crítico y situado. Quienes estudiamos Norteamérica desde la periferia de la producción del pensamiento en países como México vemos poca disponibilidad de epistemologías que abandonen las presunciones de objetividad y universalidad de la ciencia positivista dominante, y tenemos pocos espacios de discusión y producción de un pensamiento en el que la perspectiva subordinada de México frente a Estados Unidos se vuelve central para el análisis. Las perspectivas sobre la descolonización del saber poscolonial (Spivak 1983, Chatterjee 1993, Bhabha 1994, Chakrabarty 2000), la construcción de conocimiento situado (Anzaldúa 1987; Haraway 1991) y los transfeminismos (Valencia 2010, Solá y Urko 2014; Guerrero y Muñoz 2018) han tomado relevancia en las últimas décadas dentro de las academias críticas del Sur global. Esto se debe a que promueven la enseñanza del pensamiento crítico para descolonizar ciertos enfoques académicos considerados hegemónicos y fomentar la construcción de pensamiento y conocimiento situados. Una premisa fundamental de este tipo de enfoque es la construcción de propuestas basadas en investigaciones locales que tengan incidencia en la resolución de problemas económicos, políticos, sociales, culturales, de género y sexualidad en las nuevas fronteras desterritorializadas y simbólicas que reafirman el binario entre colonialismo y el extractivismo estadounidenses en otras geografías. Así, la propuesta es epistemopolítica (Valencia, 2021) y de contribución a un saber situado de N orteamérica desde la perspectiva mexicana (Estévez 2022) por lo que se analizan problemáticas concretas vinculadas con el asedio de la Modernidad/colonialidad (Quijano 1997; Dussell 2004; Lugones 2008; Grosfoguel 2008) del pensamiento imperial de Estados Unidos y otras naciones del Norte Global donde las formas de producción de conocimiento se hegemonizan. Distribuyendo modelos que no alcanzan a explicar las realidades altamente complejas de otras geografías, como por ejemplo, las de México. Esto es lo que ofrecen los textos que conforman el Dossier Conceptualizando Norteamérica desde una perspectiva mexicana. Proponen una crítica-práctica ante la colonialidad del saber (Quijano, 2000) distribuida en los centros de producción de conocimiento hegemónico. El conjunto de artículos que conforman el Dossier es el resultado más acabado de un esfuerzo de larga data por trazar epistemologías diferentes para el análisis de los fenómenos sociales y políticos de Norteamérica que han hecho las editoras del mismo, Ariadna Estévez y Sayak Valencia. Las académicas llevaron a cabo un taller de creatividad epistemológica que tuvo lugar el 19 de febrero de 2016 en el CISAN con los miembros del Seminario de Biopolítica y Necropolítica que coordinaron la primera junto con la Dra. Amarela Varela durante el sabático de ésta ese año. El taller fue un éxito y diversas ponencias y capítulos de libro fueron materializados en dos coloquios sobre el tema en 2017 y 2018. En seguimiento de este trabajo se realizó el Laboratorio de Creatividad Epistémica entre los meses de febrero a agosto de 2023, con la coordinación de las investigadoras Ariadna Estévez (CISAN) y Sayak Valencia (COLEF), durante la estancia sabática de la última en el CISAN. El laboratorio tuvo el objetivo de dar un espacio de construcción colectiva del conocimiento, guiado por las coordinadoras del laboratorio, para que lxs estudiantes de posgrado e investigadores jóvenes desarrollen su capacidad creativa en el área de la epistemología y así tengan las herramientas para hacer conceptualizaciones derivadas de sus trabajos de investigación. Se trabajó con los estudiantes y ex estudiantes más destacados de diversas promociones del Seminario de Introducción a la Investigación Biopolítica y Necropolítica (Laboratorio de Tesis Chidas), quienes en sus tesis, bajo la dirección de las coordinadoras del laboratorio, identificaron conceptos novedosos o perspectivas distintas para describir los fenómenos investigados. Dichos conceptos derivaron de sus investigaciones empíricas en las áreas de migración (México y Estados Unidos), seguridad y militarización en Norteamérica, desaparición forzada en los ámbitos de migración y securitización en Norteamérica, estudios culturales e internacionales, y análisis biopolítico y necropolítico interdisciplinario. El laboratorio se estructuró en seis sesiones con temáticas y actividades encaminadas a disparar y potenciar la imaginación epistémica, tales como la práctica del aula encaminada al pensamiento crítico, el significado del conocimiento situado, poscolonial/decolonial y transfeminista, la construcción de conocimiento interdisciplinario, la metaforización en la imaginación epistémica, el performance afectivo de los conceptos políticos que damos por sentados, y la cultura popular como fuente de metáforas visuales para pensar y abstraer el mundo contemporáneo. Retomando la idea de que “los laboratorios sociales son plataformas ideadas para abordar retos sociales que presentan tres rasgos: 1) su carácter social, congregando gente con distintas características y enfoques para trabajar de forma colectiva; 2) su carácter experimental, en tanto que procesos de creación continuados en el tiempo; 3) su carácter sistémico, trabajando en la generación de prototipos que pueden resolver grandes retos” (Romero-Frías y Robinson-García 2017), el dossier recaba las conceptualizaciones que los participantes hicieron en el Laboratorio sobre diversas problemáticas de Norteamérica desde la perspectiva mexicana y ensayando perspectivas situadas de temas como la migración, las política públicas sobre armas, la política de visado, la violencia de la delincuencia organizada desde los estudios culturales, la desaparición forzada y el consumo de fentanilo. Los artículos propuestos son el resultado de las actividades de este ejercicio interactivo y horizontal de creatividad epistémica colectiva. El Dossier abre con el capítulo de Junek Vargas que propone el concepto de necroresiliencia como una crítica a la idea de