Decoloniality Kritik - UTNIF 2013

UTNIF 2013 (De)Coloniality
1NC – Generic – Long

The struggle over the question of who counts as human is THE question of the
debate—the system of colonialism instituted by European powers in the 15th
and 16th centuries haunts the present in the form of coloniality—an
epistemological structure that privileges the Western subject as the only
legitimate expression of human knowledge. The question of Latin American
engagement can only be answered when we first unsettle the coloniality of
knowledge and being that has demarcated the majority of the world as
subhuman populations given over to death.
Wynter 2003 (Sylvia, Professor of Romance Languages at Stanford University, “Unsettling the
Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom
Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument,” CR: The New Centennial
Review, 3.3 (2003) 257-337, MUSE)
THE ARGUMENT PROPOSES THAT THE STRUGGLE OF OUR NEW MILLENNIUM WILL be one between the ongoing
imperative of securing the well-being of our present ethnoclass (i.e., Western bourgeois) conception of the
human, Man, which overrepresents itself as if it were the human itself, and that of securing the well-
being, and therefore the full cognitive and behavioral autonomy of the human species itself/ourselves. Because of this
overrepresentation, which is defined in the first part of the title as the Coloniality of Being/
Power/Truth/Freedom, any attempt to unsettle the coloniality of power will call for the unsettling of
this overrepresentation as the second and now purely secular form of what Aníbal Quijano identifies as the "Racism/ Ethnicism
complex," on whose basis the world of modernity was brought into existence from the
fifteenth/sixteenth centuries onwards (Quijano 1999, 2000), 2 and of what Walter Mignolo identifies as the
foundational "colonial difference" on which the world of modernity was to institute itself (Mignolo 1999,
2000). 3 The correlated hypothesis here is that all our present struggles with respect to race, class, gender, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, struggles over the environment, global warming, severe climate change, the
sharply unequal distribution of the earth resources (20 percent of the world's peoples own 80 percent of its resources, consume two-
thirds of its food, and are responsible for 75 percent of its ongoing pollution, with this leading to two billion of [End Page 260] earth's peoples
living relatively affluent lives while four billion still live on the edge of hunger and immiseration, to the dynamic of overconsumption on the part
of the rich techno-industrial North paralleled by that of overpopulation on the part of the dispossessed poor, still partly agrarian worlds of the
South 4 )—these are all differing facets of the central ethnoclass Man vs. Human struggle . Central to this struggle
also is the usually excluded and invisibilized situation of the category identified by Zygmunt Bauman as the "New Poor" (Bauman 1987). That is,
as a category defined at the global level by refugee/economic migrants stranded outside the gates of the rich countries, as the postcolonial
variant of Fanon's category of les damnés (Fanon 1963)—with this category in the United States coming to comprise the criminalized majority
Black and dark-skinned Latino inner-city males now made to man the rapidly expanding prison-industrial complex, together with their female
peers—the kicked-about Welfare Moms—with both being part of the ever-expanding global, transracial category of the homeless/the jobless,
the semi-jobless, the criminalized drug-offending prison population. So that ifwe see this category of the damnés that is
internal to (and interned within) the prison system of the United States as the analog form of a global
archipelago, constituted by the Third- and Fourth-World peoples of the so-called "underdeveloped"
areas of the world—most totally of all by the peoples of the continent of Africa (now stricken with AIDS, drought, and
ongoing civil wars, and whose bottommost place as the most impoverished of all the earth's
continents is directly paralleled by the situation of its Black Diaspora peoples, with Haiti being
produced and reproduced as the most impoverished nation of the Americas)—a systemic pattern
emerges. This pattern is linked to the fact that while in the post-sixties United States, as Herbert Gans noted recently, the Black population
group, of all the multiple groups comprising the post-sixties social hierarchy, has once again come to be placed at the bottommost place of that
hierarchy (Gans, 1999), with all incoming new nonwhite/non-Black groups, as Gans's fellow sociologist Andrew Hacker (1992) earlier pointed
out, coming to claim "normal" North American identity by the putting of visible distance between themselves and the Black population group
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(in effect, claiming "normal" human status by distancing themselves from the group that is still made to occupy the nadir, [End Page 261]
"nigger" rung of being human within the terms of our present ethnoclass Man's overrepresentation of its "descriptive statement" [Bateson
1969] as if it were that of the human itself), then the struggle of our times, one that has hitherto had no name, is
the struggle against this overrepresentation . As a struggle whose first phase, the Argument proposes, was first put in place
(if only for a brief hiatus before being coopted, reterritorialized [Godzich 1986]) by the multiple anticolonial social-protest movements and
intellectual challenges of the period to which we give the name, "The Sixties." The further proposal here is that, although the brief hiatus during
which the sixties' large-scale challenge based on multiple issues, multiple local terrains of struggles (local struggles against, to use Mignolo's
felicitous phrase, a "global design" [Mignolo 2000]) erupted was soon to be erased, several of the issues raised then would continue to be
articulated, some in sanitized forms (those pertaining to the category defined by Bauman as "the seduced"), others in more harshly intensified
forms (those pertaining to Bauman's category of the "repressed" [Bauman 1987]). Both forms of "sanitization" would, however, function in the
same manner as the lawlike effects of the post-sixties' vigorous discursive and institutional re-elaboration of the central overrepresentation,
which enables the interests, reality, and well-being of the empirical human world to continue to be imperatively subordinated to those of the
now globally hegemonic ethnoclass world of "Man." This, in the same way as in an earlier epoch and before what Howard Winant identifies as
the "immense historical rupture" of the "Big Bang" processes that were to lead to a contemporary modernity defined by the "rise of the West"
and the "subjugation of the rest of us" (Winant 1994)—before, therefore, the secularizing intellectual revolution of Renaissance humanism,
followed by the decentralizing religious heresy of the Protestant Reformation and the rise of the modern state—the then world of laymen and
laywomen, including the institution of the political state, as well as those of commerce and of economic production, had remained
subordinated to that of the post-Gregorian Reform Church of Latin-Christian Europe (Le Goff 1983), and therefore to the "rules of the social
order" and the theories "which gave them sanction" (See Konrad and Szelenyi guide-quote), as these rules were articulated by its theologians
and implemented by its celibate clergy (See Le Goff guide-quote). [End Page 262] The Janus face of the emergence of Mignolo's proposed
"modernity/coloniality" complementarity is sited here. As also is the answer to the why of the fact that, as Aníbal Quijano insists in his
Qué tal Raza! (2000), the "idea of race" would come to be "the most efficient instrument of social domination
invented in the last 500 years." In order for the world of the laity, including that of the then ascendant modern European state, to
escape their subordination to the world of the Church, it had been enabled to do so only on the basis of what Michel Foucault identifies as the
"invention of Man": that is, by the Renaissance humanists' epochal redescription of the human outside the terms of the then theocentric,
"sinful by nature" conception/ "descriptive statement" of the human, on whose basis the hegemony of the Church/clergy over the lay world of
Latin-Christian Europe had been supernaturally legitimated (Chorover 1979). While, if this redescription was effected by the lay world's
invention of Man as the political subject of the state, in the transumed and reoccupied place of its earlier matrix identity Christian, the
performative enactment of this new "descriptive statement" and its master code of symbolic life and death, as the first
secular or "degodded" (if, at the time, still only partly so) mode of being human in the history of the species, was to be effected only
on the basis of what Quijano identifies as the "coloniality of power," Mignolo as the "colonial difference," and
Winant as a huge project demarcating human differences thinkable as a "racial longue durée." One of the major empirical effects
of which would be "the rise of Europe" and its construction of the "world civilization" on the one
hand, and, on the other, African enslavement, Latin American conquest, and Asian subjugation.
The affirmative’s economic engagement with Latin America is just one more
manifestation of 500 years of coloniality—the promise of prosperity,
democracy, and security is a toxic fantasy that obscures the trail of dead
reaching back through time.
Mignolo 2005, (Walter, Duke University, “THE IDEA OF LATIN AMERICA”, 2005, 6/28/13|Ashwin)
The logic
of coloniality can be understood as working through four wide domains of human experience:
(1) the
economic: appropriation of land, exploitation of labor, and control of finance; (2) ¶ the political:
control of authority; (3) the civic: control of gender and sexuality; (4) the epistemic and the
subjective/personal: control ¶ of knowledge and subjectivity. The logic of coloniality has been in ¶ place from the
conquest and colonization of Mexico and Peru until ¶ and beyond the war in Iraq, despite superficial changes in the scale ¶ and agents of
exploitation/control in the past five hundred years of ¶ history. Each
domain is interwoven with the others, since
appropriation of land or exploitation of labor also involves the control of ¶ finance, of authority, of
gender, and of knowledge and subjectivity.8¶ The operation of the colonial matrix is invisible to distracted eyes, ¶ and even
when it surfaces, it is explained through the rhetoric of ¶ modernity that the situation can be “corrected”
with “development,” “democracy,” a “strong economy,” etc. What some will see as “lies” ¶ from the US
presidential administration are not so much lies as part ¶ of a very well-codified “rhetoric of modernity,”
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promising salvation ¶ for everybody in order to divert attention from the increasingly ¶ oppressive
consequences of the logic of coloniality. To implement ¶ the logic of coloniality requires the
celebratory rhetoric of modernity, as the case of Iraq has illustrated from day one. As capital and ¶ power
concentrate in fewer and fewer hands and poverty increases ¶ all over the word, the logic of
coloniality becomes ever more ¶ oppressive and merciless. Since the sixteenth century, the rhetoric ¶ of modernity has
relied on the vocabulary of salvation, which was ¶ accompanied by the massive appropriation of land in the New ¶ World and the massive
exploitation of Indian and African slave labor, ¶ justified by a belief in the dispensability of human life – the lives ¶ of the slaves. Thus, while
some Christians today, for example, beat ¶ the drum of “pro-life values,” they
reproduce a rhetoric that diverts ¶ attention
from the increasing “devaluation of human life” that the ¶ thousands dead in Iraq demonstrate. Thus, it
is not modernity that will ¶ overcome coloniality, because it is precisely modernity that needs and
produces ¶ coloniality.¶ As an illustration, let us follow the genealogy of just the first of ¶ the four domains and see how the logic of
coloniality has evolved ¶ in the area of land, labor, and finance. Below I will complement the brief sketch of this first quadrant by going deeper
into the fourth ¶ one (knowledge and subjectivity) to show how knowledge transformed Anáhuac and Tawantinsuyu into America and then into
in the process, how new national and subcontinental identities were created. But, first, think of the massive ¶
¶ Latin America and,
appropriation of land by the Spanish and Portuguese, the would-be ¶ landlords of the Americas during
the sixteenth century, and the same ¶ by the British, French, and Dutch in the extended Caribbean (from ¶ Salvador de Bahia in Brazil to
Charleston in today’s South Carolina, ¶ and including the north of Colombia and Venezuela in addition to ¶ the Caribbean islands). The
appropriation of land went hand in hand ¶ with the exploitation of labor (Indians and African slaves) and the
¶ control of finance (the accumulation of capital as a consequence of ¶ the appropriation of land and
the exploitation of labor). Capital ¶ concentrated in Europe, in the imperial states, and not in the
colonies. You can follow this pattern through the nineteenth century ¶ when England and France displaced Spain and Portugal as leading ¶
imperial countries. The logic of coloniality was then reproduced, ¶ and, of course, modified, in the next step of imperial expansion into ¶ Africa
and Asia.¶ You can still see the same projects today in the appropriation of ¶ areas of “natural resources”
(e.g., in the Amazon or oil-rich Iraq). ¶ Land cannot be reproduced. You can reproduce seeds and other ¶ “products” of land; but land itself is
limited, which is another reason ¶ why the appropriation of land is one of the prime targets of capital ¶ accumulation today. The
“idea” of
Latin America is that of a large ¶ mass of land with a wealth of natural resources and plenty of cheap
¶ labor. That, of course, is the disguised idea. What the rhetoric of ¶ modernity touted by the IMF, the World Bank, and
the Washington ¶ consensus would say is that “Latin” America is just waiting for its ¶ turn to
“develop.” You could also follow the exploitation of labor ¶ from the Americas to the Industrial Revolution to the movement ¶ of factories
from the US to developing nations in order to reduce ¶ costs. As for financial control, just compare the number and size
of ¶ banks, for example, in New York, London, or Frankfurt, on the one ¶ hand, versus the ones in
Bolivia, Morocco, or India, on the other.¶ Thus, if we consider “America” from the perspective of coloniality (not modernity) and
let the Indigenous perspective take center stage, another history becomes apparent. The beginning of the ¶ Zapatista “Manifesto from the
Lacandon Jungle” gives us a ¶ blueprint:¶ We are a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, ¶ then during
the War of Independence against Spain; then to ¶ avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to ¶
promulgate our constitution and expel the French empire from ¶ our soil; later the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz denied us the ¶ just application
of the Reform laws and the people rebelled ¶ and leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men just like ¶ us. We have been
denied by
our rulers the most elemental ¶ conditions of life, so they can use us as cannon fodder and ¶ pillage
the wealth of our country. They don’t care that we have ¶ nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over hour heads, ¶ no land,
no work, no health care, no food or education. Nor ¶ are we able to freely and democratically elect our political ¶
representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor ¶ is there peace or justice for ourselves
and our children.9¶ The “Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle” precedes a long history ¶ rewritten from an Indigenous perspective (as
opposed to the perspective of Mexican Creoles and Mestizos/as or French or US ¶ “experts” on Mexican and “Latin” American history). You may
¶ wonder whether the Indigenous people had a perspective because ¶ you imagine that history is history and what happened just happened, ¶
and argue that there are of course “different interpretations” but ¶ not “different perspectives.” Different interpretations presuppose a ¶
common and shared principle of knowledge and of the rules of the ¶ game, while different perspectives presuppose that the principles of ¶
knowledges and the rules of the game are geo-historically located ¶ in the structure of power of the modern colonial world. To show ¶ how this
works, we need something such as “dependency theory” ¶ for the epistemological domain.10 “Dependency
theory” showed the ¶
differential of power in the economic domain insofar as it described ¶ a certain structure of
differential power in the domain of the ¶ economy. But it also proved the epistemic differential and the distribution of
labor within an imperial geo-politics of knowledge in ¶ which political economy moved in one direction: from First to ¶ Third World countries
and to contain Second World communism. ¶ In this sense, dependency theory is relevant in changing the geopolitics of
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knowledge and in pointing toward the need for, and the ¶ possibility of, different locations of
understanding and of knowledge ¶ production.¶ The first part of the “Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle” is a ¶ history and
a description of the current economic and social situation in Chiapas, subdivided into the “First Wind” and the “Second ¶ Wind” in emulation of
sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles of the ¶ New World. Cast in terms familiar to those conversant with globalization, the first wind is the wind
from above and the second that ¶ from below. The declaration, then, outlines the direction of a project ¶ to rewrite the colonial history of
modernity from the perspective ¶ of coloniality (instead of writing the history of coloniality from the ¶ perspective of modernity). This framing is
subject to questions and ¶ criticisms by critical and inquisitive readers. Professionalhistorians ¶ could argue that there is little
historical rigor in this “pamphlet” ¶ and that what weneed is serious and rigorous histories of how ¶ things “really” happened.
Again, that argument assumes that the ¶ events carry in themselves their own truth and the job of the historian is to discover them. The
problem is that “rigorous historiography” is more often than not complicitous with modernity (since ¶ the current
conceptualization and practice of historiography, as a ¶ discipline, are a modern rearticulation of a practice dating back to ¶ – again – Greek
philosophy). In that respect, the argument for disciplinary rigor turns
out to be a maneuver that perpetuates the myth ¶
of modernity as something separate from coloniality. Therefore, if ¶ you happened to be a person educated in the
Calmemac in Anáhuac ¶ and were quite far away from the legacies of the Greeks, it would ¶ be your fault for not being aware what civilized
history is and how ¶ important it is for you.¶ Other criticisms may stem from the fact that the division of above ¶ and below still originates in the
concept of the “above.” Indeed, it ¶ was the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas who first described ¶ (but did not enact himself ) the
perspective now being enacted by ¶ the Zapatistas. The most suspicious reader would add that it is SubComandante Marcos (a Mexican Mestizo
who studied at the Universidad Autónoma de México) who narrates. Legitimate ¶ and interesting objections, these. However, such objections
remain ¶ entangled in the web and the perspective of modernity; that is, in ¶ the expectations created by the hegemonic perspective of
modernity ¶ itself. To unfold this last statement, let’s take another step and perhaps ¶ a detour and come back to the
inception of the
logic of coloniality ¶ implied in the very idea of both “America” and “Latin” America..4ever
Coloniality naturalizes a non-ethics of death and generalizes the condition of

damnation—ongoing genocide, enslavement, rape, ecological destruction and
unending war is produced by and reproduces colonial epistmeologies.
Maldonado-Torres 2008 [Nelson. “Against War : Views from the Underside of Modernity”¶ Durham, NC, USA: Duke
University Press, 2008. p 215-217¶ http://site.ebrary.com/lib/utexas/Doc?id=10217191&ppg=52]
Dussel, Quijano, and Wynter lead us to the understanding that what happened in the Americas was a transformation and naturalization of the
non-ethics of war— which represented a sort of exception to the ethics that regulate normal conduct in Christian countries— into a more
stable and long-standing reality of damnation, and that this epistemic and material shift occurred in the colony. Damnation, life in hell,
is colonialism: a reality characterized by the naturalization of war by means of the naturalization of
slavery, now justified in relation to the very constitution of people and no longer solely or principally to their faith or belief. That human
beings become slaves when they are vanquished in a war translates in the Americas into the suspicion
that the conquered people, and then non-European peoples in general, are constitutively inferior and that
therefore they should assume a position of slavery and serfdom. Later on, this idea would be solidified with respect to the
slavery of African peoples, achieving stability up to the present with the tragic reality of different forms of racism. Through this process, what
looked like a “state of exception” in the colonies became the rule in the modern world. However, deviating from Giorgio Agamben’s diagnosis,
one must say that the colony— long before the concentration camp and the Nazi politics of extermination—
served as the testing ground for the limits and possibilities of modernity, thereby revealing its darkest secrets.61
It is race, the coloniality of power, and its concomitant Eurocentrism (and¶ not only national socialisms or
expressed forms of fascism) that allow the “state of exception” to continue to define ordinary relations in this,
our so-called postmodern world. Race emerges within a permanent state of exception where forms of
behavior that are legitimate in war become a natural part of the ordinary way of life. In that world, an
otherwise extraordinary affair becomes the norm and living in it requires extraordinary effort.62 In the racial/ colonial world, the
“hell” of war becomes a condition that defines the reality of racialized selves , which Fanon referred to as the
The damné (condemned) is a subject who exists in a permanent
damnés de la terre (condemned of the earth).
“hell,” and as such, this figure serves as the main referent or liminal other that guarantees the continued affirmation of
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modernity as a paradigm of war. The hell of the condemned is not defined by the alienation of colonized productive
forces, but rather signals the dispensability of racialized subjects, that is, the idea that the world would be
fundamentally better without them. The racialized subject is ultimately a dispensable source of value,
and exploitation is conceived in this context as due torture, and not solely as the extraction of surplus
value. Moreover, it is this very same conception that gives rise to the particular erotic dynamics that characterize the relation between the
master and its slaves or racialized workers. The condemned, in short, inhabit a context in which the confrontation
with death and murder is ordinary. Their “hell” is not simply “other people,” as Sartre would have put it— at least at one
point— but rather racist perceptions that are responsible for the suspension of ethical behavior toward
peoples at the bottom of the color line. Through racial conceptions that became central to the
modern self, modernity and coloniality produced a permanent state of war that racialized and
colonized subjects cannot evade or escape . The modern function of race and the coloniality of power, I am
can be understood as a radicalization and naturalization of the non-ethics of war in
suggesting here,
colonialism.63 This non-ethics included the practices of eliminating and enslaving certain subjects— for
example, indigenous and black— as part of the enterprise of colonization. From here one could as well refer to
them as the death ethics of war. War, however, is not only about killing or enslaving; it also includes a particular
treatment of sexuality and femininity: rape. Coloniality is an order of things that places people of color within
the murderous and rapist view of a vigilant ego, and the primary targets of this rape are women. But men
of color are also seen through these lenses and feminized, to become fundamentally penetrable subjects for the ego
conquiro. Racialization functions through gender and sex, and the ego conquiro is thereby constitutively a phallic ego as
well.64 Dussel, who presents this thesis of the phallic character of the ego cogito, also makes links, albeit indirectly, with the reality of war. And
thus, in the beginning of modernity, before Descartes discovered . . . a terrifying anthropological dualism in Europe, the Spanish conquistadors
arrived in America. The phallic conception of the European-medieval world is now added to the forms of submission of the vanquished Indians.
“Males,” Bartolomé de las Casas writes, are reduced through “the hardest, most horrible, and harshest serfdom”; but this only occurs with
those who have remained alive, because many of them have died; however, “in war typically they only leave alive young men (mozos) and
women.”65 The indigenous people who survive the massacre or are left alive have to contend with a
world that considers them to be dispensable. And since their bodies have been conceived of as
inherently inferior or violent, they must be constantly subdued or civilized, which requires renewed
acts of conquest and colonization. The survivors continue to live in a world defined by war, and this
situation is peculiar in the case of women. As T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renée T. White put it in the preface to their
anthology Spoils of War: Women of Color, Cultures, and Revolutions: A sexist and/or racist patriarchal culture and order
posts and attempts to maintain, through violent acts of force if necessary, the subjugation and
inferiority of women of color. As Joy James notes, “its explicit, general premise constructs a conceptual
framework of male [and/or white] as normative in order to enforce a political [racial, economic,
cultural, sexual] and intellectual mandate of male [and/or white] as superior.” The warfront has always been a
“feminized” and “colored” space for women of color. Their experiences and perceptions of war, conflict, resistance, and struggle emerge from
their specific racial-ethnic and gendered locations. “Inter arma silent leges: in time of war the law is silent,” Walzer notes. Thus, this volume
The links between war, conquest, and the
operates from the premise that war has been and is presently in our midst.66
exploitation of women’s bodies are hardly accidental. In his study of war and gender, Joshua Goldstein argues that
conquest usually proceeds through an extension of the rape and exploitation of women in wartime.67 He argues that to understand conquest,
one needs to examine: 1) male sexuality as a cause of aggression; 2) the feminization of enemies as symbolic domination; and 3) dependence
on the exploitation of women’s labor— including reproduction.68 My argument is, first, that these three elements came together in a powerful
way in the idea of race that began to emerge in the conquest and colonization of the Americas. My second point is that through
the idea
of race, these elements exceed the activity of conquest and come to define what from that point on
passes as the idea of a “normal” world. As a result, the phenomenology of a racial context resembles, if it is not fundamentally
identical to, the phenomenology of war and conquest. Racism posits its targets as racialized and sexualized subjects
that, once vanquished, are said to be inherently servile and whose bodies come to form part of an
economy of sexual abuse, exploitation, and control. The coloniality of power cannot be fully understood without reference
to the transformation and naturalization of war and conquest in modern times. Hellish existence in the colonial world carries
with it both the racial and the gendered aspects of the naturalization of the non-ethics of war.
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“Killability” and “rapeability” are inscribed into the images of colonial bodies and deeply mark their
ordinary existence. Lacking real authority, colonized men are permanently feminized and simultaneously
represent a constant threat for whom any amount of authority, any visible trace of the phallus is multiplied in a
symbolic hysteria that knows no limits.69 Mythical depiction of the black man’s penis is a case in point: the black man is depicted as
an aggressive sexual beast who desires to rape women, particularly white women. The black woman,
in turn, is seen as always already sexually available to the rapist gaze of the white, and as
fundamentally promiscuous. In short, the black woman is seen as a highly erotic being whose primary
function is fulfilling sexual desire and reproduction. To be sure, any amount of “penis” in either one
represents a threat, but in his most familiar and typical forms the black man represents the act of rape—“raping”—while the black
woman is seen as the most legitimate victim of rape—“being raped.” In an antiblack world black women appear as
subjects who deserve to be raped and to suffer the consequences— in terms of a lack of protection from the legal
system, sexual abuse, and lack of financial assistance to sustain themselves and their families— just as black men deserve to be
penalized for raping, even without having committed the act. Both “raping” and “being raped” are attached to
blackness as if they form part of the essence of black folk, who are seen as a dispensable population. Black bodies are seen as
excessively violent and erotic, as well as being the legitimate recipients of excessive violence, erotic and otherwise.70
“Killability” and “rapeability” are part of their essence , understood in a phenomenological way. The “essence” of
blackness in a colonial anti-black world is part of a larger context of meaning in which the death ethics
of war gradually becomes a constitutive part of an allegedly normal world. In its modern racial and colonial
connotations and uses, blackness is the invention and the projection of a social body oriented by the death ethics of war.71 This murderous and
raping social body projects the features that define it onto sub-Others in order to be able to legitimate the same behavior that is allegedly
descriptive of them. The same ideas that inspire perverted acts in war— particularly slavery, murder, and
rape— are legitimized in modernity through the idea of race and gradually come to be seen as more
or less normal thanks to the alleged obviousness and non-problematic character of black slavery and
anti-black racism. To be sure, those who suffer the consequences of such a system are primarily blacks and indigenous peoples, but it
also deeply affects all of those who appear as colored or close to darkness. In short, this system of symbolic representations,
the material conditions that in part produce and continue to legitimate it, and the existential
dynamics that occur therein (which are also at the same time derivative and constitutive of such a context) are part of a
process that naturalizes the non-ethics or death ethics of war. Sub-ontological difference is the result
of such naturalization and is legitimized through the idea of race. In such a world, ontology collapses
into a Manicheanism, as Fanon suggested.72
The alternative is the definitive rejection of epistemic privilege and total

