If Decolonization Is Not A Metaphor, What Is It Then

If decolonization is not a
metaphor, what is it then?

Juan Felipe Miranda Medina
International Conference “Decolonization and Poststructuralism”

February 23, 2022
Goals
1. Explain the fundamentals of Coloniality of Power.
2. Critique of Tuck & Yang’s definition of decolonization.
3. Contrast the two.
4. Present the concept of praxis based on Aristotle and Freire.
Thanks to Las Decoloniales (Jorge Poveda, Naira Rota Assuncao, Maria

José Bejarano Salazar).
I. What is Coloniality of Power?
Coloniality of power: race, violence and capitalism
• Implementation of coloniality heavily based on “race” (construction).
• Relaunched to codify differences between colonizers--colonized.
• Code: phenotype (skin colour)
• “Natural inferiority”. Biological differences >> intrinsic (“do you have soul? are you a beast? a machine?”)
Race & Gender
• Labor control (resources & products), control and ownership of land, in relation to capital and global market
(Society)
• Instrumental for the distribution of world population in the Power Structure in: ranks, places, roles (social
classification).
• Power: structured in relationships of violence:

• domination
• explotation
• conflict between social actors
• Dispute for the control of 4 spheres of existence, their resources and products:
• sexuality
• work
Capitalism Eurocentrism • collective authority
(“Materiality”) (Intersubjetivity) • subjectivity/intersubjectivity
• Capitalism
• Work division: racialized, geodiferentiated, sexuated
• Europeans: control of goods, means of production, payed labor.
• Indigenous & slaves: “disposable” work force.
• We occupy different positions in the colonial power matrix.

The Decolonial option: from one to many
• “A method and paradigm of restoration and reparation that depends
on context, historical conditions, and geography. Therefore, as a
method, it aspires to restore, elevate, renew, rediscover, and
acknowledge and validate the the multiplicity of lives, live-
experiences, culture and knowledge of indigenous people, people of
color, and colonized people as well as to decenter hetero/normativity,
gender hierarchies and racial privilege.”
• Key concepts: transmodernity, pluriverse.
Decolonizing Humanities Project. William & Marry university.