resiliencia como ha sido retomada de la psicología para insertarla en el contexto de la gobernanza migratoria. La necroresiliencia refuta la posibilidad normativa de resiliencia migratoria como una capacidad de adaptación y la caracteriza cómo las estrategias de supervivencia que desarrollan los migrantes en condiciones de violencia extrema y control estatal, las cuales están moldeadas por estructuras que producen y limitan su agencia y perpetúan su vulnerabilidad. La autora ejemplifica esta visión de resiliencia migratoria con el caso de la app CBP One, utilizada por Estados Unidos bajo el pretexto de garantizar una migración “segura y ordenada”. A este capítulo le sigue el de Miguel Ángel Ceballos, quien caracteriza el proceso de políticas públicas como una biopolítica que administra los problemas en vez de resolverlos. El autor utiliza la fuerza centrípeta como una metáfora del proceso o círculo de elaboración de políticas públicas para decir que como los problemas sociales son atraídos hacia el ciclo de las políticas públicas causando que se muevan permanentemente dentro del círculo para su administración más que para su solución. El autor ejemplifica con los casos de las políticas públicas contra la desaparición forzada en México y de control de armas en Estados Unidos. El tercer capítulo corresponde a Marcos David Bernal Ramírez, quien propone el concepto de muerto viviente -no zombie- para caracterizar los fenómenos de desaparición forzada en México y de usuarios de fentanilo en Estados Unidos. El autor discute la utilización del concepto zombi en las ciencias sociales y se plantea una transición hacia la construcción de la subjetividad del muerto viviente atribuyéndole características específicas dentro del contexto de violencia en México y su relación con el fenómeno de desaparición y por el otro lado la crisis por uso de opioides sintéticos ilegales en los Estados Unidos. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo corresponde al trabajo de Paola Lilí García Alanis, quien combina los estudios culturales norteamericanos con el análisis criminológico para hacer una poderosa metáfora que permite establecer paralelos entre el mundo de terror presentado en la serie estadunidense Stranger Things y la crisis de violencia del estado mexicano de Zacatecas, el cual se ha convertido en un campo de batalla clave para grupos del crimen organizado y actúa com o el "Upside Down" de "Stranger Things", argumentando que en el estado se ha establecido una red de macrocriminalidad que opera a través del control territorial y del miedo, adoctrinando y reclutando individuos para mantener su economía criminal. En este sentido, la apuesta del Dossier es crear un espacio de difusión para las nuevas formas y las nuevas voces para hacer academia desde la perspectiva mexicana y comprender que la producción de conocimiento no tiene como fin ganar un lugar en las entelequias discursivas, sino construir lenguajes para salir de la anomia social y hacer comunidades de sentido desde una gramática común y situada que no niega su procedencia ni su “acento” y que sobretodo, tiene una perspectiva comprometida con los fenómenos a analizar.
... Similarly, dancer and researcher Fabián Barba (2019) observes that the perception of contemporary dance outside the Western context as often antiquated reflects a broader, structural, Western-centric mindset. To explore this, she draws on the work of postcolonial scholar Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000), whose analysis is also relevant to my own. Chakrabarty explains that historicism, emerging in the nineteenth century, was a key ideological framework for understanding global progress and development. ...
Arushi Singh questions the politics behind the institutional coinage of the 'contemporary' in the Indian context. Evaluating the discursive and aesthetic negotiations across institutions and nationalities, Singh presents a critical discussion of a historically situated phenomenon.
... Decentring UN-scripted mediation entails processes of learning, unlearning, and relearning. It involves moving beyond the confines of Anglo-European grammars to embrace marginalised knowledge, with both "provincializing Europe" (Chakrabarty 2000) and "deprovincializing Africa" [global Souths] (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018). This approach allows for more nuanced understandings of "peace" and "conflict", transcending the constraints of essentialist conceptualisations of "we" and "other", of "internal" and "external", of "local" and "global", etc. ...
Peace mediation has not only become a guiding paradigm for global governance, but also part of the toolkit of international peace diplomacy. Mediation promises to transform conflicts, promote peace and security, and prevent crises. Numerous international and (sub-)regional governance actors therefore compete for influence in a growing mediation market. Internationalised mediation approaches and practices are deeply rooted in Anglo-Eurocentric politico-philosophical thoughts and ‘liberal’ mediation theory. Peace mediation theory and discourse are remarkably silent on the question of entrenched knowledge hierarchies and their (re)production - a gap that becomes also visible in peace mediation in African contexts. This article critically reflects on the African Union’s peace mediation approaches against a backdrop of path dependencies of Eurocentric perceptions and internationally transferred standardised instruments. It problematises standardised peace mediation governance with its de-contextualisation, de-politicisation, and de-pluralisation effects and shows how hegemonic assumptions and principles embedded in the travelling mediation model are translated into peace mediation practices in African contexts. It furthermore criticises the coloniality implicit in these embedded hegemonic assumptions and principles, proposing angles for decentring and reimagining mediation as a decolonial device, operating across diverse conflict resolution knowledges.