decolonization. The starting point for the decolonial option is the repudiation
of death ethics in the name of life. Dewesternization alone or continuing faith
in the project of modernity fails to undermine the overrepresentation of man.
Mignolo 09 (Walter, Professor of literature-Duke University, Ph.D. from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes,
academic director of Duke in the Andes, an interdisciplinary program in Latin American and Andean
Studies in Quito, Ecuador at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and the Universidad Politécnica
Salesiana, “Epistemic Disobedience,¶ Independent Thought and¶ De-Colonial Freedom” ,Theory, Culture
& Society 2009)
ONCE UPON a¶ time scholars assumed that the knowing subject in¶ the disciplines is transparent,
disincorporated from the known and¶ untouched by the geo-political configuration of the world in
which¶ people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured. From a¶ detached and neutral
point of observation (that Colombian philosopher¶ Santiago Castro-Gómez (2007) describes as the hubris of the zero
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point ), the¶ knowing subject maps the world and its problems, classifies people and¶ projects into
what is good for them . Today that assumption is no longer¶ tenable, although there are still many believers. At stake is
indeed the¶ question of racism and epistemology (Chukwudi Eze, 1997; Mignolo, forthcoming).¶ And once upon a time
scholars assumed that if you ‘come’ from¶ Latin America you have to ‘talk about’ Latin America; that
in such a case¶ you have to be a token of your culture. Such expectation will not arise if the¶ author ‘comes’ from
Germany, France, England or the US. In such cases it¶ is not assumed that you have to be talking about your culture but can¶ function as a
theoretically minded person. As
we know: the first world has¶ knowledge, the third world has culture; Native
Americans have wisdom,¶ Anglo Americans have science. The need for political and epistemic
delinking ¶ here comes to the fore, as well as decolonializing and de-colonial¶ knowledges, necessary
steps for imagining and building democratic, just,¶ and non-imperial/colonial societies.¶ Geo-politics
of knowledge goes hand in hand with geo-politics of¶ knowing. Who and when, why and where is knowledge
generated (rather¶ than produced, like cars or cell phones)? Asking these questions means to¶ shift the attention from the enunciated to the
enunciation. And by so doing,¶ turning Descartes’s dictum inside out: rather
than assuming that thinking¶ comes before
being, one assumes instead that it is a racially marked body¶ in a geo-historical marked space that
feels the urge or get the call to speak,¶ to articulate, in whatever semiotic system, the urge that
makes of living¶ organisms ‘human’ beings.¶ By setting the scenario in terms of geo- and body-politics I am starting¶ and
departing from already familiar notions of ‘situated knowledges’. Sure,¶ all knowledges are situated and every knowledge is constructed. But
that is¶ just the beginning. Thequestion is: who, when, why is constructing¶ knowledges (Mignolo, 1999, 2005
[1995])? Why eurocentered epistemology¶ carefully hidden (in the social sciences, in the humanities, in
the natural¶ sciences and professional schools, in think tanks of the financial sector and¶ the G8 or G20), its
own geo-historical and bio-graphical locations Occidentales), that created the conditions for Orientalism; distinguished
the¶ South of Europe from its center (Hegel) and, on that long history, remapped¶ the world as first,
second and third during the Cold War. Places of nonthought ¶ (of myth, non-western religions, folklore, underdevelopment
involving¶ regions and people) today have been waking up from the long process¶ of westernization. The
anthropos inhabiting non-European places discovered¶ that s/he had been invented, as anthropos, by a locus of enunciations¶ self-defined as
humanitas.¶ Now, there
are currently two kinds or directions advanced by the former¶ anthropos who are no
longer claiming recognition by or inclusion in, the¶ humanitas, but engaging
in epistemic disobedience and de-linking
from the¶ magic of the Western idea of modernity, ideals of humanity and promises of¶ economic
growth and financial prosperity (Wall Street dixit). One direction¶ unfolds within the globalization of a type of economy that in
both liberal¶ and Marxist vocabulary is defined as ‘capitalism.’ One of the strongest advocates¶ of this is the Singaporean scholar, intellectual
and politician Kishore¶ Mahbubani, to which I will return later. One of his earlier book titles carries¶ the unmistakable and irreverent message:
Can Asians Think?: Understanding¶ the Divide between East and West (2001). Following Mahbubani’s own¶ terminology, this direction could
be identified as de-westernization. Dewesternization¶ means, within a capitalist economy, that the rules of the game¶ and the shots are no
longer called by Western players and institutions. The¶ seventh Doha round is a signal example of de-westernizing options.¶ The second
direction is being advanced by what I describe as the decolonial¶ option. The
de-colonial option is the singular connector of
a¶ diversity of de-colonials. The de-colonial path has one thing in common: the¶ colonial wound, the
fact that regions and people around the world have been¶ classified as underdeveloped economically
and mentally. Racism not only¶ affects people but also regions or, better yet, the conjunction of natural¶
resources needed by humanitas in places inhabited by anthropos. Decolonial¶ options have one
aspect in common with de-westernizing arguments:¶ the definitive rejection of ‘being told’ from the
epistemic privileges¶ of the zero point what ‘we’ are, what our ranking is in relation to the ideal¶ of
humanitas and what we have to do to be recognized as such. However,¶ de-colonial and de-westernizing
options diverge in one crucial and in -¶ disputable point: while the latter do not question the
‘ civilization of death’ ¶ hidden under the rhetoric of modernization and prosperity, of the
improvement¶ of modern institutions (e.g. liberal democracy and an economy¶ propelled by the
principle of growth and prosperity), de-colonial options¶ start from the principle that the
7
regeneration of life shall prevail over¶ primacy of the production and reproduction of goods at the
cost of life (life¶ in general and of humanitas and anthropos alike!). I illustrate this direction,¶ below, commenting on Partha Chatterjee’s
re-orienting ‘eurocentered¶ modernity’ toward the future in which ‘our modernity’ (in India, in Central¶ Asia and the Caucasus, in South
America, briefly, in all regions of the world¶ upon which eurocentered modernity was either imposed or ‘adopted’ by local¶ Mignolo –
Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and . . . 3¶ actors assimilating to local histories inventing and enacting global designs)¶
becomes the statement of interconnected dispersal in which de-colonial¶ futures are being played
out.¶ Last but not least, my argument doesn’t claim originality (‘originality’¶ is one of the basic expectations of modern control of
subjectivity) but aims¶ to make a contribution to growing processes of de-coloniality around the¶ world.
My humble claim is that geo- and body-politics of knowledge has¶ been hidden from the self-serving
interests of Western epistemology and that¶ a task of de-colonial thinking is the unveiling of
epistemic silences of¶ Western epistemology and affirming the epistemic rights of the racially¶
devalued, and de-colonial options to allow the silences to build arguments ¶ to confront those who take
‘originality’ as the ultimate criterion for the final¶ judgment.
And we must decolonize debate practice itself—Education based on Western

epistemologies continue forms of colonial schooling designed to reproduce
coloniality- from the “moral project” of educating and civilizing the Indians to
teaching of social Darwinism in the Congo. Decolonizing education requires not
only an analysis of the knowledge, power, Eurocentrism, colonial history, and
political economy inherent in educational activities like debate but also
foregrounding the possibility of epistemic resistance.
Shahjahan 2011 [Riyad Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) at Michigan State University.
Ph.D. at the OISE/University of Toronto in Higher Education. “Decolonizing the evidence-based education and policy movement:¶ revealing the
colonial vestiges in educational policy, research, and¶ neoliberal reform” Online publication date: 22 March 201, Journal of Education Policy, 26:
2,¶ 181 — 206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.508176]
Revisiting histories of colonial educational policy in schooling helps us contextualize¶ and demonstrate how evidence-based education, tied to
high-stakes testing and¶ neoliberalism, reproduces past colonial ideologies with respect to developing colonized¶ labor. Throughout
European colonialism, schooling was not only used to colonize¶ the minds to force cultural
assimilation or acceptance of colonial rule, but also to¶ produce a reservoir of subservient labor that
would harvest and mine commodities for¶ the imperial economy. For instance, in North America, colonial
schooling ‘introduced¶ the concept of forced labor as part of Indian education, transforming the
ostensibly¶ “moral project” of civilizing Indians into a for-profit enterprise’ (Grande 2004, 13). In¶ boarding
schools, part of the most important feature of the colonialist curriculum ‘was ¶ the inculcation of the industrial or
“Protestant” work ethic’ (13). In the Belgian¶ Congo, Darwin’s scientific racism was the dominant
discourse among Belgian colonizers,¶ and it influenced their colonial educational policy. For the Belgian
government¶ and leaders of industry, the Congolese was to learn in school a work ethos that clearly ¶ catered to
the economic endeavor, and to mold the Congolese playfulness and laziness¶ into a life of ‘progress,’
order and discipline (Seghers 2004, 465). In Hawaii, colonial¶ schools ‘became less a means of religious
conversion and more a site for socializing¶ Hawaiian and immigrant children for work on the
plantation’ (Kaomea 2000, 322). In¶ Africa in general, Urch notes: The demand for skilled native labor by the white settlers and commercial
leaders caused¶ the colonial administrators to reevaluate the educational program of the missions.¶ Education solely for
proselytization was not considered sufficient to enable the colonies’¶ economy to expand.
Government officials saw the need for an educational process that¶ would help to break down tribal
solidarity and force the African into a money economy.¶ (1971, 252)¶ In short, colonial schooling played a
8
significant role in disciplining the minds and¶ bodies of the colonized for imperial profit .¶ Interestingly,
when it came to ‘pillars of the curriculum,’ what was common¶ among many colonial environments, ‘were religion and the legendary “3Rs” ¶
[Reading, (W)riting and “Rithmetic”]’ (Sjöström 2001, 79). These pillars of the ¶ curriculum very much parallel, with a slight change, the
curriculum that is tested via¶ PISA and TIMSS which concentrates on reading, math, and science. In the contemporary¶ context, science has
replaced the pillar of religion in the curriculum. Also, in the¶ present context, the
neoliberal economy has replaced the old
imperial economy, but¶ the objective for schooling still stays the same, which is to produce a labor
force for¶ the global economy. As Lipman points out, these accountability reforms ‘certify that¶ students
that graduate from’ schooling ‘will have [the] basic literacies and disciplined¶ dispositions’ needed for
a global workforce (2003, 340). International organizations¶ such as the OECD and the World Bank, have
replaced the old adage ‘protestant work¶ ethic’ of colonial schooling, with the knowledge and skills to function in
the knowledge¶ economy, such as literacy to manipulate information, problem solving, math, and¶ science (Spring 2009). In other words, like
colonial schooling,education via neoliberal¶ reform is working towards reproducing a labor force and
objectification of the¶ colonized. Ceasire’s argument of ‘thingification’ fits very well with the colonizing of¶ bodies in neoliberal
educational reform. Teachers, students, and education in general¶ are all objectified and reduced to
commodities to serve the global economy. To this¶ end, Lipman states: Students are reduced to test scores,
future slots in the labor market, prison numbers, and¶ possible cannon fodder in military conquests.
Teachers are reduced to technicians and¶ supervisors in the education assembly line – ‘objects’ rather
than ‘subjects’ of history.¶ This system is fundamentally about the negation of human agency , despite
the good¶ intentions of individuals at all levels. (2004, 179)¶ Global colonialism continues with the
evidence-based education movement, as education¶ is increasingly reduced into standardized packages that can be sold in the
global¶ marketplace, while at the same time promoting a system of education that is focused¶ on training a skilled
workforce that will operate in the global labor market (Lipman¶ 2004; Berry 2008; Spring 2009; Rizvi and Lingard 2010).
To this end, Fanon states:¶ I came into the world imbued with the will to find a meaning in things, my spirit filled¶ with the desire to attain to
the source of the world, and then I found that I was an object¶ in the midst of other objects. (1967, 109).¶ The
desires and agencies
of many teachers, students, and educational leaders are being¶ stripped away, while at the same time
they are turned into ‘an object in the midst of¶ other objects’ through the neoliberal logic of evidence-
based education. In summary,¶ the neoliberal agenda, currently dominant in education systems around
the world, reproduces¶ colonial educational policies . Within the evidence-based education movement, the
epistemic and material are not separate but are intertwined in colonial discourse¶ and history. As this
section demonstrates, evidence-based education not only colonizes¶ education epistemologically, but also
perpetuates materialist power relations and¶ disciplines bodies of the colonized to serve the global
economy.¶ Concluding remarks and implications¶ [U]nless educational reform happens concurrently with analysis
of the forces of colonialism,¶ it can only serve as a insufficient Band-aid over the incessant wound of
imperialism.¶ (Grande 2004, 19)¶ Grande eloquently summarizes the intention behind this article, which is to offer a¶ conceptual map linking events of the col onial past with a present movement that¶ continues to perpetuate colonial
discourses and practices within educational policy.¶ My hope is that the analysis presented in this paper provides an alteration in terms on¶ what is unsaid or left out in educational policy and bolsters a critical analysis of power¶ in educational policy. I argue in this paper that the
evidence-based education movement¶ is very much tied to multiple colonial discourses, which can be traced back to a¶ colonial history that has simply been ignored in the literature. In other words, this article¶ challenges us to move beyond the confines of Eurocentrism and historical
This
amnesia¶ to critically examine evidence-based education and to contextualize this movement¶ within colonial discourses and histories. It is my ho pe that this article demonstrates the usefulness of the anticolonial lens¶ in examining educational policy.
framework foregrounds the intersections¶ between knowledge, power, Eurocentrism, colonial history,
and political economy, in¶ educational policy. The epistemic, cultural, and material perspectives in
anticolonial¶ thought are applicable to policy analysis . This is evident in the way that ‘educational¶ research,’ ‘evidence,’
‘curriculum,’ and ‘learning outcomes’ are being defined and¶ re-imagined in evidence-based education, as these are ultimately shaped by
material¶ relations of power that are colonizing. For instance, common to any colonial¶ discourse is the rationale for purifying administration in
the name of efficiency, and a¶ binaristic civilizing narrative is used in this regard. By naming and representing¶ education as a field in chaos,
evidence-based education proponents, with good intentions,¶ are justifying actions and measures to
make education systems more evidencebased¶ and in turn standardize and rationalize complex
educational processes. As this¶ paper demonstrates, many proponents of evidence-based education profess
an¶ educational policy with the intention of improving learning for all students (which¶ may be their full intent),
but their discourse continues to perpetuate colonized power¶ relationships . In other words, they are
9
unknowingly striving to control and ‘tame’¶ education through evidence-based education. An

anticolonial lens also reminds us how social hierarchies and knowledge¶ systems were used to justify
colonial interventions with the objective of reshaping¶ society in order to exploit the labor and
material resources of the colonized, and allow¶ for certain power relations to be legitimized. In the
evidence-based education movement,¶ we see the mobilization of colonial discourse with regard to
the way ‘evidence’¶ and ‘learning’ is being constructed and used to purify the production of
knowledge to¶ meet neoliberal ends of education . Furthermore, the anticolonial lens reveals the¶
commodification, objectification, and dehumanization of bodies and knowledge¶ systems in colonial
processes. This article demonstrates how this ‘thingification’ occurs in evidence-based education for teachers, students, and educational
leaders. An¶ anticolonial lens cannot separate the political economy from the epistemic issues. To ¶ this end, this paper demonstrates how
evidence-based education is part of a neoliberal¶ agenda which is also tied to global colonialism and
the production of colonized labor .¶ In short, an anticolonial lens helps to bring forward the social–
historical–political¶ processes that stem from colonial relations of power and informs contemporary ¶
knowledge production, validation, and dissemination in educational policy. An anticolonial lens also
stresses that colonial discourses and material relations of¶ power are not absolute, and that the
colonized also have discursive and material¶ agency. To this end, one of the limitations of my analysis is that it overlooks
the¶ agency among the colonized, and has presented evidence-based education as a monolithic¶ discourse with homogenizing effects, rather
than a partial discourse that is¶ contested and lived differently from its intentions. Historically, and in present¶ contexts, imperialism and
colonialism were never monolithic or unidirectional, and¶ the boundaries between colonizers and colonized were not clearly demarcated (see¶
From an
Cooper and Stoler 1997; Young 2001; Bush 2006). Similarly, evidence-based education¶ is not an absolute, unidirectional discourse.
anticolonial lens, we need to¶ look for those sites of resistance and discrepancies to highlight the
limitations/¶ inequities of evidence-based education and bring those struggles to the foreground . To¶
this end, I will now discuss some examples of the ‘tensions’ and resistances to¶ evidence-based education. For instance, in Canada, the
British Columbia Teacher’s¶ Federation has led a campaign to resist the Foundations Skills Assessment
instituted¶ by the provincial government (http://www.bctf.ca/fsa.aspx). In Ontario, African-¶ Canadian parents are frustrated
with the Toronto public schooling system failing to¶ respond to the needs of Black youth and are
demanding Africentric schools from the¶ Toronto District School Board (Adjei and Agyepong 2009). In the USA, Fine et al.¶
(2007) describe, how schools, communities, parents, and grandparents are engaged in¶ active resistance to
such accountability measures and schooling. Chicago residents of¶ Little Village have launched an organizing campaign
for a local high school dedicated¶ to culture, community, and activism, which culminated in a 19-day
hunger strike by¶ Latino high school students, educators, community organizers, residents, and even¶ grandmothers. Similarly, in a
California community, largely populated by migrant¶ families, the school district, joined by nine other districts and civil rights
organizations,¶ sued the state over the improper use of English-language assessments to test¶ English
Language Learners and the sanctions they face under NCLB (Fine et al.¶ 2007). Teachers also have the agency to interpret, disseminate,
and act on the information¶ based on such accountability policies (Lipman 2002; Ball 2003; Sloan 2007). Some¶ teachers have left the
profession as an act of resistance because these accountability¶ trends no longer reflect their critical educational philosophy (McNeil 2000;
Lipman¶ 2002; Ball 2003). Other teachers enact resistance by subverting the official test-based¶ curriculum. For
instance, as one Chicago school teacher put it:¶ I think that we are having a rough time, that sometimes we may lean a little bit more¶ towards
CPS policies and other times we lean a little bit more to ‘screw CPS’ and focus¶ on critical thinking skills. (Lipman 2002, 392)¶ Some still display
ambivalence towards teaching for the test for the purpose of¶ surveillance: I have mixed feelings about it … I think it’s how we interpret the
results. If we use it to¶ say our school is better than yours, then I don’t want to do it. If we use it so that we can¶ help the teachers program
teachers,
better for the kids, then that is more useful as a tool. (Canadian¶ Grade 3 teacher, cited in Childs and Fung 2009, 9)¶ In short,
students, parents, families, and community activists have demonstrated¶ the agency to negotiate and
contest these colonial discourses in every day¶ practice. Accountability reforms, tied with evidence-based education,
depending on¶ context, have also had multiple effects on schools and curricula, and also have critics¶ from within. Scholars have noted how
the colonizing effects of accountability reform¶ on schooling and resistance to these reforms depend
on the context and the questions¶ of race, class, language, and localized policies (Lipman 2002, 2003; Earl and
Fullan¶ 2003; Maxcy 2006). For instance, in her study on the impact of accountability reform ¶ for four Chicago schools, Lipman notes how these
‘schools’ responses to accountability¶ are closely linked to past and present race and class advantages, the relative political¶ power of their
10
communities, and new forms of racialization’ (2003, 338).¶ Moreover, in a significant minority of cases, high-stakes testing has led to curricular¶
content expansion, the integration of knowledge, and more student-centered, cooperative¶ pedagogies, such as in secondary social studies and
language arts (Au 2007).¶ Hence, the nature of high-stakes-test-induced curricular control is highly dependent¶ on the structures of the tests
high-stakes testing¶ does not produce a monolithic effect, but has
themselves (Au 2007). In summary,
heterogeneous results depending on¶ questions of social difference and context. Furthermore, proponents
of evidence-based¶ education ‘are not monolithic and that at least some of them are open to dialog
on the¶ issues on which we disagree’ (Maxwell 2004, 39). In short, an acknowledgment of the¶ colonial
historical legacy of the evidence-based education movement may help us¶ move beyond a discourse
of sameness in colonial discourse, and start thinking about¶ the possibilities, interruptions,
contestations, and resistances to the colonizing effects¶ of evidence-based education. Recently, there has
been growing ethnographic studies¶ that examine such sites of resistance and contradictions at the ground level. These¶ spaces are where
future studies and dialog could focus their attention. In terms of policy and educational practice, an anticolonial lens
motivates us to ask¶ a different set of questions and re-imagine educational research, practice, and
policy. ¶ For instance, what is being left out in the discussion of evidence-based education¶ movement is
the glaring systemic inequities that are privileging some bodies ¶ (students, teachers, and administrators) and
knowledge systems (language, curricula,¶ and culture) over others (see McNeil 2000; Lipman 2004; Valuenzela 2005; Maxcy¶
2006), that are tied to the global economy (Stewart-Harawira 2005). Rather than blaming¶ students, teachers, and administrators
for progress in public tests, and working¶ from a deficit model, we need to shift our attention towards deploying
significant¶ material and intellectual resources to serve diverse needs and minoritized bodies¶ (Lipman 2002, 2003), and
challenge global economic systems. Furthermore, instead¶ of looking for the pitfalls of educational
practice, we could ask and explore the following¶ questions (see Asa Hilliard cited in Lemons-Smith 2008; Hood and Hopson 2008):¶
How does academic excellence flourish in schools attended mostly by minoritized¶ students? How do teachers who reject the
status quo and define excellence as responding¶ to community needs, find ways to promote
excellence for all students regardless¶ of their circumstances? ‘Student achievement at what cost’ [Michael Dantley,
personal communication]? What ideological paradigms underlie teacher education?¶ What is the role of teacher preparation programs in
whose
perpetuating and promoting these¶ values of equity and social justice?¶ Finally, in terms of educational policy, we may ask:
cultural assumptions¶ and histories inform such accountability systems, ‘evidence,’ ‘data,’ and
‘learning¶ outcomes?’ ‘Whose notions of evidence matter most? And to whom does evidence¶ matter
most?’ (Hood and Hopson 2008, 418). According to Stanfield (1999) and¶ Gillborn (2005), educational policy and research
continue to impose the standards and¶ products of White supremacy on the racially minoritized . As
Stanfield states:¶ Implicit White supremacy norms and values contribute … to Eurocentric concepts and¶
measurement epistemologies, techniques, and interpretations … Concretely, in the¶ United States and elsewhere in
the West, … it has been considered normative to consider¶ Eurocentric notions and experiences as the
baseline, as the yardstick to compare and¶ contrast the notions and experiences of people of color. This
is … most apparent in¶ designing, implementing, and interpreting standardized tests and survey instruments.¶ (1999, 421)¶ I would argue that
we need to ‘reappropriate’ evidence-based education to include a¶ broader array of evidence,
experiences, and cultural knowledges (Luke 2003, 98; see¶ also Stanfield 1999; Valuenzela, Prieto, and Hamilton 2007). Finally,
borrowing the¶ words of Asa Hilliard III, we need to ask, ‘do we have the will to educate all children’¶ (cited in Lemons-
Smith 2008, 908), to respond to the needs, survival, self-determination,¶ and sovereignty of their respective
communities and the planet? (see also Dei 2000;¶ Grande 2004). In an era of transnational capital, where ‘[g]lobalized discourses
and agendasetting¶ and policy pressures now emerge from beyond the nation’(Rizvi and Lingard¶ 2010, 14–15), we need to have transnational
dialogs (Mohanty 2003) on the impact of¶ evidence-based education and neoliberal reform across borders and social institutions. ¶ This is
because such transnational alliances and solidarity are needed to contest global¶ forces informed by transnational corporations as well as
international organizations¶ such as the World Bank and OECD. What is noteworthy and rarely discussed, are the¶ similarities and differences in
the discourses and effects of evidence-based education¶ movement across the three nation-states analyzed in this paper. Future research
could¶ speculate and study how these ideas of evidence-based education circulate and move¶ across borders (see Rizvi and Lingard 2010).¶
Finally, as someone who has had the privilege to teach research methodology to¶ graduate students (including teachers, teacher educators,
principals, and superintendents),¶ I am alarmed by how many of my students grumble about standardized testing,¶ and some even focus their
research on such topics. What is also disconcerting is how¶ many of my students have a hard time imagining research and evidence that go¶
beyond numbers because of the ‘numbers game’ they must play in their daily working ¶ lives. These trends are not a reflection of my students’
inabilities to see beyond¶ numbers, but a testament to the hegemony of the structural environment that reminds ¶ them of what constitutes
11
valid knowledge every day. Also of great concern is the¶ speed at which educational leaders, students, and teachers are being rushed through¶
standardized processes that leave little time for reflection, authenticity, and healing.¶ Many of my students have shared these accounts in my
classroom, with me in person,¶ and in their reflection papers. For instance, one student who is currently a high school¶ teacher commented in a
recent email: ‘The standards and objectives themselves work to eliminate any third space or anticolonial space. We read, write, process for the
sole¶ purpose of testing and not for liberation.’¶ In this regard, I propose that we need to ‘slow down’ in educational practice and¶ policy. To
this end, I am reminded of the words of Malidoma Some, an African Shaman¶ healer, who stated ‘while that the indigenous world looks, the
industrial world over¶ looks’ (emphasis added). Educators, teachers, students, and policy-makers need time,¶ not to
be given more information for decision-making or learning, but more importantly¶ to assess what we
are overlooking in educating future generations. For instance, we¶ need more time to come together, dialog, heal, build
reciprocity, understand difference,¶ and re-imagine educational policy and practice for the benefit of future generations. It¶ is only by
slowing down that we will realize that our students, educational researchers,¶ teachers, and
administrators are not ‘uncultivated soil,’ in the words of La Casas, but ¶ rather seeds with the power
within to germinate on their own if they are provided the¶ freedom, resources, and time. Slowing
down is what I believe decolonizing education¶ means in this era of neoliberal policies and
transnational capital!
12
1NC Specific Links
13
Cuba Disaster 1NC Link