https://www.wm.edu/sites/dhp/decoloniality/index.php
II. Critique of “Decolonization is not a
Metaphor”
Tuck & Yang (2012)
What decolonization is (not)
• "Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and
life." p1
• “Decolonizing the Americas means all land is repatriated and all
settlers become landless.” p27
• Land is “the basis of wealth, power, law in settler nation-states.” p19
• What decolonization is not: "It is not converting Indigenous politics to
a Western doctrine of liberation; (...) it is not a generic term for
struggle against oppressive conditions and outcomes. (...) By contrast,
decolonization specifically requires the repatriation of indigenous
land and life. Decolonization is not a metonym for social justice." p21
• “Decolonization doesn’t have a synonym.” p3 [it should only mean
one thing.]
Reversing colonization (?)
• "Settler colonization can be visually understood as the unbroken pace of
invasion, and settler occupation, into Native lands: the white space in
figure 1.2. Decolonization, as a process, would repatriate land to
Indigenous peoples, reversing the timeline of these images." p25
• Give back the land:
• "For social justice movements, like Occupy, to truly aspire to decolonization
non-metaphorically, they would impoverish, not enrich, the 99%+ settler
population of United States. Decolonization eliminates settler property
rights and settler sovereignty. It requires the abolition of land as property
and upholds the sovereignty of Native land and people." p26
• "Decolonizing the Americas means all land is repatriated and all settlers
become landless. It is incommensurable with the redistribution of Native
land/life as common-wealth." p27
• No need to answer what will happen with settlers afterwards.
• “To fully enact an ethic of incommensurability means relinquishing
settler futurity, abandoning the hope that settlers may one day be
commensurable to Native peoples.” p36
Decoloniality vs “Decolonization”
• Restoration and reparation • Repatriation of Indigenous land and life to Indigenous
people.
• Context-dependent
• Aims at multiplicity of lives • “Must be implemented in all three Americas”, but
analysis did not include Latin America as such.
• Departs from an analysis encompasing modernity,
capitalism by Latin Americans about their own colonial • US: Proposes that a minority (0.9%) owns all the
past and present. land/wealth at the expense of the disposession of 99.1%.
• Compatible with other struggles against coloniality (e.g., How has this worked for us in the past?
feminism, social justice, civil rights).
• Accepts only one meaning.
• Accepts a plurality of meanings
• Considers the intersubjective dimension: humanize! • Essentialist? cleart cut distinctions and rights between
settlers and “Indigenous”. Who counts as Indigenous?
• Acknowledgement and opening to difference is who as settler? migration?
fundamental: pluriverse, transmodernity.
• Thought “at the border” • Does not acknowledge mixture, interaction and different
possisionalities in regards to colonization by Indigenous,
• Ethics of humanization and liberation that aims at colonizers, slaves.
transcending ethics of violence and oppression.
• Praxis • Does not consider external colonialism as operating
beyond/ in tandem with settler colonialism.
• Ethics?
• Poisesis
III. What is
decolonization?
transformation and
praxis.
Humanization: start from an Inner connection
• "Freire situates the work of liberation in the minds of the oppressed, an abstract
category of dehumanized worker vis-a-vis a similarly abstract category of
oppressor." T&Y, p19 (J: Not true!!! praxis!)
• Condition of possibility of transformation: inner connection:
critical consciousness.
• Agency - Transformative action - Lasting action - Praxis - Truth as transformation
(present in Plato’s alegory of the cave).
Praxis is a disposition, and so is decolonization
• Poiesis: telos = end (different from the means). Ex. build a house. productive
action: goal-oriented: efficiency. Ex. modern society.
• Praxis : telos = actualization of a posibility. The action in praxis does not refer to
an end outside itself.
• Ex. do a good deed. Ex. wanting to dance salsa and dancing salsa.
• Temporality is different. The end does not limit the duration of the action.
• Praxis is a disposition. Ex. a disposition to dance, to see, to do good to others.
• We actualize X given the appropriate conditions, and if they are not there, we
create them.
• Rephrase “decolonizing myself”: individual praxis (excercising, rehearsing).
• Decolonization is not “undoing”colonization (end outside the action). It is a
disposition to transform the world for the greater good.
Praxis and Freire
• Liberation/Humanization--dehumanization :: oppressor--oppressed.
• Oppressing reality: force of inmersion of consciousness.
• Praxis: reflection and action of humans upon the world in order to
transform it.
• Condition for liberation:
§ oppressed must discover that they "host"the oppressor inside.
§ develop critical consciousness about oppressing reality.
§ transforming the reality with compromise (disposition).
§ immanence: the oppressed engage in their own liberation.
• Goal: overcoming the contradiction: liberation of oppressed, that in
turn liberate their oppressors.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogia do oprimido. Paz e terra.
Subject-World: Subjective & Objective relations
Praxis
Reflexive action
Imagination
ctive
Subje
Givenness
Discomfort Comfort / Well-being
Objective
Conclusion: Key processes towards Praxis
• Reject Tuck & Yang’s account of decolonization: essentialist, US-conception of colonization. Land is important,
but it is not all there is to colonization.
• “Poeitical Praxis” is a disposition to transform reflexively engaging with others and the world but engaging in
specific concrete projects.
• Critical consciousness: inner connection to distance oneself from colonial reality.
• Imagination: how could things actually be?
• Creating community (regroup).
• Commitment (disposition).
• Action (transformation of the world)
• Continuous critical perception, adjustment, timing of actions
• Reflexiveness & renewal
“America” is a continent,
not a country.
Thank you!
References
• Badiou, A. (2002). Ethics: An essay on the understanding of evil. Verso.
• Balaban, O. (1990). Praxis and Poesis in Aristotle's practical philosophy. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 24(3), 185-198.
• Crisp, R. (Ed.). (2014). Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
• Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogia do oprimido. Paz e terra.
• Hegel, G. W. F. (2007). Phenomenology of spirit (pp. 28-38). Duke University Press.
• Santa Cruz, V. (2019/2004). Ritmo: El Eterno Organizador. Seminario Afroperuano de Artes y Letras.
• Spinoza, B. (2010). Ethics demonstrated in geometrical order. Part I (MTSU Phil. WebWorks Hypertext Edition, 1997).
• Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America. International Sociology, 15(2), 215-232.
• Lugones, M. (2011). Hacia un feminismo descolonial. La manzana de la discordia, 6(2), 105-119.
• Mignolo, W. (2009). La idea de América Latina (la derecha, la izquierda y la opción decolonial). Crítica y emancipación, 2,
251-276.
• Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2010). Ch'ixinakax utxiwa. Una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores. Tinta limon.
• Decolonizing Humanities Project. William & Marry university. https://www.wm.edu/sites/dhp/decoloniality/index.php

If Decolonization Is Not A Metaphor, What Is It Then

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

If Decolonization Is Not A Metaphor, What Is It Then

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

If Decolonization Is Not A Metaphor, What Is It Then

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

If decolonization is not a

metaphor, what is it then?

International Conference “Decolonization and Poststructuralism”

Thanks to Las Decoloniales (Jorge Poveda, Naira Rota Assuncao, Maria

• Power: structured in relationships of violence:

• We occupy different positions in the colonial power matrix.

Decolonizing Humanities Project. William & Marry university.

Discomfort Comfort / Well-being

You might also like