... The starting point to multiply our frames of reference are postcolonial and decolonial critiques of modernity. Research in these traditions has demonstrated how modernity and coloniality are inextricably connected (Chakrabarty 2009;Escobar 2018;Mignolo 2012). This understanding has implications for how we discuss differences and correspondences in the evolution of platforms and cultural production. ...
While digital platforms have reconfigured the institutions and practices of cultural production around the globe, current research is dominated by studies that take as their reference point the Anglo-American world--and, to a lesser extent--China (Cunningham & Craig 2019; Kaye et al. 2021; Poell et al. 2021; Zhao 2019). Aside from totalizing theories of platform imperialism (Jin, 2013), the “rest of the world” has thus received relatively scant attention. Consequently, central concepts in the study of platform-based cultural production bear a strong imprint of Western institutions, infrastructures, industries, discourses, and cultural practices. US-based research, in particular, has informed how we understand and subsequently theorize notions of precarity, labor, governance, authenticity, gender, creativity, diversity, and autonomy in a platform environment. We can’t simply apply these concepts to local cultures of production in other parts of the world. There is bound to be friction, as this panel will demonstrate, between how labor, precarity, and governance are understood in the Anglo-American world and the lived experiences of platform-dependent cultural labor in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe, and East Asia. Concerns about Western-dominated research and theory are, of course, by no means novel. Post-colonial and decolonial theorists have long criticized the dominance and universalism of Western theory, pointing to the continuation of colonial knowledge-power relations (Chakrabarty 2009; Chen 2010; Escobar 2018; Mignolo 2012). Moreover, there have been numerous calls to decolonize (Glück 2018; Willems & Mano 2016) and de-westernize (Curran & Park 2000; Khiabany 2003) media studies and, more recently, production and platform studies (Bouquillion 2023; Bulut 2022; Zhang & Chen 2022). That being said, in practice, the US and Western Europe continue to function as the primary and often sole frame of reference in research on platforms and cultural production. In the light of these concerns, this panel aims to contribute to efforts to: 1) challenge universalism, 2) “provincialize” the US, and 3) multiply our frames of reference in the study of platforms and cultural production. Such a conceptual undertaking is especially vital as the cultural industries are at the heart of societal processes of meaning making (Hesmondhalgh 2018) and market activity. Let us unpack how the papers in this panel pursue this objective. The first paper develops a conceptual framework to expand our frames of reference for studying platforms and cultural production. Departing from epistemological universalism, it argues that “platforms”, “cultural production”, and the “local” need to be studied as dynamic configurations, characterized by crucial variations and correspondences across the globe. That is, in contemporary instances of creating cultural content, transnational platform markets, infrastructures, governance frameworks, and cultural practices become entangled with local political economies and cultural practices. Examining how such configurations take shape around the world, the next four papers in this panel focus on specific regions and modes of production, interrogating how local and transnational political economic relations and practices articulate each other. In this discussion, we pay specific attention to the notions of precarity, governance, and imaginaries. The second paper reframes influencer precarity in a semi-peripheral context in the Balkans and emphasizes the relational basis of influencer agency, as influencers rely on family members and oft-mocked “Instagram husbands” to alleviate precarity. It thus offers insights into the local characteristics of algorithmic encounters with platforms by proposing the concept of platform lethargy. This concept speaks to an emotional response and deliberate refusal on the part of influencers to adapt to platform mandates. This refusal is rooted in algorithmic knowledge from the semi-periphery, where creators are cognizant of their position in a devalued platform market. The third paper critically examines the intricate dynamics of creator culture, challenging the assumption of globally detached markets. Focusing on Latin American content creators in the United States, it explores how their aspirations intersect with the construction of the "Latin American" content creator dream. The study also scrutinizes the role of Content Service Organizations (CSOs) executives in shaping creator culture. Despite global portrayals, tensions emerge, revealing national market characteristics rooted in socio-cultural, linguistic, and regional norms. The fourth paper examines how drama creatives, who work for streaming platforms, are globally connected and yet remain nationally restrained in terms of how they imagine work. Through the notion of platform ambiguity, the paper shows how streaming platforms negotiate with cultural producers by both enabling and restraining their work. Thus, it thus de-westernizes scholarship on platforms and cultural production by highlighting how drama makers are not only creative but also geopolitical subjects dependent on the state. The last paper offers an alternative epistemological and ontological perspective on the state-platform-user configuration, where each actor works in alignment with others under the logic of governance. It uses a Chinese social media platform, Douyin, as a case to reveal how platforms rely on anthropomorphization to communicate with cultural producers and develop playful governance of China’s political and cultural environment.
Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet chronicles life in the age of Brexit, but her focus on contemporary events comprises an unexpected engagement with the medieval past. In particular, striking resonances between Winter, the second novel of Smith’s Quartet, and the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight foreground issues of hospitality, seasonality, and the motif of the evergreen, all of which Smith deploys to reveal the temporal heterogeneity of the present and the urgency of cultivating a complex historical consciousness. Smith’s engagement with the past, and with contemporary desire for the past, eschews nostalgia in favor of a model of seasonal ‘turning’ that insists on the certainty of change even as it also maintains the asynchronous endurance of the past in the present.