The 1AC traffics in the myth of a postcolonial world—socialist strategies for liberation
displace the struggle against coloniality as a fundamental epistemological and
ontological system
Grosfoguel 2007 (Ramon, Transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality,
http://www.humandee.org/spip.php?article111)
We cannot think of decolonization in terms of conquering power over the juridical−political
boundaries of a state, that is, by achieving control over a single nation− state (Grosfoguel 1996). The old national liberation
and socialist strategies of taking power at the level of a nation−state are not sufficient because global
coloniality is not reducible to the presence or absence of a colonial administration (Grosfoguel 2002) or to
the political/economic structures of power. One of the most powerful myths of the 20th century was
the notion that the elimination of colonial administrations amounted to the decolonization of the
world. This led to the myth of a "postcolonial" world. The heterogeneous and multiple global structures put
in place over a period of 450 years did not evaporate with the juridical−political decolonization of the
periphery over the past 50 years. We continue to live under the same "colonial power matrix". With
juridical− political decolonization we moved from a period of "global colonialism" to the current period of "global coloniality".
Although "colonial administrations" have been almost entirely eradicated and the majority of the periphery is politically
organized into independent states, non−European people are still living under crude European/Euro−
American exploitation and domination. The old colonial hierarchies of European versus non−European
remain in place and are entangled with the "international division of labour" and accumulation of
capital at a world−scale (Quijano 2000 ; Grosfoguel 2002). Herein lies the relevance of the distinction between "colonialism" and
"coloniality". Coloniality allows us to understand the continuity of colonial forms of domination after the
end of colonial administrations, produced by colonial cultures and structures in the modern/colonial
capitalist world−system. "Coloniality of power" refers to a crucial structuring process in the
modern/colonial world−system that articulates peripheral locations in the international division of
labour with the global racial/ethnic hierarchy and Third World migrants’ inscription in the
racial/ethnic hierarchy of metropolitan global cities. Peripheral nation−states and non−European people live
today under the regime of "global coloniality" imposed by the United States through the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), the Pentagon and NATO. Peripheral zones remain in a colonial situation even though are no longer under
colonial administration. "Colonial" does not refer only to "classical colonialism" or "internal colonialism", nor can it be reduced to the presence
of a "colonial administration". Quijano distinguishes between colonialism and coloniality. I use the word "colonialism" to refer to "colonial
situations" enforced by the presence of a colonial administration such as the period of classical colonialism, and, following Quijano (1991 ; 1993
; 1998), I
use "coloniality" to address "colonial situations" in the present period in which colonial
administrations have almost been eradicated from the capitalist world−system. By "colonial situations" I mean
the cultural, political, sexual and economic oppression/exploitation of subordinate racialized/ethnic groups by dominant racial/ethnic groups
with or without the existence of colonial administrations. Five
hundred years of European colonial expansion and
domination formed an international division of labour between Europeans and non−Europeans that is
reproduced in the present so−called "post− colonial" phase of the capitalist world−system (Wallerstein,
1979 ; 1995). Today the core zones of the capitalist world−economy overlap with predominantly white/European/Euro− American societies
such as western Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States, while peripheral zones overlap with previously colonized non−European
people. Japan is the only exception that confirms the rule. Japan was never colonized nor dominated by Europeans and, similar to the West,
played an active role in building its own colonial empire. China, although never fully colonized, was peripheralized through the use of colonial
entrepots such as Hong Kong and Macao, and through direct military interventions.
The mythology of the "decolonization of the world" obscures the continuities between the colonial
past and current global colonial/racial hierarchies and contributes to the invisibility of "coloniality"
today . For the last fifty years, peripheral states that are today formally independent, following the
dominant Eurocentric liberal discourses (Wallerstein, 1991a ; 1995), constructed ideologies of "national
14
identity", "national development", and "national sovereignty" that produced an illusion of

"independence," "development," and "progress". Yet their economic and political systems were
shaped by their subordinate position in a capitalist world−system organized around a hierarchical
international division of labour (Wallerstein, 1979 ; 1984 ; 1995).
The multiple and heterogeneous processes of the world−system, together with the predominance of Eurocentric cultures (Said, 1979 ;
Wallerstein, 1991b ; 1995 ; Lander 1998 ; Quijano 1998 ; Mignolo 2000), constitute a "global coloniality" between European/Euro−American
peoples and non−European peoples. Thus, "coloniality" is entangled with, but is not reducible to, the international
division of labour. The global racial/ethnic hierarchy of Europeans and non−Europeans is an integral part of the development of the
capitalist world system’s international division of labour (Wallerstein, 1983 ; Quijano, 1993 ; Mignolo, 1995). In these "post−independence"
times, the "colonial" axis between Europeans/Euro−Americans and non−Europeans is inscribed not only in relations of exploitation (between
capital and labour) and relations of domination (between metropolitan and peripheral states), but in the production of subjectivities and
knowledge. In sum, part
of the Eurocentric myth is that we live in a so−called "post"−colonial era and that
the world, and in particular metropolitan centres, are in no need of decolonization. In this conventional
definition, coloniality is reduced to the presence of colonial administrations. However, as the work of Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano (1993,
1998, 2000) has shown with his "coloniality of power" perspective, we
still live in a colonial world and we need to break
from the narrow ways of thinking about colonial relations, in order to accomplish the unfinished and
incomplete 20th century dream of decolonization. This forces us to examine new decolonial utopian
alternatives beyond Eurocentric and "Third Worldist" fundamentalisms.
15
Cuba Terrorism
The construction of a terrorist and axis of evil is grounded in colonial thought—difference is only celebrated when aligned with a global pax
Americana, re-justifying American moral superiority
Maldonado-Torres 4, Nelson, Professor in Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers, The topology of being and the¶ geopolitics of
knowledge¶ Modernity, empire, coloniality1, CITY, VOL. 8, NO. 1, APRIL 2004)
Today, just like Europe in the 16th century,¶ the emerging empire is remaking the boundaries¶ and borders that will
define the new¶ imperial order. Similar to Europe itself the¶ new empire is raising “in the process of¶
establishing the colonial differences on the¶ southern frontier of the Mediterranean [and¶ the Middle East]
(with the Arabic world) and¶ on the [South-] western frontier of the¶ Atlantic”. That the reassertion and rearticulation¶ of
these differences break in some¶ ways the political model of the relationship¶ between empire and colony does not reduce¶ their significance
and power. The logic of¶ coloniality helped not only to interpret¶ terrorist attacks as acts of war, but also
to¶ provide the moral authority for a political¶ leader to publicly map an “axis of evil”. The¶ attack to
the Empire’s city (or city of the¶ Empire State) led to the creation of the¶ Office for Homeland Security, which
came¶ to target not only people coming to the USA from abroad but also all those foreigners¶ within
who are seen as threats to the Homeland.¶ Following a similar logic to that which¶ led to interpreting acts of terror as acts of¶ war, the
border between the USA and¶ Mexico has gradually become militarized.80¶ Both Iraq and the US–Mexico border
have¶ become death zones. Borders appear in our¶ world as death maps of empire. Discourse¶ around the idea of defence of
the Homeland,¶ which echoes Heidegger’s beloved Heimat,¶ furthers racist geopolitics and leads to the¶
justification of military aggressions, which¶ are conceived as missionary work. America¶ has to be defended
from evil men who come¶ from evil places. The Middle East and Latin¶ America are first in line, along with those¶ other liminal subjects of
Western modernities¶ (Africans, blacks, indigenous peoples and¶ people of colour more generally).¶ US discourse on evil is simultaneously¶
articulated with a prayer for the Homeland¶ (“God bless America”). US
Americanism grounds the logic of coloniality on
the old¶ and traditional onto-theology which assigns¶ a primary role to God, goodness and evil.¶ From this
perspective one can understand¶ Heidegger’s fear of the USA. While his¶ Germancentrism is ontological and anchors¶ Europe at its very
centre, US Homeland¶ metaphysics represents a regression back to¶ onto-theology and a relocation of the heart¶ of the West from Europe to
America. It is¶ from this re-located centre of the West that¶ new global designs are being produced. The¶
American Dream today , as it is adopted by¶ the state, is expressed by the desire to achieve¶ the global pax
Americana , one in which US¶ ideals of sociality, government and life¶ become regulative ideals for
the people of the¶ globe . Islam is acceptable when it rather¶ looks like the kind of Christianity that
US¶ Americans practice. Islam is recognized as a¶ “religion of peace”. Multiculturalism hides in¶ this way a
deeper multiracism that only¶ recognizes the right for difference when¶ peoples are well domesticated
by capitalism, the market economy and liberal ideals of¶ freedom and equality. Policy (both foreign¶
and national) follows the contours of a¶ division between blessedness and evil, the site¶ of God on
the earth (Western civilization that¶ has found its reach in American soil) and the¶ sites of evil. This is
the new face of the logic¶ of coloniality; a face that, as Heidegger¶ feared, was not going to leave Europe¶ intact.
16
LINKS
17
Link – Aesthetics
The concept of “valuing culture” is inherently Eurocentric—they privilege

certain performances of others according to Western artistic standards
Ramos 11, (Juan, Ph. D. Student in Philosophy at UMass Amherst, LATIN AMERICAN DECOLONIAL
AESTHETICS: ANTIPOETRY, NUEVA¶ CANCIÓN, AND THIRD CINEMA AS COUNTERCULTURE (1960-1975),
Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the¶ University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2011)
The very idea of the ‘cultured person’ would seem to privilege specific types of¶ information, cultural
production, and knowledge (as processes of cultivation) that can be derived from select cultural artifacts (the means of cultivation).
In this way, the¶ cultured person participates in an ongoing process of selective evaluation of what¶
constitutes worthy components of culture. Put differently, only some cultural artifacts¶ can lead to the road of cultivation. This is to say
that some artworks will derive the¶ most amount of information, which, in turn, leads to the cultivation of the mind.¶ Simply put, the goal
of the cultured individual is to accrue the most culture through¶ means of education, whether formal or
informal, whether at school or by going to a¶ museum or the opera. In these specific locations, the highest forms of culture are¶
traditionally studied or housed and thus the cultured individual seeks to attain that¶ which has been
identified as valuable or indispensable to become cultured or to¶ achieve a developed state of mind. As such, for
Williams all three spheres (i.e. developed state of mind, the¶ processes of development and the means of such processes) are linked to one
another¶ and point toward a relational interest in the investigation of all aspects of cultural¶ production and how it shapes, informs, and
determines a specific group’s way of life¶ or quotidian cultural practices. Put differently, Williams’ interest
in culture is to
arrive¶ at a complete or holistic way of looking at culture from a sociological standpoint and¶ how
competing meanings of culture (anthropological/sociological vs. humanistic)¶ converge and are dependent upon
each other.¶ Part of the problem with Williams’ conceptualization of culture in terms of¶ cultivation and
development is that it retains and echoes the same logic and wording¶ that stratified the world into three tiers, which coincided with perceived
economic¶ development and its concomitant relationship to democratic values under Cold War politics.1 Nonetheless, in Williams it
is possible to observe traces of not only Marxist¶ understanding of culture, but also of dependency
theory and its the distinction among¶ developed and underdeveloped parts of the world with
rhetorical geopolitical¶ coordinates (e.g. center vs. periphery) still prevalent today in postcolonial studies and¶ other theoretical
approaches. Despite these objections to Williams’ approach, when applied to specific¶ examples of cultural production, his concepts render
particularly pressing¶ observations. If one were to apply his categories of analysis to musical genres, one is ¶ able
to discern precisely how the means, process, and development of the mind come¶ to have different
implications according to the type of cultural artifact with which one¶ is dealing. If we turn our attention to Giacomo Puccini’s La
bohème, given opera’s¶ status as a high form of culture and even though the opera deals with popular
topics,¶ this particular opera continues to be deemed as one of the renowned, admired, and¶ most widely staged operatic productions. In
terms of Williams’ categories, La bohème¶ would be associated with the means of cultural
development. The process of¶ development would be associated with the amount of aesthetic
pleasure, information,¶ and knowledge the viewers can derive from the opera. Since it is assumed that an¶ artifact of high
culture would contain plenty of aesthetic qualities, as well as useful¶ information, upon being exposed to this
opera, one would add more culture to one’s¶ development or cultivation of the mind. If we compare this
example to a different¶ musical genre, for instance, vallenato, the conclusions would be different. Vallenato,¶ as a means of
cultural development, does not have the stature or recognition as opera. Thus, the implication is that it has little
aesthetic value or useful information to offer to listeners. Moreover, since it lacks aesthetic value and because it is not a
recognized¶ means of cultural development, vallenato would not lead to the development or¶
cultivation of the mind. If further proof were needed today that such distinctions have¶ not lost their currency, among academic
departments of music, classical music¶ continues to be most sought after genre, whereas a genre like vallenato is relegated to¶
ethnomusicology.
18
Link – Aid/Development
Economic engagement relies on the orientalist subjugation of Latin American

alternatives to economic modernity. Economics is cultural, not universal – their
implicit belief in economic rationality produces normalized subjects amenable to the
dictates of biopolitical neoliberalism.
Escobar 1995 [Arturo, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, UNC-Chapel Hill Director, Institute of Latin American Studies, UNC-
Chapel Hill Adjunct Professor, Department of Geography, UNC-Chapel Hill Adjunct Professor, Department of Communications, UNC-Chapel Hill
Fellow, Institute of Arts and Humanities, UNC Fellow, Center for Urban and Regional Research, UNC Facilitator, World Anthropologies Network /
Red de Antropologías Mundiales Research Associate, Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, Bogotá, “Encountering Development THE
MAKING AND UNMAKING OF THE THIRD WORLD” 1995, page
ECONOMICS AS CULTURE Needless to say, economists do not see their science as a cultural discourse. In their long and
illustrious realist tradition, their knowledge is taken to be a neutral representation of the world and a truth
about it. Theirs is not, as Patricia Williams writes referring to the law in ways that are equally applicable to economics, “an imposition of an
order—the ironclad imposition of a world view” (1991, 28). “At issue,” Williams continues, “is a structure in which a cultural code has been
inscribed” (1991, 19; my emphasis). This inscription of the economic onto the cultural took a long time to develop, as the philosopher Charles
Taylor explains: There
are certain regularities which attend our economic behavior, and which change only
very slowly. . . . But it took a vast development of civilization before the culture developed in which people do so behave, in which it
became a cultural possibility to act like this; and in which the discipline involved in so acting became widespread enough for this behaviour to
be generalized. . . . Economicscan aspire to the status of a science, and sometimes appear to approach it,
because there has developed a culture in which a certain form of rationality is a (if not the) dominant
value. (Taylor 1985, 103). What is the cultural code that has been inscribed into the structure of economics? What vast development of
civilization resulted in the present conception and practice of the economy? The answer to this question is complex and can only be hinted at
here. Indeed, the development and consolidation of a dominant view and practice of the economy in European history is one of the most
fundamental chapters in the history of modernity. An anthropology of modernity centered on the economy leads us
to question the tales of the market, production, and labor which are at the root of what might be
called the Western economy. These tales are rarely questioned; they are taken as normal and natural
ways of seeing life, “the way things are.” Yet the notions of economy, market, and production are historical contingencies. Their
histories can be traced, their genealogies demarcated, and their mechanisms of truth and power revealed. In short, the Western
economy can be anthropologized and shown to be made up of a peculiar set of discourses and
practices—very peculiar at that in the history of cultures. The Western economy is generally thought of as a production system. From the
perspective of the anthropology of modernity, however, the Western economy must be seen as an institution
composed of systems of production, power, and signification. The three systems, which coalesced at the end
of the eighteenth century, are inextricably linked to the development of capitalism and modernity. They
should be seen as cultural forms through which human beings are made into producing subjects. The
economy is not only, or even principally, a material entity. It is above all a cultural production, a way of producing human
subjects and social orders of a certain kind . Although at the level of production the history of the Western economy is well
known—the rise of the market, changes in the productive forces and the social relations of production, demographic changes, the
transformation of everyday material life, and the commodification of land, labor, and money—analyses of power and signification have been
incorporated much less into the cultural history of the Western economy. How does power enter into the history of the economy? Very briefly,
the institutionalization of the market system in the eigtheenth and nineteenth centuries also required
a transformation at the level of the individual—the production of what Foucault (1979) has called
docile bodies —and the regulation of populations in ways consistent with the movements of capital.
People did not go into the factories gladly and of their own accord; an entire regime of discipline and normalization was
necessary. Besides the expulsion of peasants and serfs from the land and the creation of a proletarian class, the modern economy
necessitated a profound restructuring of bodies, individuals, and social forms. This restructuring of the
19
individual and society was achieved through manifold forms of discipline, on the one hand, and through
the set of interventions that made up the domain of the social, to which I have alluded, on the other. The result
of this process—Homo oeconomicus—was a normalized subject that produces under certain physical
and cultural conditions. To accumulate capital, spread education and health, and regulate the
movement of people and wealth required no less than the establishment of a disciplinary society
(Foucault 1979).3 At the level of signification, the first important historical aspect to consider is the invention of the economy as an
autonomous domain. It is well known that one of the quintessential aspects of modernity is the separation of social life into functional spheres
(the economy, the polity, society, culture, and the like), each with laws of its own. This is, strictly speaking, a modern development. As a
separate domain, the economy had to be given expression by a proper science; this science, which emerged at the end of the eighteenth
century, was called political economy. In its classical formulation by Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, political economy was structured around the
notions of production and labor. In
addition to rationalizing capitalist production, however, political economy
succeeded in imposing production and labor as a code of signification on social life as a whole. Simply put,
modern people came to see life in general through the lens of production. Many aspects of life
became increasingly economized, including human biology, the nonhuman natural world, relations
among people, and relations between people and nature. The languages of everyday life became
entirely pervaded by the discourses of production and the market. The fact that Marx borrowed the language of
political economy he was criticizing, some argue (Reddy 1987; Baudrillard 1975), defeated his ultimate purpose of doing away with it. Yet the
achievements of historical materialism cannot be overlooked: the formulation of an anthropology of use value in lieu of the abstraction of
exchange value; the displacement of the notion of absolute surplus by that of surplus value and, consequently, the replacement of the notion
the
of progress based on the increase of surplus by that based on the appropriation of surplus value by the bourgeoisie (exploitation);
emphasis on the social character of knowledge, as opposed to the dominant epistemology, which
placed truth on the side of the individual’s mind; the contrast between a unilinear conception of
history, in which the individual is the all-powerful actor, and a materialist one, in which social classes appear as the motor of
history; a denunciation of the natural character of the market economy and a conceptualization,
instead, of the capitalist mode of production, in which the market appears as the product of history; and finally the
crucial insight of commodity fetishism as a paradigmatic feature of capitalist society . Marx’s philosophy,
however, faced limits at the level of the code.4 The hegemony of the code of signification of political economy is
the underside of the hegemony of the market as a social model and a model of thought . Market
culture elicits commitments not only from economists but also from all those living with prices and
commodities. “Economic” men and women are positioned in civil societes in ways that are inevitably
mediated, at the symbolic level, by the constructs of markets, production, and commodities . People
and nature are separated into parts (individuals and resources), to be recombined into market commodities
and objects of exchange and knowledge. Hence the call by critical analysts of market culture to remove political economy from
the centrality that it has been accorded in the history of modernity and to supersede the market as a generalized frame of reference by
developing a wider frame of reference to which the market itself might be referred (Polanyi 1957b, 270; Procacci 1991, 151; Reddy 1987).5 I
suggest that this wider frame of reference should be the anthropology of modernity. Anthropologists
have been complicit with
the rationalization of modern economics, to the extent that they have contributed to naturalizing the
constructs of economy, politics, religion, kinship, and the like as the fundamental building blocks of all
societies. The existence of these domains as presocial and universal must be rejected. Instead, “we
must ask what symbolic and social processes make these domains appear self-evident, and perhaps even
‘natural,’ fields of activity in any society” (Yanagisako and Collier 1989, 41). The analysis of economics as culture must thus start
by subjecting to scrutiny the apparent organization of societies into seemingly natural domains. It must reverse the
“spontaneous impulse to look in every society for ‘economic’ institutions and relations separate from
other social relations , comparable to those of Western capitalist society” (Godelier 1986, 18). This task of
cultural critique must begin with the clear recognition that economics is a discourse that constructs a
particular picture of the economy. To use Stephen Gudeman’s metaphor (1986; Gudeman and Rivera 1990), what we
usually recognize as economics is only one “conversation” among many regarding the economy; this
20
conversation became dominant throughout the centuries, thanks to the historical processes already sketched.
Those who construct
Gudeman’s unveiling of the use in anthropology of allegedly universal economic models is instructive:
universal models . . . propose that within ethnographic data there exists an objectively given reality
which may be captured and explained by an observer’s formal model. They utilize a “reconstructive” methodology
by which observed economic practices and beliefs are first restated in the formal language and then deduced or assessed with respect to core
criteria such as utility, labor or exploitation. Although the particular theoriesused in economic anthropology are quite diverse,
they share the assumption that one or another universal model exists and can be used to explain a
given field data. According to this perspective, a local model usually is a rationalization, mystification or ideology; at most, it only
represents the underlying reality to which the observer has privileged access. (1986, 28) Any model, however, whether local or universal,
is a construction of the world and not an indisputable , objective truth about it. This is the basic insight
guiding the analysis of economics as culture. The coming into dominance of modern economics meant that many other existing conversations
or models were appropriated, suppressed, or overlooked. At
the margins of the capitalist world economy, Gudeman and
Rivera insist, there existed and continue to exist other models of the economy, other conversations, no
less scientific because they are not couched in equations or produced by Nobel laureates. In the Latin
American countryside , for instance, these models are still alive, the result of overlapping conversations that have been
carried out for a long time. I will come back to the notion of local models in the last section of the chapter. There is, then, an
orientalism in economics that has to be unveiled —that is, a hegemonic effect achieved through
representations that enshrine one view of the economy while suppressing others. The critique of economics as
culture, finally, must be distinguished from the better-known analysis of economics as “rhetoric” advocated by McCloskey (1985). McCloskey’s
work is intended to show the literary character of economic science and the price economics has paid for its blind adherence to the scientistic
attitude of modernism. This author shows how literary devices systematically and inevitably pervade the science of economics. His aim is to
improve economics by bringing it into the realm of rhetoric. The aim of this chapter is quite different. Although some rhetorical analysis is used,
particularly in the reading of the economic development theories of the 1950s and 1960s, the
analysis of economics as culture
goes well beyond the formal aspect of the rethoric of economics. How did particular constructions of
the economy come to exist? How do they operate as cultural forces? What practices do these
constructions create, and what are the resulting cultural orders? What are the consequences of seeing
life in terms of such constructions?
21
Link – Aid/Danish Universities
In attempting to provide aid, the affirmative explicitly reflects its colonial