There is no chance of the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing."-Vivekanand The historical account of women's status, situation, and advancement in our society yields highly disappointing results. When compared to males, women are seen as lesser beings. This is the statuesque representation of women in Pakistan and India, both now and in the past. Kishwar Naheed is a renowned poet in Urdu poetry. She is a Pakistani feminist writer. She is a living example of optimism since she pushed and strived to get an education. Her twelve books of poetry, which were published in Pakistan and India, are well-known. Her other well-known poems include "Labe Goya," "We Sinful Women," and "I Am Not That Woman," among others. Pakistani feminists view her well-known poem "We Sinful Women" as a Women's Anthem. Her poetry and other works address issues such as women's oppression in a society run by males, love for children, women's empowerment, the fight for freedom and equality, etc. The most well-known feminist poetry by Kishwar Naheed, "I Am Not That Woman," illustrates the threat that prejudice and injustice against women pose in the modern world. Poetry is regarded as a potent vehicle for expressing the unadulterated feelings and realities. In her fierce feminist poetry "I am not that Woman," Naheed speaks out for women who are perceived as less than human. The patriarchal societal structure is quite wicked. Gender-based marginalization occurs when a woman is viewed as less valuable than a male. It forces patriarchal shackles on women. Their irrational subjugation, discrimination, bondage, and suppression stem from political, socioeconomic, and psychological factors. There is a clear lack of gender equality in practically every profession, with women having fewer rights than males. In her well
There is no chance of the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing."-Vivekanand The historical account of women's status, situation, and advancement in our society yields highly disappointing results. When compared to males, women are seen as lesser beings. This is the statuesque representation of women in Pakistan and India, both now and in the past. Kishwar Naheed is a renowned poet in Urdu poetry. She is a Pakistani feminist writer. She is a living example of optimism since she pushed and strived to get an education. Her twelve books of poetry, which were published in Pakistan and India, are well-known. Her other well-known poems include "Labe Goya," "We Sinful Women," and "I Am Not That Woman," among others. Pakistani feminists view her well-known poem "We Sinful Women" as a Women's Anthem. Her poetry and other works
I began this book through a mixture of curiosity, suspicion, and concern about issues faced by the rural elderly as a generation and as grandparents of rural families—I was curious about how exactly they experience their life emotionally. I was suspicious about the common narrative among the public and implicit assumptions of some scholars (e.g., Chinese family sociologists and some media scholars) that the rural elderly’s life is less important or simply irrelevant in the modern media system. More importantly, I was concerned about the rural elderly’s deteriorated material and mental states in the power-laden modernization process of China, and I was eager to discover why and how it is the case, and what should be done. On top of this, I wondered why they tended to be so often and so facilely understood as anachronistic and unimportant to modern society.
Kolonialisme telah memberikan dampak yang mendalam pada sejarah dan perkembangan Indonesia, memengaruhi aspek politik, ekonomi, sosial, budaya, dan kesusastraan. Sastra poskolonial menjadi medium penting untuk mengeksplorasi pengalaman masyarakat terjajah dan mengkritik dampak kolonialisme. Dalam konteks ini, novel Rasina karya Iksaka Banu menjadi relevan untuk dianalisis, terutama terkait representasi subaltern. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan bentuk-bentuk penindasan yang dialami kaum subaltern dan mengungkap bentuk-bentuk perlawanan perempuan subaltern dalam novel tersebut. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode deskriptif analisis untuk mengkaji fenomena subaltern dalam novel Rasina karya Iksaka Banu. Data yang dianalisis berupa kata, kalimat, dan paragraf yang dikutip dari novel Rasina berkaitan dengan isu subaltern. Instrumen utama penelitian adalah peneliti sendiri, dengan bantuan tabel inventaris data untuk mengklasifikasikan bentuk penindasan dan perlawanan subaltern. Keabsahan data dijamin melalui triangulasi teori. Analisis data dilakukan melalui reduksi, penyajian, dan penarikan kesimpulan berbasis teori poskolonial dan subaltern. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa bentuk penindasan subaltern dalam novel Rasina mencakup kekerasan fisik, verbal, degradasi martabat, pemiskinan, dan pembodohan, yang mencerminkan ketimpangan kekuasaan kolonial. Meski mengalami berbagai bentuk opresi, tokoh-tokoh subaltern, khususnya Rasina, tetap menunjukkan perlawanan melalui tindakan fisik, membangun jaringan sosial, melarikan diri, dan melapor ke pihak berwenang. Sebagai refleksi teoretis, kajian ini memperkaya wacana sastra poskolonial Indonesia dan memperluas penerapan teori subaltern untuk memahami dinamika kekuasaan dan penindasan. Secara praktis, penelitian ini menyarankan penguatan literasi sosial dan gender dalam pendidikan, serta penerbitan lebih banyak karya sastra yang mengangkat suara subaltern sebagai agen perubahan sosial.