nature—they attempt to increase economic engagement, promoting capitalism
which exploits the colonized
Suarez 12 (Julia Suárez-Krabbe. Assistant professor at Roskilde University, The Department of Culture and
Identity Interkulturelle studier Universitetsvej 1, 3.1.5 DK-4000, Roskilde Denmark “‘Epistemic Coyotismo’ and
Transnational Collaboration: Decolonizing the Danish University” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of
Self- Knowledge Volume 10 Issue 1 Decolonizing the University: Practicing Pluriversity 1-1-2012 Article 5)
Nonetheless, the document coherently applies the notion of the backwardness of the South and the advancement of the North, thereby re-visiting the white man’s burden. For example, it states: “Well- managed local universities
The colonial nature of this proposition becomes clear when

are essential if low-income countries are to develop into modern knowledge societies” (Universities Denmark, 2009:6).
Universities Denmark declare the need for Danish universities to assist the Southern universities in
terms of management. The universities in the South must, in turn, strengthen the local “capacity to effectively implement international aid programmes,” and “contribute to the establishment of a
larger and more professional private sector” (Universities Denmark, 2009:6). Needless to say, international aid programmes are often colonial
endeavours, and strengthening the private sector means strengthening the capitalist economy. ¶ A final
element in the document elaborated by Universities Denmark worth highlighting here is the legacy of the Western notion concerning the other as tabula rasa, such as it is reflected in the following argument: “North-South and
North-South- South networks have proven to be an effective way of transferring knowledge and good practices to and between universities in developing countries” (Universities Denmark, 2009:6, my emphasis). It is important to
remember that the document is written in representation of a sector which, at least what the social sciences and humanities is concerned, by and large argues that the problems of eurocentrism, developmentalism and oppressive
sciences have been overcome. However, the document itself points to the opposite conclu sion. In fact, if a student submitted a similar paper to an exam in any of the fields that deal with global relationships, development,
rights and knowledge, he would most probably not pass. The document simply does not meet many of the basic conventional standards of rigor and theoretical coherence. Beyond this, it is complicit with global apartheid.
Contrary to the idea expressed in the document that Denmark needs to help the developing countries,
there is a strong and vital need for the decolonization of Danish universities. It is on the basis of this recognition that North- South
collaboration gains a thoroughly transformative and vital dimension and not, as the document claims, through the transference of skills and knowledge to the South.
22
Link – America
The 1AC constructs picture of global knowledge that finds it origin in the
American Triumph –Aff impacts are epistemically rooted in the notion that we
can know politics and solve them by constructing solutions
Spanos 2000 (William V, Professor of English and Comp Lit @ Binghamton, America’s Shadow: An
Anatomy of Empire pg 191-192)
What I have argued in this book about the relationship between philosophy and imperialism is that the euphoric annunciation of the end of history and the advent of the New World Order by the deputies of the dominant American
triumphant
culture at the end of the Cold War is symptomatic of the achievement of the global hegemony of "America" understood not simply as a political order, but as a way of thinking. I have claimed that this
"American" way of thinking is not exceptionalist, as it has always been claimed by Americans, especially since de Tocqueville's announcement of the advent of
democracy in America, but European, which means metaphysical: an imperial thinking, whose provenance resides
in Roman antiquity, that sees the being into which it inquires as a totalized spatial image, a "field" or
"region" or "domain" to be comprehended, mastered, and exploited. But this way of putting this imperial
metanarrative, though necessary in the context of the amnesiac imperatives of thinking the Enlightenment as an epochal emancipatory moment in world history, is too
general. It does not account for the historically specific transformation of this European mode of
knowledge production accomplished in the wake of America's emergence as a global power: the
fulfillment of the Enlightenment's "developmental model" in the effacement of the visible imperial
logos informing traditional metaphysics by way of the apotheosis of the "objectivity" of empirical
science and the advent of the classificatory table. Under the aegis of a triumphant America, the
narrative economy of European metaphysics has come to its end in the form of a universal
instrumentalism, a Man-centered thinking for which everything in time and space is seen as a
"problem" that the larger comparative "picture" renders susceptible to a final and determinate
solution. In Heidegger's proleptic terms, European metaphysical thinking in the technological age dominated by America has become "Americanized," a "re-presentational"/"calculative" thinking or "planning" that has
transformed the uncalculability of being at large into a planetary "world picture": " We get the picture" concerning something does not mean only
that what is, is set before us, is represented to us, in general, but that what is stands before us — in all that
belongs to it and all that stands together in it — as a system. "To get the picture" throbs with being acquainted with something,
with being equipped and prepared for it. Where the world becomes picture, what is, in its entirely, is juxtaposed as
that for which man is prepared and which, correspondingly, he therefore intends to bring before
himself and have before himself, and consequently intends in a decisive sense to set in place before himself. Hence world picture, when understood essentially, does not mean a picture of
the world but the world conceived and grasped as picture. What is, in its entirety, is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by man, who represents and sets forth.
Wherever we have the world picture, an essential decision takes place regarding what is, in its
entirety. The Being of whatever is, is sought and found in the representedness of the latter. 1 Reconstellated into
the context of this Heideggerian diagnosis of modernity, the American end-of-history discourse undergoes a resonant strangement.
What is euphorically represented as "good news" —the global fulfillment ("end") of the emancipatory
promise of History — comes to be seen as the Pax Metaphysica: the colonization of the errant mind of
humanity at large by a banal and banalizing thinking that has reduced everything, including human
beings, to "standing [or disposable] reserve."2 This "end of philosophy" in the form of a "triumphant"
instrumentalist thinking that has reduced being to disposable commodity is everywhere manifest in the post-Cold War era. And, I suggest,
its most telling symptom is the globalization of (American) English as the lingua franca of the "free
market," which has as one of its most devastating consequences the "Americanization" not simply of
the Western nation-states but of entire Third World cultures.
23
Link – Biopolitics
Coloniality and body-politics is the darker, missing side of biopolitics

& Society 2009)
In all three cases (and my own argument as the fourth case) I have underlined¶ the geo-politics of
knowledge, which is what comes across more forcefully,¶ although the body-politics of knowledge is
obvious in all of them. What do I mean by the body-politics of knowledge? Frantz Fanon is again useful¶
to set the stage, and I do so not through Homi Bhabha but through Lewis¶ Gordon’s and Sylvia Wynter’s
reading of Fanon.¶ Before, a disclaimer is necessary. Much has been said and written¶ about Michel
Foucault’s concept of bio-politics. Bio-politics refers to¶ emerging state technologies (strategies, in a
more traditional vocabulary) of¶ population control that went hand in hand with the emergence of the
modern¶ nation-state. Foucault devoted his attention mainly to Europe, but such¶ technologies were
applied to the colonies as well. In Argentina (and South¶ America in general), for example, the push for
eugenics toward the end of¶ the 19th century has been studied in detail lately. The differences
between¶ bio-politics in Europe and bio-politics in the colonies lie in the racial¶ distinction between
the European population (even when bio-politically¶ managed by the state) and the population of the
colonies: less human, subhumans ,¶ as Smith pointed out. But it is also important to remember that¶
bio-political techniques enacted on colonial populations returned as a¶ boomerang to Europe in the
Holocaust. Many have already underlined the¶ uses of colonial techniques applied to non-European
populations to control¶ and exterminate the Jewish population. This consideration shifts the
geography¶ of reason and illuminates the fact that the colonies were not a secondary¶ and marginal
event in the history of Europe but, on the contrary, colonial¶ history is the non-acknowledged center
in the making of modern Europe .¶ Thus, body-politics is the darker side and the missing half of
biopolitics :¶ body-politics describes de-colonial technologies enacted by bodies¶ who realized that
they were considered less human at the moment they¶ realized that the very act of describing them
as less human was a radical¶ un-human consideration. Thus, the lack of humanity is placed in
imperial¶ actors, institutions and knowledges that had the arrogance of deciding that¶ certain
people they did not like were less human . Body-politics is a fundamental component of de-colonial
thinking, de-colonial doing and the¶ de-colonial option. Historically, geo-politics of knowledge emerged
in the ‘Third World’¶ contesting the imperial distribution of scientific labor that Pletsch mapped¶ out.
Body-politics of knowledge has had its more pronounced manifestations¶ in the United States, as a
consequence of the Civil Rights movement. Who¶ were the main actors of the body-politics of
knowledge? Women – first white¶ women, soon joined by women of color (and linking with geo-politics,
socalled¶ ‘third world women’); Latino and Latina scholars and activists;¶ Afro-Americans and Native-
Americans, mainly.¶
24
Link – Black/White Binary

The black white binary is a product of coloniality—indigenity and mestizaje are
radical sites of possibility in Latin America for decolonizing subjectivity
Vallega 2012 [Alejandro A., Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon |
“Remaining with the Crossing: Social-Political Historical Critique at the Limit in Latin”, Research in
Phenomenology 42 (2012) 229–250 | DOI: 10.1163/156916412X651210]
The paradoxical status and density of the issue only becomes more evident when one considers race as it
occurs in Latin America. As Leopoldo Zea indicates in “Negritude and Indigenism,” for Latin America the issue is not
that of a black people over against whites but one of “mestizaje,” i.e., it is the issue of the liberation of a
mixed people who are gathered under the name Latin Americans.5 This is an observation that holds from
Vasconcelo’s The Cosmic Race to such late intellectuals as Roberto Fernándes-Retamar and that in fact already finds precedents in the writings
of Azara in 1781.6 If in North America and even Europe the line has been kept clean for the most part, this was not the case in Latin America.
In North America the indigenous peoples were slaughtered and erased from their lands, and the
Negro and later Asian peoples appeared as slaves in chains. These two ways of encountering alterity
in the forming of the white North American mind secured that the color line would be visible, and that
race would seem a natural fact. In Europe one may think back to 1492 when the Arabs and Jews were expulsed from Al-Andalus in
the Iberian Peninsula: in such a story no one would doubt the distinct difference between the white European mind and the colored other. In
contrast, in
Latin America the conquistadors immediately began to mix with indigenous women, and
while they perpetrated the most terrible genocides and destruction of indigenous lives and cultural
existence, at the same time they soon gave rise to that Latin America that Simón Bolivar so well
described, in his 1815 Carta de Jamaica, as a people neither European nor indigenous but a being in between
and at war with both. As Africans, Iberians, and Amerindians mixed, and as their children mixed, there appeared in Latin America
mestizos, mulattos, criollos, castizos, cholos, and Zambos.7 This mixing was only more liberal in Brazil, where the Portuguese did not even
concern themselves much with making the mixing legal under the eyes of the Lord. The conquest of Brazil, unlike that of the Spanish Americas,
did not involve the education of the indigenous people but rather the establishing of ports for the Atlantic trade, and the mixing happened
without a claim to the indoctrination or salvation of the native peoples. In short, in
Latin America the issue of race is not that
of a distinct color line; rather, it indicates a space of existence of a people who are colonial subjects
but not directly separated by the same issue of a distinct cut between white and the color races. Indeed,
as Roberto Fernández Retamar reminds us in his famous essay on Latin American identity titled Caliban, it was this lack of white and indigenous
purity that called José Martí, one of the great liberators of the Americas, to speak of “our mestizo America.” Martí, the children of Spanish
mothers and fathers.” Quoted in Miguel Rojas-Mix, I cento Nomi d’America, trans. Maura Alessandrini, Antonella Ciabatti, Giulia Di Sarlo and
Elisa Vian (Firenza: Casa Editrice le Lettere, 2006), 160; originally published as Los Cien Nombres de América (Barcelona: Lumen, 1991), 302.
José Vasconcelos, The Cosmic Race / La Raza Cósmica, trans. Didier T. Jaen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). Roberto
Fernándes-Retamar puts race at the center of his discussion of Latin American identity in “Caliban” by referring to mestizaje as a particularly
Latin American characteristic (“Caliban,” in Calina and Other Essays, trans. Edward Baker, 2nd ed. [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1994], 4). with his great humanism responded to Sarmiento’s racist dualism between the civilized Westerners and the barbaric Indios (in
Civilization and Barbarism) by saying that in Latin America, “there are no races. . . . which the well-disposed observer and the fair-minded
traveler vainly seek in the justice of Nature. . . . Whoever foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races, sins against
humanity.”8 The issue of race as a distinct color line becomes even more complicated when one considers the famous break between Frantz
Fanon and the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In his introduction to Orphée Noir (1948), the first anthology of African poets who wrote in
French to appear in France, Sartre recognizes the appearance of the Negro and negritude as a force dialectically opposed to white colonialist: a
kind of “anti-racist racism” (racisme antiraciste).9 Following his own diagnosis, Fanon replied that this image of resistance was ultimately but a
continuation of Western supremacy that now recognized in the negritude movement a moment in the development of European Marxist
history. Fanon’s
full critique of Sartre’s position in Black Skin White Masks ultimately figures a call for moving beyond the
dialectic of the white master-mind and the barbarian, exotic, colored other, and the historical element of
Hegelian dialectics that sustain such idea.10 The call for an autonomous way of articulating identity
beyond the color line appears as much within negritude movements as within indigenous movements in
Latin America. For example, José Carlos Mariátegui, (one of the most brilliant political philosophers of the twentieth century with a mind
close to that of Gramsci) who spoke out of indigenous experiences in the Americas, states in his famous “The Indian Problem” that “the
problem of the Indian is the problem of land ownership and not of ethnicity.”11 With regard to the idea of race as the natural color line, the
Latin America context shows that those very thinkers who recognize colonialism, its violence and oppressive power, those who in short are
25
most distinctly conscious of the wretched of the colonialist earth, and who bear their alterity in word and flesh, remain only tenuously within
the idea of a possible clean and natural color line as Du Bois would have it.12 But if
not in terms of this black and white
dialectic presented by Du Bois, how can one understand the racism with its violence, the violent
separation, expropriation, and destruction that accompanies the radical mixings between Europeans,
indigenous, and Negroes in Latin America? This question brings together three issues that seem to me inseparable for Latin
American thought: race, coloniality, and identity, as the everpresent question of the distinct articulation of that mixture of identities clumsily
bundled up under the awkward term “Latin America.”13 Here, in contrast to Dubois’ call for race as a self-recognition through blood, race
appears as a possible area of contestation of the very concepts and epistemic structures that situate it
as a biological and natural fact. In order to engage the concept of race as such an area of contestation and in its direct connection
with Western Modern thought I will now discuss Anibal Quijano’s analysis of the development of race along the development of the coloniality
of power and knowledge that occurs with the colonization of the Americas in the sixteenth century.
26
Link – Cartesian Dualism

The aff’s view of the world discursively isolates Europe from colonized
benefactors and ignores their own epistemic location—their knowledge
production absolves European responsibility for inequality and reproduces Euro-
centered modernity
Grosfuguel 12, (Ramon, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
Decolonizing Western Uni-versalisms: Decolonial Pluri-versalism from Aimé Césaire to the Zapatistas,
TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(3), 2012)
There exists a long tradition of thought about the universal in the West. René Descartes,¶ founder of modern philosophy
with his motto “I think, therefore I am,” understood the universal as¶ an eternal knowledge beyond time and space; that is,
equivalent to a God’s-eye view. In the struggle¶ against the hegemonic Christian theology of the period (mid-17th century), which, following Walter¶ Mignolo (see The Idea of Latin America),
I will call here the theo-politics of knowledge, Descartes¶ placed the ego at the foundation of knowledge in a position previously
reserved for the “Christian¶ God.” All of the attributes of this “Christian God” came to be located in the “subject,” the ego. In¶ order to be able to claim the possibility of a knowledge beyond
time and space, from the eyes of¶ God, it was fundamental to dissociate the subject from all bodies and territories; that is, to empty
the¶ subject of all spatial or temporal determinations. Hence this dualism between the subject and any¶ spatial and temporal dimensions was a fundamental constitutive axis of Cartesianism . It was this¶
dualism, which would allow Descartes to situate the subject in a “non-place” and a “non-time,”¶ thereby making it
possible to claim to speak beyond all the spatio-temporal limits of the cartography¶ of global power. To
be able to place the individual subject at the foundation of all knowledge, the¶ internal monologue of the subject without any dialogical relation with other human beings allows¶ him to claim access to truth in its sui generis form,
that is, as self-generated, insulated from social¶ relations with other human beings. The myth of the self-production of truth by the isolated subject is a constitutive
part of the myth of modernity, the myth of a self-generated and insulated Europe,¶ which develops on
its own without depending on anyone else on earth. So we can see that just like¶ dualism, so too is solipsism constitutive of Cartesian philosophy. Without
solipsism, there can be no¶ myth of a subject with universal rationality that confirms itself as such. We see here the beginning of¶ the ego-
politics of knowledge (Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America), which is nothing less than a ¶ secularization of the Christian cosmology of the theo-politics of knowledge. In the ego-politics of¶ knowledge, the subject of
enunciation is erased, hidden, camouflaged by what Santiago Castro-¶ Gómez has called zero-point philosophy. The latter is a
point of view that hides itself as a point of¶ view, or, put differently, the point of view that assumes
having no point of view. We are dealing ,¶ then, with a philosophy in which the epistemic subject has no
sexuality, gender, ethnicity, race, class,¶ spirituality, language, or epistemic location within power
relations , and a subject that produces truth¶ from an interior monologue with himself without
relation to anyone outside him. That is to say, we¶ are dealing with a deaf philosophy, a philosophy without a face, which feels no gravity. This faceless¶ subject floats through the sky without
being determined by anything or anyone. Enrique Dussel (see, for instance, 1492: El encubrimiento) has reminded us on several¶ occasions that the
Cartesian “ego cogito” of “I think, therefore I am” is preceded by 150 years of¶ the imperial “ego
conquiro” of “I conquer, therefore I am.” We should recall that Descartes¶ formulated his philosophy in Amsterdam at precisely the moment in the mid-17th century at which¶
Holland came to be the core of the world-system. What Dussel is telling us with this is that the¶ political, economic, cultural, and social conditions of
possibility for a subject who assumes the¶ arrogance of speaking as though it were the eye of God is a
subject whose geopolitical location is¶ determined by its existence as a colonizer/conqueror, that is, as Imperial
Being. Therefore, the ¶ dualistic and solipsistic myth of a self-generated subject without any spatial-temporal location
within¶ global power relations inaugurates the epistemological myth of Eurocentered modernity . This
through a deafness toward the world and
refers¶ to the myth of a self-generated subject with access to a universal truth beyond space and time by¶ means of a monologue. That is,
through erasing the face¶ of the subject of enunciation, a blindness to its own spatial and corporeal location within the ¶ cartography
of global power. This Cartesian solipsism will come to be questioned by Western¶ philosophy itself. However, what will remain as a more permanent influence of Cartesianism up to¶ the present day is the
faceless, zero-point philosophy that would be taken up by the human sciences¶ from the 19th century onward as the epistemology of axiological neutrality and empirical objectivity¶ of the subject, which produces scientific
knowledge.
27
Link – Cartesian Dualism
Colonialism produced a universal viewpoint from which the lives of colonized

and racialized others became dispensable—this coloniality persists in the
affirmative’s impact framing that makes security a zero sum game. Our safety is
assured by endless slaughter
Maldonado-Torres 7 [Nelson, Professor of Comparative Literature at Rutgers, PhD in Religious Studies “ON THE COLONIALITY
OF BEING¶ Contributions to the development of a¶ Concept” 2007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548]
How did the coloniality of power emerged? Quijano locates it in¶ discussions about whether the
Indians had souls or not. New identities were¶ created in the context of European colonization:
European, white, Indian,¶ black, and mestizo.18 A characteristic feature of this type of social classification¶ is that the relation
between the subjects is not horizontal but vertical in ¶ character. That is, some identities depict superiority over others.
And such¶ superiority is premised on the degree of humanity attributed to the identities in¶ question.
The ‘lighter’ one’s skin is, the closer to full humanity one is, and¶ viceversa.19 As the conquerors took on the role of
mapping the world they¶ kept reproducing this vision of things. The whole world was practically seen in¶ the lights of
this logic. This is the beginning of ‘global coloniality’.20¶ It is true that in 1537 the Pope declared the Amerindians as
human. Yet as¶ Quijano points out ‘from then on, the idea that non-Europeans have a¶ biological structure that is
not only different from that of Europeans but also¶ inferior, was imprinted on intersubjective relations
and social practices of¶ power’.21 It is clear that the meaning of race has changed throughout the¶ centuries, and that ‘raza’ did not
mean in the sixteenth century what it came to¶ mean at the height of the biological revolution in the nineteenth century that¶ produced
taxonomies based on a formal biological category of race. Yet, there¶
was a commonality between nineteenth century
racism and the attitude of the¶ colonizers in regard to differences in degrees of humanity. In some ways,¶
scientific racism and the very idea of race were the most explicit expressions of ¶ a widespread and
general attitude regarding the humanity of colonized and¶ enslaved subjects in the Americas and
Africa in the sixteenth century. I’d like¶ to suggest that what was born in the sixteenth century was something more¶ pervasive and
subtle than what at first transpires in the concept of race: it was¶ an attitude characterized by a permanent suspicion. Enrique Dussel states
that¶ Hernań Corte´s gave expression to an ideal of subjectivity that could be defined as the ego conquiro, which predates Rene´ Descartes’s
articulation of the ego¶ cogito.¶ 22 This means that the
significance of the Cartesian cogito for modern¶ European
identity has to be understood against the backdrop of an¶ unquestioned ideal of self expressed in the
notion of the ego conquiro. The¶ certainty of the self as a conqueror, of its tasks and missions, preceded¶ Descartes’s certainty about
the self as a thinking substance (res cogitans) and¶ provided a way to interpret it. I am suggesting that the practical conquering¶ self and the
The ego conquiro is not questioned, but rather
theoretical thinking substance are parallel in terms of their¶ certainty.
provides the ground¶ for the articulation of the ego cogito. Dussel suggests as much: ‘The ‘barbarian’¶ was the
obligatory context of all reflection on subjectivity, reason, the¶ cogito’.23 But the true context was marked not only
by the existence of the¶ barbarian, or else, the barbarian had acquired new connotations in modernity. ¶ The barbarian was a
racialized self, and what characterized this racialization¶ was a radical questioning or permanent
suspicion regarding the humanity of the¶ self in question. Thus, the ‘certainty’ of the project of colonization and¶ the
foundation of the ego conquiro stand, just like Descartes’s certainty about¶ the cogito, on doubt or skepticism. Skepticism becomes the means
to reach¶ certainty and provide a solid foundation to the self. The role of skepticism is¶ central for European modernity. And just like the ego
conquiro predates and¶ precedes the ego cogito, a certain skepticism regarding the humanity of the¶ enslaved and
colonized sub-others stands at the background of the Cartesian¶ certainties and his methodic doubt.
Thus, before Cartesian methodic¶ skepticism (the procedure that introduced the heuristic device of the evil¶ demon and
which ultimately led to the finding of the cogito itself) became¶ central for modern understandings of self and world,
there was another kind of¶ skepticism in modernity which became constitutive of it. Instead of the ¶ methodical attitude that leads to the ego
cogito, this form of skepticism defines¶ the attitude that sustains the ego conquiro.
I characterize this attitude as racist/¶
imperial Manichean misanthropic skepticism. It could also be rendered as the¶ imperial attitude,
28
which gives definition to modern Imperial Man.24¶ Unlike Descartes’s methodical doubt, Manichean misanthropic
skepticism¶ is not skeptical about the existence of the world or the normative status of¶ logics and
mathematics. It is rather a form of questioning the very humanity of¶ colonized peoples. The Cartesian
idea about the division between res cogitans¶ and res extensa (consciousness and matter) which
translates itself into a divide¶ between the mind and the body or between the human and nature is preceded¶ and
even, one has the temptation to say, to some extent built upon an¶ anthropological colonial difference between the
ego conquistador and the ego¶ conquistado. The very relationship between colonizer and colonized
provided a¶ new model to understand the relationship between the soul or mind and the¶ body ; and
likewise, modern articulations of the mind/body are used as models¶ to conceive the
colonizer/colonized relation, as well as the relation between man and woman, particularly the woman of
color.25 This difference translates¶ itself into European and non-European and into lighter and darker peoples, or¶ what W.E.B.
Du Bois refers to as the color-line.26 If the ego conquiro¶ anticipates in some ways the subjective turn and
solipsism of the ego cogito,¶ then Manichean skepticism in some ways opens the door and shapes the¶
reception of Cartesian skepticism. This point of view also leads to the idea that¶ it would be impossible to provide an adequate
account of the crisis of modern¶ Europe without reference, not only to the limits of a Cartesian view of the¶ world, but also to the traumatic
effects of Manichean misanthropic skepticism¶ and its imperial ethos.¶ Misanthropic
skepticism doubts in a way the most
obvious. Statements like¶ ‘you are a human’ take the form of cynical rhetorical questions: Are you¶
completely human? ‘You have rights’ becomes ‘why do you think that you¶ have rights?’ Likewise ‘You
are a rational being’ takes the form of the question¶ ‘are you really rational?’ Misanthropic skepticism
is like a worm at the very¶ heart of modernity. The achievements of the ego cogito and instrumental¶
rationality operate within the logic that misanthropic skepticism helped to¶ established. That is why
the idea of progress always meant in modernity¶ progress for a few and why the Rights of Man do
not apply equally to all,¶ among many other such apparent contradictions. Misanthropic skepticism¶ provides the
basis for the preferential option for the ego conquiro, which explains¶ why security for some can
conceivably be obtained at the expense of the lives¶ of others.27 The imperial attitude promotes a
fundamentally genocidal attitude¶ in respect to colonized and racialized people. Through it colonial
and racial¶ subjects are marked as dispensable.
29
Link – Coeval/Time
Modernity and Developmental Globalization is based on the colonial denial of
coeval culture-the epistemic hegemony of colonial matrices frames temporal
linearity as the classification of primitives to be exploited-the very concept of
“under-development” that drives the Aff to economically engage is a colonial
framing of time that portrays Latin America as behind the U.S. in time and
progress—a weapon for justifying domination
Mignolo 11 (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, “THE DARKER SIDE OF WESTERN MODERNITY:
Global Futures, Decolonial Options”, 2011, 6/28/13|Ashwin)
The thesis that I'm advancing and that I would like to propose is the following. Whatever
the conceptualization of "time" in
the social sciences today, the humanities, or the natural sciences, it is caught and woven into the
imaginary of the modern/colonial world-system. This is the weak version of my thesis. The strong version is that time
itself is a central concept of that imaginary. Let me clarify that I use imaginary to identify the social and geopolitical
dimensions of modernity/coloniality; both the coloniality of power (e.g., strategies of colonization implied in modernity)
producing the colonial difference and the different forms of adaptation, resistance, subaltern
alternatives, forced by coloniality of power. I am thinking, in brief, of the imaginary of the modern/colonial
world-system from the perspective of the colonial difference. My understanding of "imaginary" follows¶ the
Martinican writer and thinker Edouard Glissant who conceives it as the ways, conflictive and contradictory, a culture has of perceiving and
conceiving of the world. 6Notice, however, that Glissant defines imaginary from
the history and experience of people who
suffered the consequences of African slavery in the Caribbean, rather than from the history and experience of¶ those who
forced contingents of enslaved Africans to the Americas. Hegel's and Glissant's engagement with the imaginary of the modern/colonial world
do not come from the same memory: they are at the different ends of the colonial difference. Hegel contributed to creating the colonial
difference by translating geography into chronology.' Glissant is contributing
to the undoing of the colonial
difference by revealing its structure and that of the coloniality of power that underlies it s Below I will
expand on this definition. Now, I am only interested in rethinking the geopolitical imaginary of the modern/colonial world-system from the
perspectives of coloniality and colonial difference (instead of modernity).¶ Let's, first, look at how "barbarians" became an image of modernity
to classify certain people who, subsequently, had no choice but to deal with the fact that they had been classified as "barbarians!'
Coloniality of knowledge works here as an epistemic strategy to create the colonial difference. At the
inception of the colonial matrix of power, "barbarians" were located in space.' By the eighteenth century,
when "time" came into the picture and the colonial difference was redefined, "barbarians" were translated into
"primitives" and located in time rather than in space. "Primitives" were in the lower scale of a chronological order driving toward "civilization:"¶
Second, let's examine how the subalternization of knowledges was implied in the classification of "barbarians"
and "primitives" (new categories in the imaginary of the colonial matrix, added to "pagans; "infidels; and the like). And third, let's identify
the moment in which "natural history" was transformed from a description of entities and the search for universal laws (Newton, Kant) into the
chronological narrative that starts at the "beginning of time; the secular version of the beginning of the world and of human beings." I hope
that these three episodes will help us to understand¶ the inter-connections between the conceptualization of time, the colonial matrix of power
in the management of the colonial difference: time was conceived and naturalized as both the measure of human history (modernity) and the
time-scale of human beings (primitives) in their distance with modernity. The denial of coevalness redefined indeed
colonial and imperial differences (for even Chinese and Russian civilizations were not considered primitives but back in time) and
built them around the notion of time, instead of space. This redefinition contributed to holding
together the colonial matrix of power imaginary from its emergence as part of the Atlantic. So "barbarians" then
were located in space, not in time. Barbarians were different and lesser humans, but not traditional or primitive back in time. Nor were they
conceived as remnants of the past. However, in the foreground of the Christian imaginary being transformed into the imaginary of the
modern/colonial world, there was a teleological concept of world history, with an origin (creation) and an end (the final judgment). Hundreds
of paintings of the final judgment are dispersed in museums all over the Western world. But time here does not imply "progress" from
beginning to end. It does imply, however, a final destination, the end of the world, and¶ the final judgment. If
"barbarians:' in the
New World, were located not in time but in space, this was because their subaltern position was
mapped on the "chain of beings" model, a model than ranked the entities of the world from rocks to human beings, and all was
subsumed under "nature" as the work of God. The "chain of being" was a "vertical" model complementing the "horizontal" model provided by
30
the T -in-o map." Space

was the principle of classification, vertically and horizontally.¶ By the eighteenth
century the translations of barbarians into primitives supplanted the "chain of beings" model with a
new one. The new model had two main features. First, primitives were closer to nature and civilized people were at the peak of culture.
Second, primitives were traditional, and civilized Europeans were modern. Knowledges beyond the
epistemic Euro- pean imaginary from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment were disquali-¶ fied as sustainable
knowledges, although recognized in their past and traditional values. In the sixteenth century, some knowledges were
considered dangerous (Indigenous knowledge, for example), and Spanish missionaries devoted themselves to an extirpation of
idolatries that was indeed an¶ epistemic lobotomy. In the eighteenth century, knowledge was not extir- pated, but transformed into an object,
and in that project "Orientalism" was born <Continues 2 Pages Later>
Notice that in both cases it is the "side" of above and of below, and not just above and below. But what
is the difference between
cultural relativism (or cultural differences) and colonial and imperial differences; and why is time so
important here? It is because it was through the concept of time that the distinction between modernity
and tradition was made. Today when someone claims "tradition" in a non-European history, he or she is
critiqued for aiming at an identity that can no longer be retrieved; the vexing question is that tradition was invented
in the process of building modernity. The idea of modernity needed its own tradition in order to be distinguished as modernity. Thus while
modernity was established by inventing its own tradition (Middle Ages and Antiquity) and colonizing time, it so
happens that in the colonization of space the rhetoric of moderniy was used to disavow the legitimacy of the "traditions" (invented in the
process of inventing modernity) of civi-¶ lizations that were colonized. It
was by means of the concept of time that cultural
differences were classified according to their proximity to modernity or to tradition. The discourse on
cultural differences hides the logic of coloniality that the discourse on the colonial and imperial differences displays. The first presupposes that
cultures are discrete entities, semanti-¶ tally closed, and that translation is difficult or sometimes impossible when cultures do not share the
same language, the same script, or the same religion. The second, instead, tries to conceptualize historically how cultural differences were
indeed constructed by the coloniality of power simultaneous with the emergence of the North Atlantic. Colonial and imperial dif-¶ ferences
raise questions of power and knowledge, of course; but questions concerning the coloniality of knowledge and of complicity in the making of
the modern world are better still. Why? Because based
on a certain understanding of time and/or space, you may
end up believing that you are behind in time; and if you believe so, you are more likely to want to
catch up with modernity. If you fall into this trap, you have lost the game before beginning it. The discourse on cultural
differences remains within the theo- and ego-political frame of knowledge, meaning, and
interpretation. The discourse of colonial and imperial differences is already a departure, a way of
delinking, and a form of epistemic disobedience that opens a parallel road to knowing, sensing,
believing, and living.¶ Consequently, my previous narrative about the translation from mon- sters to barbarians and then to primitives,
as well as my underlining the coming into being of the distinction between nature and culture, were prompted by the thrust of my argument:
that "time"
is a fundamental concept in building the imaginary of the modern/colonial world and an in-
strument for both controlling knowledge and advancing a vision of society based on progress and
development. At the end of the sixteenth century Mathew Ricci suggested that Chinese science was falling behind that of the West, since
the Chinese had no conceptions of the rule of logic, and because¶ their science of ethics was merely a series of confused maxims and deduc-
tions." Ricci's observations were not isolated, but complemented Christian discourses about the Moors and about Incas and Aztecs.¶ The
epistemic colonial and imperial differences did not end with decolonization in Asia and Africa after the Second
World War (nor did they end, of course, with revolutions and independences in Americas and the Caribbean from 1776 to 1830). Currently,
the transformation of colonial differences is entrenched in what we now call globalization in such a
way that it makes sense to think in terms of global coloniality. It continues to be reproduced by global
capitalism, and "time" continues to nourish the imaginary that reproduces colonial and imperial
difference. However, as we saw in chapter 1, the incomplete project of modernity may never be completed, due to the fact that
rewesternization is no longer the only game in town. Differential times and differential memories and histories are
delinking from the belief that there is only one line of time; and this is a reasonable conclusion if one follows Christian
or secular Hegelian time-linear narratives. All these considerations account for the need to think in terms of coloniality at large, and not only
of modernity at large; and by extension—as I do in this book—of decoloniality at large.¶ Imperial
time is translated into the
time of a given nation. The emergence of the modern nation-state in Europe, as well as the parallel
emergence of the modern/colonial nation-states in the Americas and, subsequently, in Asia and Africa, shows one specific
transformation of the colonial matrix of power. The modern nation-state became the imperial tool for the control of authority in the colonies
during the process of building (during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) modern/colonial nation-states. Nation-states (in
their
modern European or modern/colonial American, Asian, and African versions) are not "outside" the colonial
31
matrix. "Internal colonialism" is a concept that describes the mutation of imperial into national management in the ex-European colonies.
What is "internal colonialism" if not the persistence of the coloniality of knowledge (and therefore the
control of authority and economy) under nation-building processes after decolonization? This is why coloniality remains as the
hidden side of modernity, and why there cannot be modernity without coloniality. The places
defined by the interaction between modernity and coloniality are the places where the colonial
difference is being played out in a constant conflict. Im- perial narratives were entangled with
national narratives after these events, and the emergence of nation-states (modern or modern/colonial) became an exemplar of the
linear process and the advancement of global human history.¶ Again, what does "time" have to do with all of this? As you may have guessed: a
lot. Narratives of beginning and end, from the creation to the final judgment, told in the sixteenth century in Christian Europe were imposed
beyond the Euro-Christian continent. The possibility of thinking in terms of the sky where birds fly and where daylight is perceived, where the
Tinku as ritual maintained the complementarity of the opposites, where Pacha Kuti was the horizon to be avoided—all this was cast out to non-
¶ sustainable types of knowledge. The same template (e.g., coloniality of knowledge) will be enacted from the end of the eighteenth on, when
Brit- ish and French imperial designs moved to Asia and Africa. If
the sixteenth century was when the global distinction
between space and time emerged, including a linear concept of time linked to sacred history, the
eighteenth century celebrated the final victory of "time" by opening up the links between time and
secular history. Secular history redefined the logic of coloniality, and "time" became a central rhetorical figure in the
self-definition and self-fashioning of modernity: modernity is a "time" based concept.¶ Kant gave the colonial
and imperial differences in space its final format when, in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, he coupled race with territories: red
people are in America (he was thinking of course in North America), yellow in Asia, black in Africa, and white in Europe (see chapter 5). But
Kant also connected time with secular history. Consequently, we (those engage in decolonial thinking) are working to delink and disconnect
from Kant's linkages and connections. His theses on the "Idea of Univer- sal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" (1784) (see chapter 7)
are argued from "progressive" or "developmental" conceptions of the human¶ race. In the first thesis Kant states that "all natural capacities of
creatures are destined to evolve completely to their natural end" (emphasis added). The second thesis maintains, "In man those natural
capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual" (emphasis added). Now, if
you put together "anthropology from a pragmatic point of view" and "universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view:' what you get is a
universal perspective on history based on a racial distribution of the planet. 28And time has a crucial
function in such a distribution. For, according to the thesis argued in "anthro-¶ pology," civilization can only be defined,
implemented, and guided by the white man who is in Europe at the present moment of a linear, historical time. Modernity and
tradition, progress and stagnation, city and country, speed and slow motion, and so on were
distinctive temporal features of the second stage of the modern/colonial world. Between Kant and the nine-
teenth century, during the second stage of modernity characterized by the "denial of coevalness," time became a
central factor in making and recast- ing colonial differences. Progress, a weapon of the civilizing
mission, was the key rhetorical figure in the nineteenth century; development, after the Second World War,
was its successor as the rhetorical figure in a new stage of coloniality of power re-mapping the colonial difference. Modernity,
progress, and development cannot be conceived without a linear concept of time defining a point of
arrival. To understand what tradition and underdevelopment means, it was necessary to have, first, the concept of modernity and
progress/development, since they (tradition and development) are non-existing entities outside the discourse of modernity and development.
Coloniality is the hidden, logical connection between modernity and tradition, and to experience it is also to experience the "magic moment"
that makes us believe that modernity and tradition are concepts that name what there is. To be redundant: there
is no modernity
and tradition beyond the rhetoric of the same modernity that invented itself, by inventing its own
tradition and making believe that the concept of tradition is universal. And in order to do that, it was necessary to
develop a linear concept of time embedded in the very notions of progress and evolution.
32
Link – Cuba – Racism
Two hundred years ago Someruelos stood over the Cuban people and spoke of
the inhuman. Those without liberty, without autonomy, without freedom, and
yet somehow they had burned a plantation to the ground under a man named
Aponte. As his people stood quaking in the wake of revolution he explained that
they were much more civilized than these barbarians, stating that revolutionary
politics only comes to those with white skin.
Fischer 4 [Sibylle, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature, Ph.D. 1995
(Comparative Literature/Spanish and Portuguese) from Columbia University, Modernity Disavowed : Haiti and the
Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, p 41-43,
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/utexas/Doc?id=10203074&ppg=60}
In the early weeks of 1812, a rumor began to circulate among Cuban slaves and free people of color: the Spanish Cortes in Cádiz had abolished slavery, it said, and the Cuban slaveholders were
cheating their slaves of their liberty. Unrest was in the air. In a letter to Salvador Muro y Salazar, Márquez of Someruelos— the Captain General of the island— someone reported having
overheard a black woman announcing that ‘‘it won’t be long now before the land will be ruled by Blacks, and we’ll have a King.’’ ∞ Then news arrived about an
assault on the sugar plantation of Peñas Altas, in the vicinity of Havana: after a brief and bloody battle, the plantation had been burned to the ground. On March 19, 1812, the authorities
arrested nine conspirators. After three weeks of interrogation by a special council, the accused were sentenced to death. On the eve of the execution, Someruelos
addresses himself to the Cuban people: There was an attempt to overturn the old and well-
established submission of the serfs . . . which lacked all fact and antecedent except in the conceited and heated brain of the black José Antonio Aponte and of
It is
some others who, deceived by his clumsy and laughable calculations, wanted to quench their stupid ambition with honors and employments in the ambit of that fantastic king.
absolutely necessary that they [the slaves] be relieved of the illusion that slavery has been
therefore
abolished, by telling them frankly that there is not, and never has been, such liberty. . . . In light of these facts, the public will cease to believe in
the extraordinary significance and supreme transcendence that have been given to this matter, which did not exceed the knowledge of a few, without plan, coordination, help, or support of
next Thursday morning,
natives or foreigners. . . . What remains to be announced to this respectable public is that I have ordered the announced sentence to be executed
the heads of Aponte, Lisundia, Chacón, and Barbier will be exhibited in the most public and convenient
in the usual place, and that
places as a warning lesson for those of their class. (217– 19) The proclamation ends with a call for calm at the time of the execution, so as to prove
yet again the ‘‘enlightenment, religiosity, and understanding’’ at which the Cuban people had always excelled. Someruelos is rehearsing a strategy that
we will find time and again in the elite’s dealings with slave rebellions and events potentially linked to
Haiti. He rea≈rms the hemispheric bonds of colonialism that link Cuba to Spain and denies any
connections that would violate the boundaries of empire . Aponte’s insurgency is presented as a unique event, the result of the
megalomaniacal aspirations of one individual, with neither local nor foreign support for the uprising: the conspiracy was based on misinformation, delusions, and
deception. Someruelos’s proclamation betrays its secret through what it denies: by calling Aponte a ‘‘fantastic king,’’ he conjures up the image of the Haitian king Henri Christophe,
whose portrait had supposedly been in Aponte’s possession. The coconspirators’ attempt to ‘‘quench their stupid ambition with honors and occupations’’ again hints at the precedent in Haiti,
where the former slaves had indeed received honors and employment by heads of state coming from their own ranks. The real specter behind Someruelos’s calming and reassuring remarks to
A
the enlightened public can be discerned only through the sequence of denials and denunciations. Haiti remains unnamed. The political and strategic payo√ of this redescription is clear.
dismissal of the political activities of the nonwhite population as delusionary fantasy would not preclude cautionary
measures. But to the extent that the reality of these activities is acknowledged, their political meaning and transcendence are denied . By
establishing a close link between the events of the conspiracy and the rumors about an abolitionist Spanish law, Someruelos disavows the revolutionary
intent of Aponte and instead assimilates it to moderate abolitionism. This, it seems to me, is more important than his hard line on
abolitionism itself: together with any possible connection with Haiti, he eliminates the third possibility, that of black agency, and of a slave revolution on
the Haitian model. Part of the extensive transcript compiled through three weeks of interrogation relates to a variety of artifacts that were reported to have been in Aponte’s possession,
among them portraits of Toussaint Louverture, Henri Christophe, and Dessalines. Most notable, however, was an oversized book wrapped in black oilskin that contained an eclectic array of
more than sixty pictures with religious, political, and historical themes. The transcript of the interrogation about the pictures reads like a record of deadly hermeneutics: it takes us to the
border point where transculturation and the fight over meaning turn into a struggle for dominance and survival, and where even the question of verisimilitude becomes a question of life or
death.
33
A hundred years later on the eve of the Cuban republic, the events of Aponte
are conjured up from the depths of history by Francisco Calcagno. While his
story begins with a violent deception of Aponte’s severed head, he refuses to
speak of Aponte as a political subject, articulating Aponte as a byproduct of
racial warfare, instead of a revolutionary. This refusal to recognize blacks as
revolutionary agents is proof that even post slavery the Cuban revolution is only
thinkable without the black insurgent.
Fischer 4 [Sibylle, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature, Ph.D. 1995
(Comparative Literature/Spanish and Portuguese) from Columbia University, Modernity Disavowed : Haiti and the
Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, p 41-43,
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/utexas/Doc?id=10203074&ppg=60}
Yet despite all of this, the memory of the Aponte uprising continued to linger in popular oral traditions and in the minds of people fearful of
what might happen if proper precautions were not taken. Almosta hundred years later, on the eve of the declaration
of the Cuban Republic, the events of the 1812 conspiracy are called up again by Francisco Calcagno, the author of the first
study of poets of color in Cuba and certainly no apologist for slavery. His historical novel Aponte
opens with a gory depiction of the conspirator’s severed head, surrounded by flies and an unbearable
stench: a barbaric monster with ‘‘a soul as black as his face’’ and savagely sharpened crocodile teeth
who had modeled himself on Dessalines and Christophe. ≤∑ The novel’s story, however, stays clear of Aponte and
instead focuses on a fictional mulatto slave who joins Aponte after having been used as bait in a complicated plot of revenge
that turns on class prejudice among whites. The insurgent hordes remain a threatening, dangerous force beyond the
limits of the narrative. Aponte is the name of the unspeakable catastrophe that ensues if Cuban
society cannot resolve the tensions between social classes. In Calcagno’s novel, Aponte, and racial warfare
in general, are contained, it seems, through a narrative displacement: what seemed prior— namely,
racial warfare— is shown to be posterior; what seemed to be the cause of danger is shown to be the
effect. The political claims of the enslaved population and their allies exist only as epiphenomena of
other conflicts. The literary fiction thus transposes a conflict that apparently cannot be addressed directly. It is Calcagno’s merit to have
found an articulation that lets a repressed, fearsome memory seep back into public sphere; to become knowledge again. But in doing so, he
illustrates the fact that even after abolition, independence is thinkable only after the black insurgent is
eliminated from the body politic. Aponte’s name continues to mark the distance between conflicting ideas of emancipation.
34
Cuba is still smothered in anti-black racism