The phenomenon of unregulated urbanization is the central axis of social and ecological transformations to coexist with ecosystems worldwide. In Latin America, there is a challenge to understand these impacts from everyday life, as there are various initiatives and resistances when interaction with nature has been threatened. This document proposes Narrative Productions as a novel research technique to identify sociocultural valuations towards urban nature and thus know the thoughts and actions that are strained by the impacts of urbanization in a municipality located in southern Chile. The chapter indicates the theoretical aspects of the research project to situate social and ecological problems of urbanization in everyday life; describes the origin and procedure of the Narrative Productions technique and presents the main results to understand the sociocultural valuations of nature situated in the municipality of Chiguayante, which in this case express the loss of native forests due to business logics that promote the growth of the city under particular interests and the need of the inhabitants to recover ancestral wisdom related to food supply.
La réflexion suivante se veut une exploration des possibles que permet une posture spéculative et décoloniale lorsqu’elle est appliquée au geste de la lecture. En réitérant l’importance pour toute posture de se situer afin de réfléchir et de remettre en question les paradigmes néocoloniaux et blanchisants en place, ce texte articule une définition générale et libre du concept de lecture spéculative. Y sont notamment discutées les écritures et les lectures qui permettent et convoquent une fluidité discursive, autant dans la forme que dans la pensée, où l’imagination est à même de redevenir un horizon possible dans un monde où les réalités et les discursivités dominantes en contaminent et en pénètrent les perspectives.La réflexion s’effectue en cherchant à exemplifier ce qu’une interprétation vulnérable et contraire à une finalité de maîtrise du texte permet en matière de déplacement de paradigme et de transfiguration des postures dominantes. Cela, en effectuant un exercice de lecture spéculative à partir de la nouvelle “We Are All Wasteland On the Inside” de Benjanun Sriduangkaew, tirée de l’ouvrage hybride et écrit à quatre mains avec Joshua Moufawad-Paul, Methods devour themselves: A conversation (2018). En réfléchissant de pair la décomposition et la spéculation à partir des pensées décoloniales, je m’interroge sur ma propre expérience affective de ce type de lecture et sur comment celle-ci permet de dénoter et de critiquer les limites actuelles de l’imaginaire blanc et colonial, mais aussi de réfléchir hors de ses paradigmes.
This article explores Mohammed Shukri's lasting impact on Moroccan and African literature. It examines his life with a focus on For Bread Alone (1973) and its initial censorship. Shukri's provocative autobiographical writings continue to inspire Moroccan authors, offering a model of insight and honesty. The paper analyses the events that shaped his narrative voice, defiance against censorship, and enduring influence. Shukri's example also highlights African literature's transformative power in guiding postcolonial communities toward independence, justice, and prosperity. Beyond paying tribute, this study underscores how Shukri exemplifies the 'life writing' genre's role in African literary development.
This study thoroughly examines the inequalities that the Horijon community must contend with. By observing different aspects of Horijon perspective, this paper reveals the pervasive inequality and discrimination towards the Horijon / Shebok communities in Barishal city. Horijon is one of the deprived ethnic groups in India and Bangladesh. Because of their miserable situation, they cannot use their full potential. This study focused mainly on the level of their lagging behind so that they can contribute to the economy with full potential. This study is based on an intensive survey study on many social and economic factors on the Horijon community in Barishal city, a divisional city in southern part of Bangladesh. The investigation focuses on the complex interactions of numerous factors like education, healthcare, financial aid, living conditions, savings and investment status which contribute to the marginalization of the Horijon community. Considering the hurdles, the study also acknowledges promising developments, improved community awareness and government initiatives to raise living standards. Additionally, the research points out how women are becoming more conscious of their rights and engaging themselves with education, employment and starting their own businesses. This suggests a change in the trajectory of achieving greater gender equality and socioeconomic empowerment in the Horijon community. After careful assessment, the study uncovers the area-wise challenges and hardships of the Horijon in Barishal city. The understanding acquired from this research paper could help shape initiatives and interventions intended to overcome the multifaceted difficulties that the Horijon community as well as other unprivileged communities’ encounter.
Stories have always been powerful vessels of culture, memory, and identity, especially in African literature, where oral traditions continue to shape the way people see themselves and their world. Dele A. Sonubi’s novel, The Grandfather’s Mandate, brings this rich tradition to life by exploring the tensions between Yoruba heritage and the pressures of Western influence. At its heart, the novel follows a protagonist caught between two worlds—torn between honoring his grandfather’s dying wish and navigating the realities of modern society. This struggle echoes W.E.B. Du Bois’s idea of “double consciousness,” the feeling of living between conflicting identities. This study examines how Sonubi weaves Yoruba oral traditions—folktales, proverbs, songs, and incantatory poetry—into the novel, using them not just as storytelling devices but as tools for preserving culture and addressing contemporary social issues. Through a postcolonial lens, the research highlights the novel’s deep reflections on colonialism, neocolonialism, and the ongoing battle between tradition and modernity. A key focus is the Uren River, a powerful symbol of resilience, continuity, and the protagonist’s unbreakable bond with his roots. The findings show that The Grandfather’s Mandate does more than tell a story—it brings Yoruba cosmology to life while tackling complex themes like polygamy, gender roles, and the weight of ancestral obligations. More importantly, it challenges common misconceptions about African traditions, offering a nuanced view of how culture evolves over time. By blending oral storytelling with literary narrative, the novel fills an important gap in scholarship, proving that indigenous traditions are not relics of the past but living, breathing forces that continue to shape identity in a globalized world. Ultimately, Sonubi’s novel is a celebration of cultural resilience, reminding us that identity is not just about where we come from but how we carry our heritage forward. By positioning oral tradition as a bridge between the past and the future, The Grandfather’s Mandate invites readers to rethink the role of storytelling in preserving history, navigating change, and staying connected to one’s roots.