Zurbano 3/23 [Roberto Zurbano, editor and publisher of the Casa de las Américas publishing house,
“For Blacks in Cuba the Revolution Hasn’t Begun”, New York Times, March 23,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/for-blacks-in-cuba-the-revolution-hasnt-
begun.html]
Most remittances from abroad — mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile
community — go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily be
converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts — the most common kind of private business in Cuba.
Black Cubans have less property and money, and also have to contend with pervasive racism. Not long
ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to
offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele.¶ That type of blatant racism has become
less socially acceptable, but blacks are still woefully underrepresented in tourism — probably the
economy’s most lucrative sector — and are far less likely than whites to own their own businesses. Raúl
Castro has recognized the persistence of racism and has been successful in some areas (there are more
black teachers and representatives in the National Assembly), but much remains to be done to address
the structural inequality and racial prejudice that continue to exclude Afro-Cubans from the benefits
of liberalization.¶ Racism in Cuba has been concealed and reinforced in part because it isn’t talked
about. The government hasn’t allowed racial prejudice to be debated or confronted politically or
culturally, often pretending instead as though it didn’t exist. Before 1990, black Cubans suffered a
paralysis of economic mobility while, paradoxically, the government decreed the end of racism in
speeches and publications. To question the extent of racial progress was tantamount to a
counterrevolutionary act. This made it almost impossible to point out the obvious: racism is alive and
well.¶ If the 1960s, the first decade after the revolution, signified opportunity for all, the decades that
followed demonstrated that not everyone was able to have access to and benefit from those
opportunities. It’s true that the 1980s produced a generation of black professionals, like doctors and
teachers, but these gains were diminished in the 1990s as blacks were excluded from lucrative sectors
like hospitality. Now in the 21st century, it has become all too apparent that the black population is
underrepresented at universities and in spheres of economic and political power, and
overrepresented in the underground economy, in the criminal sphere and in marginal neighborhoods.
35
Link—Cuba—Racism
Racialization infects the Cuban state model as well—their romanticiziation of Cuba recreates white
supremacy
Martinot No Date (Steve, Instructor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Programs at San Francisco State
University, The Nation-State and Cuba’s Alternative State,
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~marto/cuba2.htm)
With respect to the racialization that constitutes the nation-state, in its relation to the Cuban state, it is
an ambiguous or even contradictory situation. During the early years of the revolution, discrimination on
the basis of race was outlawed in principle, and fought conscientiously by the revolutionary leadership.
Social clubs, social facilities, and educational or health institutions that discriminated racially were fairly
rapidly closed or taken over by the government and run on a non-discriminatory basis. All employment,
government participation, education, health care, and housing has been opened to all, without
discrimination. But politically, in the wake of these actions (which were by and large successful), the
Cuban government took the stand that if racial discrimination had been eliminated, then race ceased
to be a factor, and was not something that needed to be spoken about or addressed offially any more.
So no specific laws addressing racial discrimination were passed, and organizations based on race, such
as a number of black "societies" that had grown up during the pre-revolutionary period, were
discouraged or even closed down. What the absence of discourse on racism and white supremacy
assumed was that if race were not spoken of, it would disappear; it left the cultural traces of the
earlier structures of racialization in Cuba, as white supremacist as anywhere else, intact. This is the
one exception to the culture of dialogue and consultation that grew up in other areas of Cuban
political life. And when the Cuban economy had to shift to tourism for economic growth, the racism
inherent in the dormant structures of racialization re-emerged in new and old forms of white
supremacy. The Cuban government is now struggling with this problem on a number of fronts, which
would be too complicated to go into in this paper.
36
Link—Economic Engagement
Economic engagement is an encounter with Latin America -
Salvatore 1998 (Ricardo, Departmento de Historia , Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, The Enterprise of
Knowledge: Representational Machines of Informal Empire, in Close Encounters of Empire, 69-85)
In this essay, I examine a set of representations of the encounter between North Americans and South
Americans during the construction of the U.S. informal empire in the region. Rather than proposing a particular model or
explanation about the genesis of the empire, my objective is to displace the problematic of empire to the terrain of
representations, culture, and practice. The essay is exploratory, its conclusions preliminary. It attempts to map the terrain in broad
strokes as a way of initiating a longer research project. The search advances in different directions: seeking analytical tools that could help
conceptualize the subject matter, describing the variety of interventions that constitute the informal empire, establishing connections among
these interventions, and interpreting the narratives of different cultural mediators, all the while identifying elements of continuity and change.
While exploratory, the
essay calls attention to the representational nature of the postcolonial encounter, focusing in particular on
the construction of "South America" as a field of North American engagement . Second, the essay stresses the
relevance of certain conceptual tools, -? j among them the notion of "representational devices," as a way of organiz-¶ ing our own
reconstruction of the phenomena under analysis. Finally, the essay tries to establish the centrality of a given imaginary for legitimating the
expansionist project, something I call "the enterprise of knowledge."¶ Representational Devices and Practices of Empire¶ British colonialism in
South Africa, according to John and Jean Comaroff, was a complex assemblage embodying at least three models of colonial governance, each
one with its enunciators and predicaments: the state overseeing and exploring territory, the white settlers coercing the aborigi- nes for profit,
and the religious missions in charge of "civilizing" and pro- tecting the latter.1 Each of the three competing colonialisms stressed one aspect of
the imperial impulse: the state emphasized the political and legal aspects of British rule; the settlers, the racial bases of socioeconomic co-
ercion; and the missionaries, the ethos and practices of bourgeois Europe. None of the three discourses and interventions were reducible to
another; on the contrary, each stood in contradiction with the others, carrying into the construction of empire the conflict over the meaning of
"Britain." Far¶ from constituting a monolithic and unchanging structure, British colonialism was the displacement of the ongoing tension of
institutions, values, images, and practices in Britain onto the territory of South Africa.2¶ In similar fashion, we
may think of the U.S.
informal empire built around the period 1890-1920 as a collection of diverse discourses, multiple mediators or agents, and
various and, at times, contradictory representations. Theories of imperialism and dependency have accustomed us to think of North American
domination or hegemony in terms of a few interventions, namely the economic, the diplomatic, and the military. Culture, textuality, and, more
generally, other types of interventions (scientific, reformist, religious, literary, etc.) received a short shrift in these conceptions.3 We need at
this juncture to reintroduce the question of diversity in the making of the North American informal empire. In part, this can be accomplished by
considering other cultural mediators whose texts and visions have left an important and enduring imprint in the metanarratives of U.S.
expansionism.¶ Many
were the ambassadors of "American culture" in South America: missionaries, agricultural
settlers, educators, social reformers, scientists, businessmen, labor organizers, journalists, travelers,
and navy and army officers, among others. Each of them must have seen South America with different eyes and therefore
textualized the North American presence in the region in distinctive ways. Despite commonalities of culture, North Americans' engagement
with South American countries and their peoples varied significantly. Common cultural anxieties, the use of the same cognitive categories, and
similar predispositions to see, document, and experiment did not preclude the existence of tensions in the ways these ambassadors negotiated
the values, traditions, and presuppositions of the two cultures. Also diverse was the degree of these mediators' involvement with the host
society and, presumably, their conceptions of the U.S. role in South America—their reasons for empire.4¶ In order to
understand both the
tensions and the coherence within the discourse of informal empire, we need to conceive of the latter as a collective
enterprise encompassing multiple practices of engagement, practices that included, necessarily, the production
and circulation of representations. The diversity of views, involvements, and predicaments implied by the term engagement can be
analytically separated into professional or occupationally based interpretive communities (writers, engi- neers, traders, investors, priests, and
so forth) and ultimately rearranged according to the distinct practices cooperating for the inclusion of South America within the orbit of North
An adequate reconsideration of the
American knowledge (collecting, mapping, narrating, photographing, displaying, etc.).5
postcolonial encounter can no longer ignore the multiplicity of these practices of engagement or
minimize the importance of representations in the constitution of these practices. ¶ The construction of the
U.S. informal empire was a collective enterprise laden with representations. Beyond the extraction of economic surplus
through commerce, direct investment, or the provision of services, the empire was a pharaonic
accumulation of representations. Just as an army of photographers, museum directors, land surveyors, railroad promoters,¶
journalists, scientific explorers, and popular entertainers contributed to form the idea of "the West" that fed the transcontinental
migrations,6 the construction of "South America" as a territory for the projection of U.S. capital,
expertise, dreams, and power required the channeling of massive energies into the production of images and texts. The
37
arguments for hemispheric hegemony—and also the economics and politics of empire—had to be
lodged in representations: beyond diplomatic tours, Pan-American conferences, or company towns, the Pax Americana existed in
maps, paintings, geography books, novels, and natural history exhibits.¶ Legitimating the presence of North American
capital, expertise, ideas, and values in the lands to the south demanded a double and simultaneous textual
construction: describing the other (South America) in terms of a perennial deficit or vacuum, and ascribing
meaning to "the mission" (the role of the North Americans in the region). Without one or the other, the expansion of U.S. capital and culture
would be impaired, its legitimacy negated. Rather than being guided by a single logic, the postcolonial encounter produced a mass of
representations transected by competing discourses about the other and the mission. The reasons for informal
empire confronted
arguments of economic interest, benevolence, moral reform, knowledge, and the "national interest ."
Similarly, diverse textual producers (belonging to distinct interpretive or professional communities) engendered competing visions of South
America. The region was imagined as a large potential market, as an impressive experiment in racial mixture and republicanism, as a target for
missionary colonization, as a reservoir of "evidence" for the natural sciences, as the site for the regeneration of "humanity," and so on. In this
essay, I want to explore the discursive formation of informal empire (as built by North American textual producers) in all its diversity, posing
simultaneously the question of regularity, order, and commonality in the production and circulation of representations of South America. Both
sides of the coin are important. As each cultural producer belonged to a particular professional or interpretive community in the United
States—or, better, as they were involved in particular projects belonging to a certain field of power/knowledge—their encounters with South
America must have left variegated representations. At the same time, conventions of genre, technologies of observation, and institutional
practices of display limited the set of arguments used by different agents. Narrative and visual representations of South America, though
Diversity and order in the
diverse, present recurrent metaphors, familiar associations, and often interchangeable images.¶
production and circulation of representations of South America must be in turn related to changes in
the nature of the imperial economy and state and to the development of technologies of seeing , regimes
of exhibition, and practices of science. The objective is not to construe yet another reified version of empire but to propose an
analytical framework that can accommodate multiple forms of imperial engagement, relate cultural anxieties and questions of political
economy in the United States to the discursive production of empire, and attribute its¶ due importance to the changing technologies of
reproduction and display.7 Stephen Greenblatt's concept of representational machine can be profitably employed in this regard. A
representational machine is a set of mechanisms, processes, and apparatuses that produce and circulate representations constitutive of
cultural difference.8 The term machine is used to indicate that texts are produced, circulated, displaced, or re-signified with the help of certain
technologies of representation and display.9 In the same way that machines are assemblages of different tools organized for the production of
goods, representational machines are collections of¶ dispositives or devices (each one with its own logic of representation) organized for the
production of cultural difference. Although the production of representations is not rigidly determined by the devices used, these technologies
of seeing and displaying influence the construction of alterity. A collection of devices ranging from the printed press to ethno- logical exhibits
(from romantic novels to photography), representational technologies are the vehicles through which statements about other cultures are
produced and disseminated.¶ By integrating two apparently distinct realms—technology and culture—Greenblatt's concept challenges us to
see the complex connections between the constitutive powers of an imperial society (the economy, the state, the reformist elite, the media,
the aesthetic producers) and the representations that mediate the contact between cultures. Both technology and circulation are central to
Greenblatt's concept of representational machines. To translate an undifferentiated succession of local, individual, concrete events of
encounter into larger, more meaningful narratives— narratives that convey meaning to formulations of nation, empire, race, or masculinity—
each culture must work with and through certain representational
technologies.10 These technologies set the boundaries
of what is representable and provide guidance as to how, given the parameters of the receptive
culture, a certain object is to be represented.¶ Circulation, according to Greenblatt, is the aim of most representations of
difference. Through thousands of appropriations and metamorphoses, enunciations, images, and performances produced in a given context
reach various audiences or readerships, carrying with them prevailing cultural anxieties about self and other, the social system, the role of
science, the right of government, and so forth.11 The message implicit in one form of representation is rapidly incorporated into another and
from there disseminated throughout the cultural field. The displacement of a given representation in turn produces a shift in its meaning: each
interpretive community receives, appropriates, and reinterprets in particular ways the representational harvest of empire. This makes
representational machines quite malleable, eroding in fact the rigidity implied in the term machine.12 ¶ The concept of representational
machines can help us visualize the workings of the multiple representational practices that have constituted the U.S. informal empire in
South America. The region became visible and apprehensible to North America only through concrete
representational practices and devices (e.g., travel narratives, geographic handbooks, photograph albums, and
ethnographic exhibits). These representational practices constituted the stuff of empire as much as the
activities of North Americans in the economic, military, or diplomatic fields. ¶
38
Link – Economic Engagement
Foreign economic engagement in Latin America has led to under development

and inequality
Bruhn and Gallego 6 (Miriam, World Bank, and Francisco A, Department of Economics and Economic History and Cliometrics Lab, Papel
Catholic University of Chile, “Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities: Do They Matter for Economic Development?” October 19,
http://blogs.worldbank.org/files/allaboutfinance/Bruhn_Gallego_June_2010.pdf)
Levels of economic development vary widely within countries in the Americas. We argue that part of this
variation has its roots in the colonial era. Colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country, depending on local conditions.
Some activities, such as mining and sugar cultivation, were "bad" in the sense that they depended
heavily on the exploitation of labor and led to a low development path, while "good" activities that did not rely on the
exploitation of labor led to a high development path. We show that regions with bad colonial activities have lower output per capita
today than regions with good and regions with no colonial activities. Moreover, we examine levels of economic development before and after
colonization and evidence that colonization re- versed the economic fortunes of regions within a country. Our results also suggest that differences in
political representation(but not differences in income inequality or human capital) could be the intermediating factor between colonial activities and current development.¶ Levels of
the richest country (the US) has fifteen

economic development vary widely across countries. For example, in a sample of seventeen countries in the Americas,
times the GDP per capita of the poorest country (Honduras). Several recent papers have argued that these large differences in
economic development have their roots in history, particularly in the colonial era.¶ the claim that colonization
led to a reversal of fortunes bad activities, includes activities that displayed economies of scale and
relied heavily on the exploitation of labor, such as mining and sugar production. We denote these activities to be \bad"
since ES \associate them with low levels of economic development. In areas with a large native population, activities without
economies of scale were typically performed in large-scale operations with forced labor. We call these
colonial activities that relied primarily on the native population as an exploitable resource \ugly"
colonial activities. The reason why ES associate colonial activities that relied heavily on the exploitation of labor
with low long-run outcomes is that areas with these activities developed an institutional environment
that benefitted predominantly a relatively small elite of slave and land owners. trial mechanisms:
income inequality, human capital, and political representation. Our theoretical discussion suggests that extractive
colonial activities went along with the formation of an economic and political elite. As a result, society
came to be dominated by relatively few individuals, making it difficult for others to prosper and
acquire human and physical capital. Based on this argument, colonial activities could be correlated with income
inequality, such that areas with bad or ugly colonial activities and high population density are more
unequal today, which in turn could imply that these areas have lower levels of development today.
Similarly, education levels could also be lower in areas with unfavorable colonial activities, which could
lead to lower levels of development. We believe that the link to colonial activities and colonial elites could be as follows. Areas with bad and
ugly colonial activities tended to be wealthier during the colonial period than other areas (since they
produced the highest value products). They also had the strongest elites capturing this wealth and
unequal societies, probably with a small middle class. When military dictatorships developed in Latin
America, the military and associated parties were often supported by the middle class (see for example Burns,
1993), possibly in an effort to break the political power of colonial elites. This then might have led to
political over-representation of areas with good no colonial activities (through the mechanism described in Bruhn, Gallego, and
Onorato, 2010) after transition to democracy relative to areas with bad and ugly colonial activities. This over-
representation could have resulted in increased economic benefits for areas with no colonial activities (such as higher
transfers from the central government) that could explain why areas with bad and ugly colonial activities are less
economically developed today.
39
Economic engagement has empirically been the tool for American imperialism.
The US opens new markets to produce a specific form of knowledge to reshape
the identities of others to legitimize US colonialism
Domosh 6 [Mona, Joan p. and edward j. Foley, jr department chair, professor of geography at Dartmouth, Ph.D., Clark University,
“American Commodities in an Age of Empire”, Taylor & Francis]
Most “metanarratives” of American expansionism point to the¶ 1898 Spanish-American War as a critical starting point — to the rallying¶ cries
Yet long
of Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill and the acquisition¶ or annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Hawaii.1
before military men and machines had reached the shores¶ of other nations, American products — not
American guns — were¶ busy “subduing” and “civilizing” the “natives.” Since the mid-19th¶ century, the United
States had been engaged in what has been called¶ informal imperialism, defined by Mark Crinson as a “form of
imperialism¶ by which control was established through ostensibly peaceful ¶ means of free trade and
economic integration.”2 The ideological¶ configuration of this era of imperialism informed both
America’s¶ military interventions of the late 19th century and its later economic ¶ and cultural
dominance over large portions of the world. Central to¶ this configuration was the belief that American economic expansion¶
beyond its national borders was different from, and better than, the¶ military and political maneuvers of imperial Europe. In other words, ¶
American commercial expansion was, as the opening quote of this¶ chapter suggests, a great work of peace, a noble cause.¶ Today, most
people would have difficulty taking the sentiments¶ behind this idea seriously. Judging leadership in the world by the¶ “successful development
of the great works of peace” would require¶ attention to international aid agencies, health care initiatives, or the¶ number of political and
cultural ambassadors. In 1875, however, a¶ very different meaning was at hand: “great works of peace” referred ¶ to machines and other
industrial commodities, not medical breakthroughs¶ or international governing bodies. This quote was taken¶ from a book published in
anticipation of America’s Centennial Exhibition,¶ held in Philadelphia in 1876. What was on display there were¶ the products of industrial
development — machines and the commodities¶ they made. How and why these things were represented as¶ “works of peace” by companies
that sold them overseas, and in what¶ ways this discursive fashioning of commodities as “gifts” constituted¶ and reshaped Americans’
America’s first
understanding of other peoples and cultures,¶ is the subject of this book.¶ What I examine here are the ways in which
international¶ companies positioned their actions — selling commodities¶ overseas to increase
revenues — as part of the civilizing process (that¶ is, as a way of sharing the benefits of industrial development with¶ others)
and how, in turn, this positioning created different meanings ¶ of and knowledges about other peoples,
nations, cultures, and¶ places. I focus on the cultures of business, using businessmen and¶ women (managers, advertisers,
corporate presidents, salesmen) as the¶ “cultural mediators” whose images and texts were constituted from,¶ and in turn contributed to, one
of the major narratives of American¶ expansionism. The
story of American expansionism, as the first¶ quote at the beginning of
starts with the notion of American exceptionalism based on a moral and political
this chapter suggests,
superiority¶ over Europe. However, these commercial “cultural mediators” add¶ to this story in two ways: first, they imply that
American superiority¶ is a fact that is reflected in and can be judged by the quality and¶ quantity of its manufactures, not in its colonial
conquests; second,¶ they add a dynamic and fluid quality to this equation of commodities¶ and morality, such that industrial commodities are
seen to lead to¶ “peace” in other places over time.¶ This is a book, then, about the United States and its business cultures;¶ it does not directly
address the impact of American goods on,¶ and the narratives they brought with them to, other places. I interpret¶ the cultural representations
produced by five of the largest American¶ international companies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries —¶ Singer Manufacturing
Company3 (and its various subsidiaries), McCormick¶ Harvesting Machine Company (International Harvester after¶ 1902), H.J. Heinz Company,
Eastman Kodak Company, and the New¶ York Life Insurance Company (though I focus on the first three) — in¶ relationship to the particular
international experiences and cultures¶ of these companies and the larger socioeconomic context and ideological¶ formations of turn-of-the-
century America. By so doing, I add¶ another, and at times different, layer to our understanding of imperialism¶ — that is, to our understanding
of how power is imposed on¶ people and places beyond national borders. The companies I examine¶ produced visual and verbal images of
foreign worlds and cultures that¶ made the purchase of American commodities by foreigners appear¶ normal and inevitable, and thus made it
seem only natural that the¶ United States would continue to supply the world with its industrial¶ products. Foreign peoples and nations, in
other words, were positioned¶ as consumers, as feminized subjects, with the United States¶ positioned as the masculine producer. In this way,
the contested and¶ complex story of American economic dominance over large portions¶ of the world came to be seen by many Americans as
inevitable and¶ as natural as the patriarchal family. This was accomplished through¶ a reiteration of a particular set of visual and verbal stories
about¶ “others” living outside the borders of the United States, stories that¶ emphasized access to commodities as a way of signaling
difference,¶ reinforcing contemporary racial thinking that associated whiteness¶ with industrial development.4 Yet the focus on commodities
opened¶ the possibility that “others” could in fact become white, with all the ¶ attendant anxieties that such a “shock of sameness”5 might
40
produce.¶ As a result, the stories these early American international companies¶ told about “others” were comprised of various strategies to
reassert difference, strategies that were often contradictory but nonetheless¶ remained rooted to the expansion of consumption.¶ This
understanding is important to the ongoing critical reassessment¶ of imperialism — what has been called a critical postcolonial¶ perspective —
that has been undertaken by geographers, historians,¶ cultural theorists, and others. American imperialism has, until¶ recently,
been understood in terms of its territorial and political¶ claims, commencing with the Spanish-American War and
continuing¶ with increasing vigor through to the late 20th century as the United¶ States became the dominant global power.6 In this view, the
story of¶ American imperialism is a narrative dominated by the movement of¶ troops, capital, and resources. It is about conquest, production,
and¶ destruction. Yet,
as scholars are now showing, a complementary but¶ different story of imperialism
also needs to be told, one that is as¶ much about “civilization” and consumption as it is about
conquest¶ and production.7 This form of imperialism was perhaps more subtle¶ than what scholars
have examined, but it was no less effective in¶ creating systems of global economic and political
dominance. In fact,¶ one could argue that a primary instrument for the spread of American¶ influence in the
late 19th and 20th centuries has been the selling¶ of consumer products. It is no coincidence that the
so-called “American¶ Century”8 is also what Gary Cross calls “an all-consuming century”¶ 9; in other words,
the United States’ ascendancy throughout the¶ 20th century into a position of global dominance
coincides with, and¶ in fact I will argue is inseparable from, the dominance of an American-¶ style consumer
culture and economy over national and international¶ spaces .¶ For much of the 19th and 20th centuries,
American foreign and¶ economic policy was geared not toward the establishment of formal¶ colonies
but toward the expansion of markets. For the most part,¶ the United States’ political and economic elites were
not interested in¶ establishing territorial colonies, nor did they want to be involved in¶ the administration of political subjects. Rather, they
sought worldwide¶ markets for American mass-produced goods.10 Why they chose¶ to do so — in other words, why
the United States embarked on economic¶ instead of territorial expansion — is a question scholars have¶ long pondered and one that requires
close attention to the particular¶ historical and geographical contexts in which American economy,¶ society, and culture were formed.11 The
focus on mass production¶ and consumption can be partially explained by the relatively high¶ cost of
labor in the United States (leading to the development of a¶ type of capitalism that was reliant on profitability through high levels¶ of
productivity and that fostered technological innovations); by the push to take advantage of economies of scale within
the expanding¶ and seemingly endless markets of the “frontier”; and by a culture that¶ early on
required material acquisition as the determinant of status¶ or class. With an overriding political ethos that favored
individual¶ rights as the “key” to democracy, and without the immediate need¶ to engage in European power struggles, the United States’
economic¶ and political elites simply followed a path to economic growth that¶ was well honed from their experiences creating a national
market;¶ empire-making in the sense of colonial acquisitions was beside the¶ point. The
United States was engaged primarily
in informal imperialism,¶ in promoting trade and economic integration that suited¶ the needs of
American corporations. American empire, then, was¶ as much about ordinary commercial transactions
as it was about¶ political maneuvers or military interventions. Imperialism in this¶ sense was enacted
daily — on the docks, in the grocery stores, and¶ at home. Decades before the Spanish-American War, American
businesses¶ were developing international marketing strategies, establishing¶ shipping and transport networks, and reaping the rewards of an¶
expanded consumer market. At first, in the 1870s and 1880s, the¶ primary markets for American goods were the countries comprising¶
Later,¶ depending on the particular commodity, other
Western and Eastern Europe (including Russia) and Canada.
important markets¶ included Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan, Turkey, Thailand,¶ China, South Africa, Chile, and Peru.
This is not to deny, however, that the United States also engaged¶ in formal imperialism, sending large
armies into Mexico in 1846¶ and establishing what can only be called “colonies” in Cuba, Guam,¶
Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico through military and political ¶ manipulations coincident with
the 1898 Spanish-American War.¶ The causal relationships between America’s formal and informal¶ imperialism are complex, to say the least, and not always as one would¶ expect. For example, although most American
international companies¶ supported the 1898 war for patriotic reasons (it was an incredibly¶ popular war), many of the major players in America’s boardrooms¶ did not favor any future military incursions, finding that wars and¶ imperial governance got in the way of trade and
marketing.12 On the¶ other hand, America’s formal imperialism, particularly in the Philippines,¶ did lead to increased trade and economic integration, but this¶ economic activity was basically inconsequential when compared to¶ America’s primary markets in such places as Russia,
Argentina, and¶ Brazil. Compared to the importance of economic integration within¶ the British formal imperial world, United States’ formal empire contributed¶ relatively little to the global reach of American companies.13 That American goods competed successfully even with
14 In other words, America’s economic¶