The Anthropocene proposal has been widely debated in the past 20 years across the whole academic spectrum. It forces actors from different disciplines to leave comforting long-established cultures of knowledge production to favor an active negotiation process about anthropogenic aspects beyond disciplinary boundaries. Besides these negotiation processes, this chapter examines the standing of the AWG outside the geoscientific community and the potentials and limits that humanities and social science scholars ascribe to the geoscientific Anthropocene concept. The findings are based on 25 expert interviews with central actors of the Anthropocene debate and a comprehensive literature review (2000–2020). Particular emphasis is placed on the provocative potential that the geoscientific Anthropocene concept represents for other disciplines because it illustrates the conflicts that structure Anthropocene discourses at disciplinary interfaces. These conflicts are primarily based on disciplinary methodological differences, but to a considerable extent, they are also rooted in a competition for epistemic leadership (interpretive sovereignty). Using selected thematic key topics, this chapter exposes the structure, course, and consequences of transdisciplinary negotiation processes. On this basis, it highlights the potential of the Anthropocene as a possible academic game-changer leading to a new form of scientific collaboration. This chapter highlights the downside of conflicting Anthropocene discourses and argues for an even broader interdisciplinarity of Anthropocene research.
Financial agendas centering on the global fight against climate change have increasingly turned to cities and urban re/development projects as ideal candidates for supposedly 'future proof' investment. In the last decade, research has witnessed the development of policy programs, risk assessments, and project pipelines, amongst other efforts to materialize this agenda in the city. Drawing on critical urban geographies of what is loosely known as 'climate finance', this Special Feature, 'Decentering Urban Climate Finance', proposes to expand and provincialize these dominant agendas. The five contributions in this Special Feature employ the notion of decentering in four distinct ways: by putting a broader range of theoretical lenses to use and rereading the workings of climate finance through them; by highlighting the modes of omission through which dominant understandings of climate finance narrow its operations to a limited set of solutions, approaches, places, and imaginaries; by turning a view onto under-examined sites of finance and climate adaptation; and by imagining alternative transformative imaginaries of urban climate finance.
World’s population has a hereditary caste identity, which significantly affects their life prospects, yet it is not accorded the same weight in debates of global development strategy as gender, ethnicity, age, religion, or other distinctive factors. This book argues that caste has been overlooked as a key structure of advantage and of discrimination in the contemporary economy, particularly after the liberalization that took place in the 1990s, using India as an example.
This paper examines the complex relationship between religious asceticism and indigenous knowledge systems as illustrated by Vaishnav Sadhus in Kashi. Vaishnav Sadhus as custodians of ancient spiritual traditions are essential in preserving and conveying knowledge within the religious and cultural framework of Indian civilization. This study aims to analyse how Sadhus through their ascetic practices, rituals, and philosophical teachings, contribute to and sustain a unique knowledge system integral to their religious identity. This article examines the historical and sociological dimensions of the Vaishnav ascetic tradition in Kashi, assessing its significance in modern society too. The study utilizes primary and secondary sources to emphasize the socio-religious importance of these ascetics and their function in preserving an alternative knowledge system that frequently exists beyond formal institutional structures. It aims to comprehend the convergence of asceticism, spirituality, and social structure, examining how Vaishnav Sadhus confront contemporary issues while safeguarding their cultural legacy. This research article enhances the comprehension of religious knowledge systems in India and provides insights into the enduring impact of ancient spiritual knowledge on individuals and communities in a constantly evolving environment.
This chapter discusses how the Russian public imagination is overwhelmed by propaganda claiming Ukraine as part of its symbolic territory, while Russia’s desire is currently directed toward Ukraine. At the same time, in Ukraine, while the country is forced into resistance, the cultural and social conditions already point to the existence of a strong, independent culture that resists this colonial situation, marking the final decolonial stage. This chapter discusses Ukraine as Russia’s main subject of desire, drawing on both post-constructivist theories and decolonial thinking.
Searching for an imaginary jouissance (Lacan) of reunification, Russia’s neocolonial aspiration transgresses, splits, and eventually destroys the object of longing—which is, nevertheless, a utopian object—and loses its own integrity in chasing this fantasy of the past. The fatal desire creates a new order of things where the object of desire is unattainable—and this impossibility creates a new power hierarchy that disrupts mutuality of exchange. In this chapter, I examine how the concept of ambicoloniality functions under these conditions of rupture. I concurrently explore how the war and its transgression of limits forced a reconsideration of the concept of the borderline. If traditional decolonial theory looks at a border as a possibility for observing and reshaping cultural and social processes of emancipation as if from an exterior perspective, the violence driven by the uncontrollable and irrational desire of Russia to invade Ukraine, in its attempt to dismantle the very notion of border, led to an opposite result: the reinforcement of territorial belonging through active resistance and a shift of attention to the previously marginalized Ukrainian frontier.