Britishmade¶ products attests to the formidable strength of American mass¶ production technologies and to the innovative marketing strategies¶ pursued by many entrepreneurs.
imperialism was based primarily on the making and selling¶ of mass-produced commodities. Scientific
innovation combined with¶ Taylorist production facilities allowed American manufacturers to¶
produce “modern,” affordable commodities — at least to middleclass¶ families. Fairly well-connected rail and shipping
networks¶ developed throughout the latter half of the 19th century, made it¶ possible to move these goods over large distances, both within
the¶ United States and outside its borders. New marketing and advertising ¶ strategies, such as the establishment of overseas retail outlets,
41
literally¶ put the names of American-produced commodities on the streets¶ and in the homes of people from London to Peking to Buenos
Aires.¶ And as U.S. companies capitalized on their competitive advantages in¶ the mass production of commodities to effectively export and
market¶ their products overseas, the U.S. government pursued a foreign policy¶ that enabled these endeavors.15¶ As a result, in distinction to
the United States’¶ extension of power
the type of imperialism generally¶ recognized by geographers and political scientists,
beyond its national borders proceeded through¶ other channels, created multiple meanings and
knowledges, and fashioned¶ different types of geopolitical and spatial arrangements. In this¶
primarily economic empire, the “others” that Americans were confronting¶ were considered not
political subjects but potential consumers,¶ and worldviews were derived as much from a logic of
profit and¶ loss as they were from an outlook based on a racialized “family tree¶ of man.” 16 In other
words, what I argue in this book is that America’s¶ companies produced a narrative of progress — a temporally
fluid¶ view of culture and place — within which all people were potential¶ consumers and all nations
potentially modern .¶ Until relatively recently, very little has been written about the cultural ¶
implications of American commercial imperialism. The messy¶ and interconnected histories and geographies of colonial and
commercial¶ expansion have often been simplified through recourse to the¶ binary
“economy/culture,” with “economy” being the primary lens¶ through which commercial expansion has been viewed, and “culture”¶
serving that purpose for colonial rule. Yet case studies detailing the¶ imposition of power over peoples and spaces that we call
“imperialism”¶ have alerted us to the inseparability of economic and cultural ¶ claims to power; in other
words, to study one of these aspects of¶ imperial rule necessarily involves examining the other . On the one
hand, as Gordon Stewart17 has shown, even within the context of¶ a “down-to-earth” activity such as jute
manufacturing in colonial¶ India, the cultural discourse of civilization was at play. “Imperialism,”¶ he
concludes, “was much more than the product of its economic ¶ aspects.”18 On the other, that same discourse of
civilization that was¶ so fundamental to Americans’ ordering of space and time and relationships¶ with
“others” was, according to Matthew Frye Jacobson,¶ “at its core … an economic concept.”19 As Jacobson elaborates,
production,¶ sales, and profits were as fundamental to the late 19th and¶ early 20th centuries’ verbal
and visual language of difference as were¶ morality, religion, and civilization. Much of this scholarly recognition
of the inseparability of the¶ economic and cultural aspects of imperialism stems from studies of¶ the commodity cultures of empire within the
context of late 19th¶ and early 20th century Britain — studies that range from analyses¶ of World’s Exhibitions, department store displays,
colonial pursuits reshaped
popular music,¶ clothing styles, and advertising strategies.20 This series of works has¶ established how
imaginations, identities,¶ and everyday practices through the emerging culture of mass
commodification¶ within turn-of-the-century Great Britain. Other studies¶ have examined similar effects of imperial
commodity culture within¶ the colonial world. Timothy Burke’s fascinating historical analysis ¶ of the marketing of
hygienic products in Zimbabwe shows how selling¶ products beyond national borders often meant
reshaping people’s¶ identities and cultures — in this case, how selling manufactured soap¶ meant
convincing people of the efficacy of Western notions of personal¶ and social hygiene and establishing
Western ideals of bodily¶ beauty.21 Similarly, the essays in David Howes’ edited collection¶ Cross-Cultural Consumption focus on
the trade of consumer products¶ produced within one cultural context and sold to another, providing ¶ empirical studies of the cultural
malleability of commodities — in¶ other words, of how the same product can change meaning given its¶ particular cultural context.22
42
The aff’s promotion of economic engagement is indicative of a larger colonial

objective to create “correct consumptions” – where the “savage” is “civilized”
through the consumption of US goods
Domosh 6 [Mona, Joan p. and edward j. Foley, jr department chair, professor of geography at Dartmouth, Ph.D., Clark University,
“American Commodities in an Age of Empire”, Taylor & Francis]
This social maintenance becomes particularly interesting when¶ we consider that part of what fueled late 19th century Western society¶ was its
The popularization of Darwin’s
commitment to what Bederman calls a “Darwinist version of Protestant millennialism.”35
theories¶ of evolution in the latter part of the 19th century put a particular spin¶ on what had been a
long-held belief in American Christian culture:¶ that human history had only one “cosmic purpose,”
which was to¶ crusade against evil, and each successful battle brought humankind¶ closer to the
millennium when Christ would rule over a righteous¶ world. Discourses of civilization provided a way
of reconciling evolutionary¶ theory with this teleological belief in the movement of human¶ history
toward some type of perfection: instead of a deity working to¶ move humans toward perfection, evolution could do the trick.
Good¶ against evil was refigured as superior civilized races “outsurviving ”36¶ inferior races. And all good
Christians had as their duty to work¶ toward this perfect society, a society of perfect “womanliness” and¶ “manliness.” As Bederman observes,
“thismillennial vision of perfected¶ racial evolution and gender specialization was what people¶ meant
when they referred to ‘the advancement of civilization.’”37¶ Civilizing savage “races” helped pave the
road to this perfect society.¶ And because women were viewed as integral to this civilizing process, ¶ it
was of the utmost importance that their feminine roles be maintained.¶ If civilization itself was
defined by adherence to appropriate¶ gender roles, civilized societies had to be populated by manly
men¶ and womanly women, and part of what defined a womanly woman¶ was her role as a civilizer and domesticator of society.¶
Although this discourse of civilization/savagery has deep roots ¶ within Judeo-Christian culture and a
complex history, its particular¶ formulation in the late 19th century was intricately connected to¶
commodity capitalism.38 Western products were seen as active agents¶ in the “civilizing” process and
proof that one had achieved the stage¶ of “civilization.” Correct consumption , then, was not simply a
social¶ necessity but was a national imperative . For those living distant from¶ the core areas of
American power, and for those new to the United¶ States, purchasing American products became
akin to participating¶ in American “civilization.” “Consumption,” in the words of Stuart¶ Ewen, “assumed an
ideological veil of nationalism and democratic¶ lingo.”39 And American companies, particularly those that were
international,¶ were quick to adopt and adapt this “ideological veil” to fit ¶ their advertising needs, using
their international experiences to align¶ their products with civilizing experience and using the
discourse of¶ civilization to legitimize their international sales . This book, therefore,¶ focuses on how the discourse of
civilization — this complex,¶ often contradictory, and powerful set of ideas — both supported and¶ was itself strengthened by the visual and
verbal languages used to¶ market American products overseas and at home.40 Yet, before I turn to my in-depth analyses of these corporate
“civilizing” stories, I set¶ the stage, as it were, by outlining their material bases — the spatial¶ expanse and sociospatial processes that
constituted an American¶ commercial empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
43
Economic engagement reproduces the rhetoric of modernity which positions

Latin America as a land for exploitation
Mignolo 5 (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, “THE IDEA OF LATIN AMERICA”, 2005,
6/28/13|Ashwin)
The logic of coloniality can be understood as working through four wide domains of human experience:
(1) the economic: appropriation of land, exploitation of labor, and control of finance; (2) ¶ the political:
control of authority; (3) the civic: control of gender and sexuality; (4) the epistemic and the
subjective/personal: control ¶ of knowledge and subjectivity. The logic of coloniality has been in ¶ place from the
conquest and colonization of Mexico and Peru until ¶ and beyond the war in Iraq, despite superficial changes in the scale ¶ and agents of
exploitation/control in the past five hundred years of ¶ history. Each
domain is interwoven with the others, since
appropriation of land or exploitation of labor also involves the control of ¶ finance, of authority, of
gender, and of knowledge and subjectivity.8¶ The operation of the colonial matrix is invisible to distracted eyes, ¶ and even
when it surfaces, it is explained through the rhetoric of ¶ modernity that the situation can be “corrected”
with “development,” “democracy,” a “strong economy,” etc. What some will see as “lies” ¶ from the US
presidential administration are not so much lies as part ¶ of a very well-codified “rhetoric of modernity,”
promising salvation ¶ for everybody in order to divert attention from the increasingly ¶ oppressive
consequences of the logic of coloniality. To implement ¶ the logic of coloniality requires the
celebratory rhetoric of modernity, as the case of Iraq has illustrated from day one. As capital and ¶ power
concentrate in fewer and fewer hands and poverty increases ¶ all over the word, the logic of
coloniality becomes ever more ¶ oppressive and merciless. Since the sixteenth century, the rhetoric ¶ of modernity has
relied on the vocabulary of salvation, which was ¶ accompanied by the massive appropriation of land in the New ¶ World and the massive
exploitation of Indian and African slave labor, ¶ justified by a belief in the dispensability of human life – the lives ¶ of the slaves. Thus, while
some Christians today, for example, beat ¶ the drum of “pro-life values,” they
reproduce a rhetoric that diverts ¶ attention
from the increasing “devaluation of human life” that the ¶ thousands dead in Iraq demonstrate. Thus, it
is not modernity that will ¶ overcome coloniality, because it is precisely modernity that needs and
produces ¶ coloniality.¶ As an illustration, let us follow the genealogy of just the first of ¶ the four domains and see how the logic of
coloniality has evolved ¶ in the area of land, labor, and finance. Below I will complement the brief sketch of this first quadrant by going deeper
into the fourth ¶ one (knowledge and subjectivity) to show how knowledge transformed Anáhuac and Tawantinsuyu into America and then into
¶ Latin America and, in the process, how new national and subcontinental identities were created. But, first, think
of the massive ¶
appropriation of land by the Spanish and Portuguese, the would-be ¶ landlords of the Americas during
the sixteenth century, and the same ¶ by the British, French, and Dutch in the extended Caribbean (from ¶ Salvador de Bahia in Brazil to
Charleston in today’s South Carolina, ¶ and including the north of Colombia and Venezuela in addition to ¶ the Caribbean islands). The
appropriation of land went hand in hand ¶ with the exploitation of labor (Indians and African slaves) and the
¶ control of finance (the accumulation of capital as a consequence of ¶ the appropriation of land and
the exploitation of labor). Capital ¶ concentrated in Europe, in the imperial states, and not in the
colonies. You can follow this pattern through the nineteenth century ¶ when England and France displaced Spain and Portugal as leading ¶
imperial countries. The logic of coloniality was then reproduced, ¶ and, of course, modified, in the next step of imperial expansion into ¶ Africa
and Asia.¶ You can still see the same projects today in the appropriation of ¶ areas of “natural resources”
(e.g., in the Amazon or oil-rich Iraq). ¶ Land cannot be reproduced. You can reproduce seeds and other ¶ “products” of land; but land itself is
limited, which is another reason ¶ why the appropriation of land is one of the prime targets of capital ¶ accumulation today. The
“idea” of
Latin America is that of a large ¶ mass of land with a wealth of natural resources and plenty of cheap
¶ labor. That, of course, is the disguised idea. What the rhetoric of ¶ modernity touted by the IMF, the World Bank, and
the Washington ¶ consensus would say is that “Latin” America is just waiting for its ¶ turn to
“develop.” You could also follow the exploitation of labor ¶ from the Americas to the Industrial Revolution to the movement ¶ of factories
from the US to developing nations in order to reduce ¶ costs. As for financial control, just compare the number and size
44
of ¶ banks, for example, in New York, London, or Frankfurt, on the one ¶ hand, versus the ones in
Bolivia, Morocco, or India, on the other.¶ Thus, if we consider “America” from the perspective of coloniality (not modernity) and
let the Indigenous perspective take center stage, another history becomes apparent. The beginning of the ¶ Zapatista “Manifesto from the
Lacandon Jungle” gives us a ¶ blueprint:¶ We are
a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, ¶ then during
the War of Independence against Spain; then to ¶ avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to ¶
promulgate our constitution and expel the French empire from ¶ our soil; later the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz denied us the ¶ just application
of the Reform laws and the people rebelled ¶ and leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men just like ¶ us. We have been
denied by
our rulers the most elemental ¶ conditions of life, so they can use us as cannon fodder and ¶ pillage
the wealth of our country. They don’t care that we have ¶ nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over hour heads, ¶ no land,
no work, no health care, no food or education. Nor ¶ are we able to freely and democratically elect our political ¶
representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor ¶ is there peace or justice for ourselves
and our children.9¶ The “Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle” precedes a long history ¶ rewritten from an Indigenous perspective (as
opposed to the perspective of Mexican Creoles and Mestizos/as or French or US ¶ “experts” on Mexican and “Latin” American history). You may
¶ wonder whether the Indigenous people had a perspective because ¶ you imagine that history is history and what happened just happened, ¶
and argue that there are of course “different interpretations” but ¶ not “different perspectives.” Different interpretations presuppose a ¶
common and shared principle of knowledge and of the rules of the ¶ game, while different perspectives presuppose that the principles of ¶
knowledges and the rules of the game are geo-historically located ¶ in the structure of power of the modern colonial world. To show ¶ how this
works, we need something such as “dependency theory” ¶ for the epistemological domain.10 “Dependency
theory” showed the ¶
differential of power in the economic domain insofar as it described ¶ a certain structure of
differential power in the domain of the ¶ economy. But it also proved the epistemic differential and the distribution of
labor within an imperial geo-politics of knowledge in ¶ which political economy moved in one direction: from First to ¶ Third World countries
and to contain Second World communism. ¶ In this sense, dependency
theory is relevant in changing the geopolitics of
knowledge and in pointing toward the need for, and the ¶ possibility of, different locations of
understanding and of knowledge ¶ production.¶ The first part of the “Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle” is a ¶ history and
a description of the current economic and social situation in Chiapas, subdivided into the “First Wind” and the “Second ¶ Wind” in emulation of
sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles of the ¶ New World. Cast in terms familiar to those conversant with globalization, the first wind is the wind
from above and the second that ¶ from below. The declaration, then, outlines the direction of a project ¶ to rewrite the colonial history of
modernity from the perspective ¶ of coloniality (instead of writing the history of coloniality from the ¶ perspective of modernity). This framing is
subject to questions and ¶ criticisms by critical and inquisitive readers. Professionalhistorians ¶ could argue that there is little
historical rigor in this “pamphlet” ¶ and that what weneed is serious and rigorous histories of how ¶ things “really” happened.
Again, that argument assumes that the ¶ events carry in themselves their own truth and the job of the historian is to discover them. The
problem is that “rigorous historiography” is more often than not complicitous with modernity (since ¶ the current
conceptualization and practice of historiography, as a ¶ discipline, are a modern rearticulation of a practice dating back to ¶ – again – Greek
philosophy). In that respect, the argument for disciplinary rigor turns
out to be a maneuver that perpetuates the myth ¶
of modernity as something separate from coloniality. Therefore, if ¶ you happened to be a person educated in the
Calmemac in Anáhuac ¶ and were quite far away from the legacies of the Greeks, it would ¶ be your fault for not being aware what civilized
history is and how ¶ important it is for you.¶ Other criticisms may stem from the fact that the division of above ¶ and below still originates in the
concept of the “above.” Indeed, it ¶ was the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas who first described ¶ (but did not enact himself ) the
perspective now being enacted by ¶ the Zapatistas. The most suspicious reader would add that it is SubComandante Marcos (a Mexican Mestizo
who studied at the Universidad Autónoma de México) who narrates. Legitimate ¶ and interesting objections, these. However, such objections
remain ¶ entangled in the web and the perspective of modernity; that is, in ¶ the expectations created by the hegemonic perspective of
modernity ¶ itself. To unfold this last statement, let’s take another step and perhaps ¶ a detour and come back to the inception of the
logic of coloniality ¶ implied in the very idea of both “America” and “Latin” America..4ever
45
Link – Economic Engagement/Development

Economics are a tool of US imperialism that control the world thorugh
spatialised violence, military control, and global violence.
Escobar 8 (Arturo, Kenan Distinguished Professor at UNC Chapel Hill, Ph.D, University of Calfornia,
Berkeley, May 27, Third World Quarterly. Beyond the Third World: imperial¶ globality, global coloniality
and antiglobalisation social movements. Third World Quarterly, Vol 25, No 1, pp 207–230)
is important to complete this rough representation of¶ today’s global capitalist modernity by
Before moving on, it
looking at the US-led invasion of Iraq in¶ early 2003. Among other things, this episode has at last made two things¶ particularly clear: first, the
willingness to use unprecedented levels of violence¶ to enforce dominance on a global scale; second,
the unipolarity of the current¶ empire. In ascension since the Thatcher–Reagan years, this unipolarity reached¶ its climax with the
post-11 September regime, based on a new convergence of¶ military, economic, political and religious
interests in the USA. In Alain Joxe’s¶ compelling vision of imperial globality, what we have been witnessing since the¶ first Gulf war is
the rise of an empire that increasingly operates through the¶ management of asymmetrical and
spatialised violence, territorial control, subcontracted massacres, and ‘cruel little wars’, all of which
are aimed at imposing¶ the neoliberal capitalist project. At stake is a type of regulation that operates¶
through the creation of a new horizon of global violence. This empire regulates¶ disorder through
financial and military means, pushing chaos to the extent¶ possible to the outskirts of empire,
creating a ‘predatory’ peace to the benefit of¶ a global noble caste and leaving untold poverty and
suffering in its path. It is an¶ empire that does not take responsibility for the well-being of those over
whom¶ it rules . As Joxe puts it:¶ The world today is united by a new form of chaos, an imperial chaos,
dominated¶ by the imperium of the United States, though not controlled by it. We lack the¶ words to describe this new system,
while being surrounded by its images … World¶ leadership through chaos, a doctrine that a rational European school would
have¶ difficulty imagining, necessarily leads to weakening states—even in the United¶ States—through
the emerging sovereignty of corporations and markets.22¶ The new empire thus operates not so much
through conquest, but through the¶ imposition of norms (free-markets, US-style democracy and
cultural notions of¶ consumption, and so forth). The former Third World is, above all, the theatre of¶
a multiplicity of cruel little wars which, rather than being barbaric throwbacks,¶ are linked to the
current global logic . From Colombia and Central America to¶ Algeria, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East these wars take place within¶ states or regions, without threatening empire but fostering
conditions favourable¶ to it. For much of the former Third World (and of course for the Third World¶ within the core) is reserved ‘the World-chaos’, free-
market slavery, and selective¶ genocide.23 In some cases this amounts to a sort of ‘paleo-micro-
colonialism’¶ within regions,24 in others to balkanisation, in yet others to brutal internal wars¶ and
massive displacement to free up entire regions for transnational capital¶ (particularly in the case of oil,
but also diamonds, timber, water, genetic¶ resources, and agricultural lands). Often these cruel little
wars are fuelled by¶ mafia networks, and intended for macroeconomic globalisation . It is clear that¶
this new Global Empire (‘the New World Order of the American imperial¶ monarchy’)25 articulates the
‘peaceful expansion’ of the free-market economy¶ with omnipresent violence in a novel regime of
economic and military globality —in other words, the global economy comes to be supported by a
global¶ organisation of violence and vice versa.26 On the subjective side, what one¶ increasingly finds in the Souths (including the South within the North)
are ‘diced¶ identities’ and the transformation of cultures of solidarity into cultures of¶ destruction.
46
Link – Energy
The Affirmative’s management by extraction is part and parcel of a long history

of systematic energy violence, exploitation, and securitization– ultimately
marking the indigenous populations surrounding the resources a threat to
energy security that must be contained.
Banerjee 9 (Subhabrata Bobby, Director of Research at the School of Business, University of Western
Sydney, HISTORIES OF OPPRESSION AND VOICES OF RESISTANCE: TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE
TRANSLOCAL, REARTIKULACIJA #9, 2009, http://www.reartikulacija.org/?p=612/)
Management by extraction arises from the endowment curse and is an all too familiar discourse for
millions of people in the Third World living under the oil curse and the minerals curse. Extraction of oil
and minerals in many parts of the world is almost always accompanied by violence, environmental
destruction, dispossession and death. Transnational oil companies, governments, private security
forces are all key actors in these zones of violence and the communities most affected by this violence
are forced to give up their sovereignty, autonomy and tradition in exchange for modernity and
economic development which continues to elude them. Shell in Nigeria, Chevron in Ecuador, Rio Tinto
in Papua, Barrick in Peru and Argentina, Newmont Mining in Peru, Vedanta Resources in India and the
Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico are but a few of the more well-publicized cases of the
“endowment curse.” The market, state and international economic and financial institutions are
inextricably involved in management by extraction. The Chiapas region of Mexico, for example,
produces 54% of Mexico’s hydroelectric energy, 21% of its oil and 47% of its natural gas, and also
contains the country’s most impoverished people, where 36% of the population do not have running
water and 35% do not have electricity. There are seven hotel beds for every 1,000 tourists and 0.3 hospital beds for every 1,000
locals. In one of the country’s richest regions in terms of natural resources and a source of wealth for the rest of the country, 71.6% of the
Indigenous population in the region suffers from malnutrition and 14,500 people die every year. Transnational
corporations
extract wealth from Chiapas by mining their land, felling their forests, and selling a tourist experience
at the expense of local communities who have the misfortune of “inhabiting” the region. In 1994,
thousands of Chiapians rose up against the Mexican government in an armed insurrection and
temporarily took over the regional capital of San Cristobal. The Mexican government responded with
military action and after several conflicts offered a “conditional pardon” to the rebels. Zapatista
leaders responded to the Mexican government’s offer of conditional pardon with the following letter,
entitled “Who must ask for pardon and who can grant it?” Why do we have to be pardoned? What are
we going to be pardoned for? Of not dying of hunger? Of not being silent in our misery? Of not
humbly accepting our historic role of being the despised and the outcast? Of having demonstrated to
the rest of the country and to the entire world that human dignity still lives, even among some of the
world’s poorest peoples? The letter ended with the Zapatistas stating that perhaps it was the government that should ask the
Zapatistas for pardon, which they would be happy to consider. The market was not particularly sympathetic to the plight of the Zapatistas
either.
In a memo entitled “Mexico – Political Update,” the Chase Manhattan Bank, a major financer of
the Mexican government concluded that the “government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to
demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and security policy.” Thus, international
finance and infrastructure is a key requirement for “development” to occur in “underdeveloped”
areas, of which governments must demonstrate “effective control and security,” which means certain
communities need to be “eliminated.” This is necrocapitalism.
47
Link – Energy
Agriculture and energy investments are conducted by expulsion– trade