The present article endeavours to showcase the insufficiency of Western ‘universal history’ paradigms in acknowledging the significance of vernacular literature, exemplified by Firangi Kali Bharat and thereby offers novel perspectives on the paika rebellions of Khurda. The present study assesses the vernacular literary works Firangi Kali Bharat and Pancha Fitur to examine crucial inquiries about the paika rebellion. This paper sheds light on the Kurtibas Patasani and Tapanga Rebellion, a historical event that academic literature has not covered extensively. Specifically, the study examines the role of a legendary figure in the rebellion. Akio Tanabe’s work, ‘Ethno-Historical Dimension of Land and Identity,’ explores a fascinating oral tradition in Khurda Fort and its vicinity. Tanabe believes these legendary tales have deeply influenced Odia culture. Partha Chatterjee’s ‘Outer material’ and ‘Internal spiritual’ categories of anti-colonial nationalism apprise Tanabe’s theory. Tanabe believes the ‘legendary discourse’ of anti-colonial nationalism can fight the ‘colonial condition’ without being a ‘mechanical reaction’ to colonial rule. This ‘cultural response’ placed non-elite subaltern peasants within colonial dominance. This response shaped cultural politics and colonised identity. These fables and narratives demonstrate the spread of mystical accounts throughout the common language. Subaltern histories show how the supernatural and invisible coexist with modern society. This detailed insight shows how such elements might overflow and remain today.
This chapter sees ruin as an outcome of any war. Ukraine is presently immersed in physical destruction, incurring major economic losses; however, the cultural, political, and economic consequences may be far more dangerous for Russia due to its current global isolation. The period of ruin in Ukraine, after the war ends, will be decisive in determining the direction of decolonial processes, including linguistic policies and the decentralization of culture. Meanwhile, in Russia, questions surrounding the construction of a new political order will be of primary importance. This chapter explores possibilities and strategies for rebuilding identities and institutions, as well as for dissolving ambicoloniality.
Reconstruction from ruin and regeneration are aspects that follow the ultimate decolonial aim: the erasure of the necessity for dismantling colonial elements due to the full transformation of epistemology and the dissolution of ambicoloniality. This chapter examines the consequences of ruination for ambicoloniality in both countries and its impact on their previous entanglement. Ruin is an essential concept for understanding the epistemological changes occurring in Ukraine—and more slowly, in Russia. The theory concluded in this chapter also contributes to a new vision rooted not in the dichotomy of imperial/decolonial, as Latin American sources propose, but in a dynamic model that considers a wider panorama of mutual influences, shifting borders, and actions that manifest changing symbolic power positions, fostering ambicolonial exchange. In the case of Ukraine and Russia, ambicoloniality led to a misconception of the power pyramid and the implosion of the remnants of the symbolic empire with the explosion of violence. The regeneration processes rely on what I call “internal hybridity,” as opposed to “postcolonial hybridity,” and I outline this systemic shift from one model to another and their contribution to the reconstruction and revival within this chapter.
O presente trabalho tem como objetivo principal propor uma reflexão sobre o ideal universalista do esporte. O esporte é apresentado constantemente a partir de uma perspectiva positiva e em certos posicionamentos visto como uma prática comum em qualquer sociedade e nos mais diversos períodos históricos. Entretanto, é necessário compreender que a universalidade do esporte é um problema de classificação que precisa considerar as marcas da modernidade como contexto de sistematização das atividades e o estabelecimento das relações de poder. Nesse sentido, é necessário investir no debate a respeito da universalidade do esporte, assim como da própria modernidade, advertindo sobre as fissuras nesse ideal e refletindo sobre a potencialidade de conceber o esporte de maneira heterogênea e dinâmica.
This chapter focuses on the initial turn from the ambiguous notion of ethnic identity to the notion of political identity, and its subsequent subversion by the notion of agency, which forms the basis for both resilience and the decolonial spirit in current-day Ukraine. This chapter focuses on culture to interpret the relationship between protests and identity construction. Here, I explore the role of previous protest movements in both Ukraine and Russia through the lens of the transition from the postcolonial condition to the decolonial situation.
The revolution of political identity and its evolution into agency in Ukraine have passed two important stages following its independence in 1991: the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014. Art activism played an important role in the formation of participatory democracy and reflected the creation of new horizontal relations in civic society. The chapter takes an in-depth look at how Euromaidan constituted the role of Ukrainian culture and society not only as a center of new, liberated epistemic production—but as its epicenter. It also proposes that while the ambicoloniality faced its dissolution with the Euromaidan Revolution, as a profound impulse for detachment from affective ties with Russia and the subversion of the formative power of ambivalence behind it, Russia, upon suppressing any potentiality for its own revolution, remained trapped in postcolonial ambivalence. The chapter includes an analysis of works that highlight the decolonial reinterpretation of belonging and identity, turning instead to the notion of “agency.” It also traces the underlying change in the understanding of the notions of solidarity and consolidation, and discusses how art and activism reflected postcolonial and eventually decolonial developments in postrevolutionary Ukrainian society. I discuss how a decolonial turn brings in syncretic polarization that makes profound changes to the hybridity of colonial expression, as well as aims at dismantling postcolonial ambivalence.
Against the backdrop of contestations over the meaning of ‘citizenship’ and ‘refuge’ in cities of the global south, as well as restrictive and securitized refugee policies, I explore the lived realities of Burundian refugees in Transnational Social Spaces and their engagements with citizenship. In light of contested notions of citizenship within a postcolonial setting, the Acts of Citizenship perspective coupled with inclusive citizenship, demonstrates the hallmarks of a decolonial methodology that endeavours to “undo, uncover, and reinvent citizenship” (Isin 2012). The concept, dynamics and relationships of citizenship are highly contested within an African post-colonial context. These phenomena are laden with the legacies of struggles over: citizenship vs subjecthood, contestations over indigeneity vs settlerhood, the management of difference, and the mobilization, politicization, and instrumentalization of ethnicity. Acts of Citizenship together with inclusive citizenship can be conceived of as a decolonial approach for investigating the coloniality of power in the intersections between citizenship, migration, and transnationalism.
Muchos afirman que vivimos en la era de la ira. La ira, el odio e incluso el resentimiento parecen prevalecer en todas las capas sociales y en todos los países, y marcan una atmósfera de conflicto, desunión, fragmentación y anomia social en una época de cambios significativos. Las transformaciones sociales globales que estamos presenciando parecen ser la base de este fenómeno histórico, en el que los vínculos de solidaridad y unión entre individuos y pueblos tienen una influencia disminuida en el comportamiento de los individuos y los grupos. Las grandes transformaciones siempre van acompañadas de un gran sufrimiento, así como de esperanza y expectativa. A menudo vemos más lo que se pierde que lo que se gana, porque lo que se pierde es bien conocido y visible, mientras que lo que se ganará en el futuro es incierto, poco claro para la mente de nadie, a menudo una consecuencia inesperada de acciones conscientes que se afirman en el corto plazo y pueden conducir a un empeoramiento pero también a una mejora en la forma en que vivimos en el mundo.
This article presents a discussion on Michelle Cliff’s project to unveil the counterhistories of Jamaica, buried, left out, and underrepresented by the colonial project. In the case of Abeng (1984) and No Telephone to Heaven (1987), an intersection of postcolonial and queer theories facilitates a unique reading of these novels as vehicles in this project to focus on the experiences of the marginalized and disenfranchised. Erotohistoriography is introduced as a concept that helps debunk the linear discourse of Western modernity: pleasurable moments experienced by both normative and non-normative bodies become instrumental in these reconnections between the present and the past, thus enabling the creation of non-official mappings of space and time.
While Jazz has established itself as an international genre of music, Gnawa has a long way to tread to earn a name for it. Both genres are anchored in the same history, genealogy, and different rythms that carry their tunes. This article will retrace some of the similarities and difference that bind and distinguish these musical styles, and why their fusion works to perfection, creating a condition, a third space, inhabitable by both. This coming together into a fusion does not sit well with some critics who are bent on compartmentalising the two genres in such a way as to disallow any alloy or admixture. This essay will fall back on these reductionistic folklorising dimunitive voyages into a terra incognita only as a threshold to reinstating the music to its rightful place, not in a museum but rather on the stage where music belongs.
Mitstreiten. Gespräch unter Mitgliedern der Redaktion von Undercurrents 07.10.2024
Modernity's ideals of progress through industrialisation, coupled with rationalist views of value-free and neutral science guiding policymaking, have been driving forces behind the climate crisis and related injustices. Post-colonial scholarship calls for unlearning this modernist paradigm. This study examines the extent to which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the preeminent global authority on climate change knowledge, is both shaped by the procedural logic of Eurocentric modernity and the tendencies towards unlearning these modernist characteristics in favour of more pluralistic, co-productive approaches. Through an inductive-deductive qualitative methodology, including semi-structured interviews with IPCC authors and policymakers at international climate conferences, this paper finds the IPCC to be situated in a tension field between modernity and unlearning it. On the one hand, the IPCC is constrained by path-dependencies of Eurocentric modernity, manifested in the linear model of knowledge transfer, the differentiated systems logic of science and policy spheres, and the privileging of Western scientific expertise as universally valid and apolitical. On the other hand, the study also identifies emergent tendencies within the IPCC towards broadening disciplinary diversity, incorporating alternative epistemologies like Indigenous and Local Knowledge, and fostering co-productive collaborations between scientists and policymakers. These nascent "unlearning" efforts signal cracks in modernity's edifice, though limitations and potential risks caution against overstatement. By highlighting this critical juncture, the paper contributes empirical and conceptual insights into the IPCC's transition from modernist constraints towards more pluriversal climate responses. This analysis sheds light on the IPCC's evolving role in shaping global climate governance and the ongoing struggle to redefine climate knowledge production.
In the face of diverse and uneven environmental crises across the globe, ongoing efforts to "globalize" the history of technology field may be considered urgent. In doing so, however, we risk uncritically exporting the norms and practices of a predominantly Western-centric field—an arguably colonial act. This roundtable explores four areas of contention: how to conceptualize "the global"; why, how and with whom to study "history" amid threatened "futures"; how to articulate and delineate the field's subject matter ("technology"); and how researchers can collaborate equitably within and across diverse sites around the globe. Building on these discussions, we propose three themes for further conversation: how to transcend the North-South binary without disregarding its critical insights; how to balance the use of locally specific vocabularies with quasi-global terms; and how to develop collaborative relationships with those whose histories historians document, fostering joint experimentation with "historiographical interventions."
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