liberalization results in the impoverishment and mass suicides of the farmers
who are “liberalized”
Management by expulsion arises from the development curse involving forceful expulsion of
Indigenous populations to make way for infrastructure and energy projects. In India, it is estimated that between
30 and 50 million people have lost their traditional lands as a result of dam projects since 1947. A single mega dam project, the Sardar Sarovar
dam project will displace 400,000 tribal peoples once it is completed. Economic
“reforms” and structural adjustment
policies dictated by supranational institutions like the World Trade Organization, World Bank and
International Monetary Fund often result in dispossession of local communities through expulsion. For
instance, agricultural “reforms” and trade liberalization (agriculture is “liberalized” in the Third World
and protected in the First World) have been directly linked to a 260% increase in the suicide rates of
farmers in India. In 2005, there were 520 suicides by farmers in Vidharbha, the largest cotton-growing region in India. There were
more suicides in cash crop-growing regions than in food-growing regions. Six journalists covered the
“farmer suicides” stories in February 2006. That same week, 512 journalists were jostling for space in
Mumbai for the Lakme Fashion Week, where models were exhibiting the new chic cotton dresses
made from cotton grown by farmers who were killing themselves less than 500 kilometers away.
Alarmed by the increase in suicides among poor farmers, the Indian government sent teams of psychiatrists to the region to advise farmers and
their families on “managing stress.” One
young farmer whose father committed suicide after facing mounting
debts had this to say to the visiting psychiatrists: “You came here and asked us many questions and
gave us many answers. Don’t drink you said. Don’t beat your wife. Do yoga to handle stress. You
never asked this one question: Why are farmers of this country who place food on the nation’s table
starving?” Joseph Stiglitz, former Vice President of the World Bank, once the blue-eyed boy of the
neoliberal establishment and now a traitor to their cause, commented that the bank’s economic
development policies “did manage to tighten the belts of the poor as we loosened those on the rich.”
This is necrocapitalism.
48
Link – Engagement
Past and continued US engagement further pushes Latin America into poverty
Johnson 5 (Stephen, Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation,
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/us-diplomacy-toward-latin-america-a-legacy-of-uneven-
engagement)
As the United States has become increasingly depen-dent on foreign oil and flooded by migrating
popula-tions, troubles in Latin America take on greater importance. However, our engagement with this
region has always been uneven-that is, guided less by strategy than by tactical response. Perhaps Latin America is
not as important as trade partners in Europe and Asia, or the problematic Middle East. But it is a close and populous neighbor,
and one that teeters between stable self-suffi-ciency and chaotic menace. More significant, it is being drawn into
the orbits of other global actors.That doesn't mean we have to solve the region's problems. Its peoples and leaders should bear the bur-den of
the United States should be more
making their own choices, reaping the benefits of good ones and learning from the bad. But
consistent in cultivating rela-tions that serve our own interests as well as those of our neighbors. Latin
America is predominantly rural, Catholic, and poor. Ireland is also rural and Catholic, but no longer poor, nor a net people
exporter. By most indices, including The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, Ireland is now an economic powerhouse. Its
democratic and recent economic choices have made the difference. Despite average poverty rates running about 50
percent, Latin America has felt too little pressure to reform. Foreign assistance and loans has made it
easy to get by without change. Outside actors, such as China, have always been willing to trade and deal
with corrupt governments that maintain control over markets. China's state-owned companies need raw materials to
feed expanding production quotas. Although selling commodities to China may fill government coffers, it will not boost industrial
growth to lift Latin America's workers out of poverty. Where U.S. diplomacy has failed, officials may have
underestimated the extent to which some societies and their ruling elites are unwilling part-ners. The signs are at our borders. Each year, about
one million illegal migrants come from Latin America to create wealth in the United States, largely
because they cannot do so at home. Desiring a bet-ter future, they leave behind some of the world's worst public schools and
bizarre laws that prevent them from going into business.
49
Link – Finance
NAFTA, World Bank, IMF, WTO are the modern imperialist tools of the US
Old patterns of imperialism can be seen in the dominance of neoliberal policies in today’s global
political economy. Transnational corporations often wield power over Third World countries through
their enticements of foreign investment and their threats to withhold or relocate their investments . In
return for foreign investments and jobs, corporations are able to extract from impoverished and often
corrupt Third World governments tax concessions, energy and water subsidies, minimal
environmental legislation, minerals and natural resources, a compliant labor force and the creation of
Special Economic Zones (SEZ) which are essentially states of exception where the law is suspended in order
for the business of economic extraction to continue. Thus, rather than marking the death of the nation-state as some
theorists of globalization like to argue, the global economy is premised precisely on a system of nation-states.
Neoliberal globalization can be seen as a marker for the final hegemonic triumph of the state mode of
production. The nation-state then is a fundamental building block of globalization, in the working of transnational
corporations, in the setting-up of a global financial system, in the institution of policies that determine
the mobility of labor, and in the creation of the multi-state institutions such as the UN, IMF, World
Bank, NAFTA and WTO. The unprecedented scale of government intervention in response to the
global financial crisis in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia has been such that neoconservative
circles have invoked the specter of socialism and the fears of the emergence of a state-run economy.
Whether the financial crisis is indeed a reflection of the crisis in capitalism that could result in long-term re-engagement of the state in
economic production or whether it will be business as usual remains to be seen, especially now that Germany, France and the United States
appear to be coming out of recession. Imperial formations
in the contemporary political economy are more
“efficient” in the sense that formal colonies no longer need to be governed. Imperialism has learned
to manage things better by using the elites of the former colonies to do the governing, and the
structural power of supranational institutions like the World Trade Organization, World Bank and
International Monetary Fund and markets to do much of the imperial work. I will describe three modes of
management that enable accumulation by dispossession: management by extraction, management by exclusion and management by
expulsion.
50
Link – Gender
A challenging of colonial thought should precede gender-conscious knowledge—

an understanding of coloniality is rooted in heteronormative behavior
Lind 12 [Amy Lind, Mary Ellen Heintz Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of
Cincinnati “Intimate Governmentalities, the Latin American Left, and the Decolonial Turn.” feminists@law, Vol 2, No 1 (2012)
https://journals.kent.ac.uk/kent/index.php/feministsatlaw/article/view/43/115]
The second disjuncture I see draws from the above scenario and speaks to how the governance of
intimacy – or intimate governmentalities – and biopolitics are (or are not) understood as part of this process. Thus far
much of the emphasis has been on competing modernities among the hegemonic Euromodernity and
indigenous and Afro-modernities. Less has been done to understand how notions of life and intimacy
comparatively figure into these competing accounts, and how this shapes current political processes. Rather, these issues –
which scholars such as Arturo Escobar (1995) have noted are central to modern, colonial, developmentalist
governmentalities – continue to be sidelined and/or compartmentalized. While of course there are exceptions, debates on life or
intimacy pertaining to indigeneity follow one trajectory (e.g., an emphasis on sustainability and overcoming the nature/culture dualism);
debates on these same issues as they pertain to sexuality or gender typically follow another trajectory
(e.g., an emphasis on citizen rights or the right to bodily integrity and autonomy). And generally speaking, debates on
modernity/coloniality, capitalism and states invoke a kind of heteronormativity that is left

unexamined by most analysts, despite the fact that by now many scholars and activists have pointed out the
central significance of heterosexuality as a social institution in shaping modern/colonial economies
and social life (see Lugones 2010 for a discussion of this topic). Some refer to “men” and “women,” including in
discussions of gender complementarity vs. gender (in)equality, without questioning the construction of these categories
themselves (beyond the obvious dualism). Moreover there is no doubt that narratives of reproduction, gender, heteronormativity, sexuality,
intimacy, kinship, life, death, etc. continue to be central to both right-wing and leftist forms of governance, to both neoliberal and “post-
neoliberal” forms of production, and to the alternative modernities being sought by indigenous and Afro-Latin American social movements.
Categories of “the family,” “gender,” “sexuality” are no more or less “modern” than categories of “race” or “ethnicity.” Yet scholars tend to
under-theorize the former categories and write them off as “simply modern,” as solely “reformist,” or as a “side issue” and therefore
uninteresting for a discussion of alternative modernities or “another world.”¶ However some of the most interesting
examples of post-liberal, post-capitalist and anti-neoliberal practices have come out of “modern/colonial” social
movements such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer movement in both Ecuador and
Bolivia – movements that are mostly ignored by scholars of global justice studies and Latin American cultural studies. These
movements, while perhaps small in comparison to indigenous movements when seen through the Eurocentric lens of visibility/invisibility
(on this topic, see Horn 2010), are deeply significant for understanding how both capital and states structure
and govern people’s intimate lives, including how they think, feel, express love, desire, seek forms of attachment, understand
themselves and their “communities.” Capital defines how love itself is or is not valued, as well as constructed (Wesling 2012). Likewise, state
practices institutionalize modern/colonial notions of intimacy, kinship, sexual practice, etc., thus
attributing value to some intimate arrangements while rendering others invisible, undeserving or deviant – a phenomenon
institutionalized as well through arenas of global governance, most notably the development industry (Lind 2010b). Colonial/modern
states have long governed reproduction, including through miscegenation laws banning interracial
marriage, prostitution laws, laws criminalizing sodomy and/or homosexuality, and laws concerning biological reproduction itself (e.g.,
abortion, birth control). In many cases new left governments have opposed reproductive rights and same-sex
marriage – two current hot button issues – converging more with right-wing ideologies than with the various social movements that
supported them, including the feminist and LGBTI movements (Lind in press; Viterna in press). Why, for example, is there no
discussion of how “the family” is being disputed in various kinds of modernities? How does this play
out in indigenous contexts, as former Bolivian Director of Cultural Patrimony, David Arequipa, also a founding member of the well-
51
known La Paz-based political drag community, Familia Galan, set out to do as part of Morales’ MAS administration? And likewise, how does this
play out within largely mestizo/a and/or urban contexts, such that we see fissures in identity politics that also deeply challenge the colonial
architecture of Latin American states? I have found that leftist activists and academics often will say, “oh, you’re talking about biopolitics,”
without theorizing how biopoliticsitself, including the governance of intimacy, is wrapped up in their own
theories of “another world.” Indeed, this kind of epistemological and political disjuncture seems to be at the
heart of what Breny Mendoza refers to when she speaks of the Feminists in Resistance coalition’s own quandary
about whether to continue working with the male-dominated left in Honduras. While this type of quandary is by no means new, it is fascinating
to see the disjuncture in intellectual thought about the governance of intimacy and biopolitics as it shapes all
kinds of modernities/colonialities, structures or “geometries” of power (as Venezuelan Hugo Chávez calls its, drawing from Doreen Massey’s
work – see Escobar 2010), and
epistemic communities and forms of knowledge. From a feminist perspective, to truly
do this would require intersectional thinking, and the ability to think across and from the perspectives of various epistemic,
cultural, social, economic and political “communities” (Richards in press; Lugones 2010).
52
Link – Gender
Coloniality is the vehicle that enables gendered violence to persist – the aff
makes the struggle against gendered violence impossible by masking the very
system that creates the condition of living hell for colonized bodies
Lugones 10 (Maria, Argentine scholar, philosopher, feminist, and an Associate Professor of
Comparative Literature and Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture and of Philosophy and of Women's
Studies at Binghamton University, "Toward a decolonial feminism." Hypatia 25.4, 742-759)
beginning with the colonization of the Ameri- cas and the Caribbean, the modern hierarchical
With colonial modernity,
dichotomous distinction between men and women became known as characteristically human and a
mark of civilization Indigenous peoples of the Americas and enslaved Airicans were understood as
.
not human, as animals, as monstrously and aberrantly sexual, wild The dichotomous gender .
distinction became a mark of civilization: Only the civilized are men or women European bourgeois . The
man is a subject, fit for rule, for the public, a being of civilization, heterosexual, Christian, a being of
mind and reason . The European bourgeois woman is not his complement, but the one who reproduces race and capital. This is tightly bound to her sexual purity, passivity, home-boundedness. The bourgeois white Europeans are civilized; they are fully
Being gendered in this dichotomous manner makes being a mana mark of humanity Women are
human. .
human in their relation to white, bourgeois, European men The hierarchical dichotomy as a mark of .
the human becomes also a normative tool to damn the colonized . As the behavior and personalities/ souls of the colonized are judged as bestial, of animals, the colonized
animals were differentiated since the conquest and

are nongendered, promiscuous, grotesquely sexual, sinful. Though at this time the understanding of sex was not dimorphic,
colonization of the Americas as males and females, the male being the perfection, the female, the
inversion, deformation of the male As primitive, wild, not quite
. Hermaphrodites, sodomites, viragos were all understood as deviations from male perfection.
human, the colonized were also understood sexually as males and females, the female the inferior,
inverted male. But to the extent that the civilizing mission and conversion to Christianity has been always present in the ideological conce ption of conquest and colonization, colonized “males” are also judged from the normative understanding of “man,” and
colonized “females” are judged from the normative understanding of “woman.”’ The priests and the church overtly presented their mission as transforming the colonized animals into human beings through conversion. From this point of view, colonized people became males and
Consequently, though sexually colonized females’ lack

females. Males became not-human-as- not-men, the human trait, and colonized females became not-human-as- not-women.
was understood in relation to male perfection, her human lack compared her only to women.
Colonized females were never understood as' lacking because they were not men-like. Colonized men were not understood to be
. What has been

lacking as not being women-like. Notice the important distinction between sex and gender at this time, which is conilated later as sexual dimorphism becomes the companion of the dichotomous understanding of gender
understood as the feminization of colonized men seems rather a gesture of humiliation, attributing
sexual passivity to the threat of rape. This tension between hypersexuality and sexual passiv-¶ ity
defines one of the domains of masculine subjection of the colonized. The colonial civilizing mission
was the euphemistic mask of brutal access to people’s bodies through unimaginable exploitation,
violent sexual violation, control of reproduction, and systematic terror , which included, for example,
feeding living people to dogs and making pouches¶ and hats from the vaginas of brutally killed
indigenous females civilizing mission used the hierarchical gender dichotomy as a judgment,¶ though
. The
the attainment of dichotomous gendering was not the point of¶ the normative judgment . Tuming the colonized into human
the colonizing mission included the profound transformation of the colonized into men
beings was not a colonial goal. Rather,
and women-a transformation not in identity but in nature-in its repertoire of justifications for abuse .
Christian confession, sin, and the Manichean division between good and evil served to imprint female
sexuality as evil ¶
. There is an important separation in this respect between the treatment of comuneros, community members, subjects of empires, and the treatment of the indigenous nobility that needs exploration from the point of view of the coloniality
¶ The civilizing transformation

of gender. Here I am highlighting the most direct and brutal conception and treatment of those whose labor and sexuality were clearly understood in terms of the coloniality of gender.
justified the colonization of memory and thus of one’s sense of self intersubjective relations, and
relation to the¶ spirit world, to land, to the very fabric of one’s conception of reality, identity, social,
53
ecological, and cosmological organization as Christianity became the most powerful instrument in . Thus
the transformative mission, the normativity that tied gender and civilization became involved in the
erasure of community, of ecological practices, knowledges of planting, weaving, and the cosmos, and
not only in changing and controlling reproductive and sexual practices. ¶ One can begin to appreciate the tie between the colonial introduction of the
One can recognize the

instrumental modern concept of nature central to capitalism and the colonial introduction of the modern concept of gender and appreciate it as macabre and heavy in its impressive ramifications. also
dehumanization constitutive of what Nelson Maldonado-Torres calls “ the coloniality of being” in the
scope of the modem colonial gender system !¶ I use the term “coloniality” following Anibal Quijano’s analysis of the capitalist world system of power in terms of colonial ity of power and of modernity, two
inseparable axes in the workings of this system of power.” Quijano’s analysis provides a historical understanding of the inseparability of racialization and capitalist exploitation as constitutive of the capitalist system of power as anchored in the colonization of the Americas. In thinking of
. In using the term “coloniality” I

the coloniality of gender I complicate his understanding of the capitalist global system of power, but I also criticize his understanding of gender only in terms of sexual access to women
mean not just classification of people in terms of the coloniality of power and gender but also the
process of active reduction of people , the dehumanization that fits them for the classification, the
attempt to turn the colonized into less than human beings. This is in stark contrast to the public aim of conversion, which constitutes the Christianizing mission.
54
Link – Generic
Western epistemology is reflected even in the seemingly-objective sciences—

overlooks equally valid indigenous/non-European theories
Suarez 12 (Julia Suárez-Krabbe, Assistant professor at Roskilde University, The Department of Culture and
Although the mechanisms of naturalization of the Eurocentric perspective have been amply described and addressed8, this decolonizing knowledge continues
to be marginal—and in many cases seen as irrelevant—in the North. It is true that the social sciences and the humanities have seen important
changes with regards both to their self-perception and to their investiga- tive practices. For example, we have today an ample field of social studies that centre on studying the ways in which
many of these innovations within science have not succeeded in breaking the
scientific facts are socially constructed. However,
myth that dictates that science is a product of Western civilization (Dussel, 2008). Indeed, most histories of science reproduce this
myth by making other scientific traditions invisible because they do not meet the criteria of scientificity established by Western science (Castro-Gómez, 2007; Grosfoguel, 2010). The
Ontological,
strategies of “invisibilization,” or epistemic racism, that I have encountered most often in the course of my work in Denmark are the following9: 1.
epistemological and theoretical priority is given to Eurocentric perspectives, researchers and
theorists. As mentioned previously, the Eurocen- tric perspective is often an implicit requirement for funding, publishing, and achieving permanent positions. 2. Other theories
(for example postcolonial, decolonial, Islamic, Indigenous and African/African descendent theories and to some extent white feminist theory) are
silenced. The silencing of other theories happens by classifying them not as theory, but as lay criticism, political manifestos, ideology, polemics or
empirical material. 3. Other theories are deprived of their originality. This is accomplished by locating these ideas within a Eurocentric genealogy of knowledge.
In this conceptual and classificatory movement, these theories are a priori deprived of their validity, and instead classified as outdated. At best, they are classified as
‘heirs’ of European science and theory. In other cases, they become relevant in the moment they are taken
up and elaborated/discussed through the Eu- rocentric epistemology. It is this movement of translation—a
translation that subsumes the other into the same, as Dussel (1995) would say—that deprives them of their substance. 4. Other
cultures are studied from the perspective of our theory in order to meet our necessities. If the subjects of study
start demanding commitment from the researcher, this becomes a big problem: the other is now seen as practicing censorship upon the researcher, and the objectivity and integrity of the
there are the ‘universal’ theories (read
researcher is in danger. 5. If recognised, thought that does not comply with Eurocentric criteria is re- gionalised;
Eurocentric) and then there are the Latin American, Indian, Chi- nese, African, Islamic (etc.) theories. Being regional, the thought that comes from
these other geopolitical places is not relevant for science in general. 6. Other knowledges are incorporated thanks to their instrumental value for Eurocentric knowledge, in particular their
value in the global market—as in cases of the field of indigenous knowledge systems (Escobar, 1992) and intellectual property rights (Lander, 2008; Castro-Gómez, 2005). Although these
fields to some extent recognize epistemic diversity, this recognition is seldom followed by transformation. As with the previous point, they are seen as ‘partial’ knowledges that may benefit
‘science’ (read western Eurocentric and colonial knowledge) within its own frames.
55
Link – Generic/Middle East Terror/Oil
Coloniality articulates the suppression of basic human rights in order to have

slave-like labor to meet the needs of the capitol and to benefit westerners. New
coloniality is the exploitation of foreign oil markets
Berkeley, “Beyond the Third World: Imperial Globality, Global Coloniality, and Anti-Globalization Social
Movements”, www.nd.edu/~druccio/Escobar.pdf)
Eurocentered modernity can be seen as the imposition of a global design by a particular local
The seeming triumph of
history radical alternatives to modernity are not a

, in such a way that it has subalternized other local histories and designs. If this is the case, could one posit the hypothesis that
historically foreclosed possibility one

? If so, how can we articulate a project around this notion? Could it be that it is possible to think about, and to think differently from, an “exteriority” to the modern world system? That
may envision alternatives to the totality imputed to modernity, and adumbrate not a different totality
leading to different global designs, but networks of local/global histories constructed from the perspective of a politically enriched alterity? This is precisely the possibility that may be gleaned from the work of a group of
refracting modernity through the lens of coloniality engage in a questioning of the

Latin American theorists that in
character of modernity, a conception of eurocentrism as the knowledge form of modernity/coloniality

–a hegemonic representation and mode of knowing that claims universality for itself, “derived from
Europe’s position as center” (Dussel, 2000: 471; Quijano, 2000: 549). In sum, there is a re-reading of the “myth of modernity” in terms of modernity’s “underside” and a new denunciation of the assumption that Europe’s development
that the proper analytical unit of

must be followed unilaterally by every other culture, by force if necessary –what Dussel terms “the developmentalist fallacy” (e.g., 1993, 2000). The main conclusions are, first,
analysis is modernity/coloniality -- in sum, there is no modernity without coloniality, with the latter
being constitutive of the former the colonial difference” is a privileged epistemological and
. Second, the fact that “
political space ¶
. In other words, what emerges from this alternative framework is the need to take seriously the epistemic force of local histories and to think theory through the political praxis of subaltern groups. Some of the key notions that make up the
. Coloniality of power
conceptual corpus of this research program include: the modern colonial world system as a structurally heterogeneous ensemble of processes and social formations that encompass modern colonialism and colonial modernities
a global hegemonic model of power in place since the Conquest that articulates race and labor,
(Quijano),
space and peoples, according to the needs of capital and to the benefit of white European peoples.
Colonial difference and global coloniality refer to the knowledge and cultural dimensions of the (Mignolo) which
subalternization processes effected by the coloniality of power; the colonial difference brings to the
fore persistent cultural differences, which today exist within global power structures Coloniality of .
being as the ontological dimension of colonialty, on both sides of the encounter;

(more recently suggested by Nelson Maldonado-Torres, 2003)
it points at the “ontological excess” that occurs when particular beings impose on others; it also addresses critically the
Eurocentrism, as the knowledge model of the European

effectivity of the discourses with which the other responds to the suppression as a result of the encounter.
historical experience which became globally hegemonic since the seventeenth century ); hence (Dussel, Quijano
the possibility of non-eurocentric thinking and epistemologies. Here is a further, and enlightening, characterization of coloniality by Walter Mignolo (e-mail correspondence,
¶ modernity is a project, the triumphal project of the Christian and secular west, coloniality is--
May 31, 2003): Since
on the one hand--what the project of modernity needs to rule out and roll ove r, in order to implant itself as modernity and --on the other hand--
¶ ¶ coloniality is the site of enunciation that

the site of enunciation were the blindness of the modern project is 11 revealed, and concomitantly also the site where new projects begin to unfold. In other words,
reveals and denounces the blindness of the narrative of modernity from the perspective of modernity
itself coloniality is not a new
, and it is at the same time the platform of pluri-versality, of diverse projects coming from the experience of local histories touched by western expansion (as the Word Social Forum demonstrates); thus
abstract universal Coloniality incorporates colonialism and imperialism but goes beyond them; this is
(
why coloniality did not end with the end of colonialism New coloniality regime is still difficult to .
discern. Race, class and ethnicity will continue to be important , but new, or newly prominent, areas of articulation come into existence, such as religion (and gender linked to
the single most prominent vehicle of coloniality today seems to be

it, especially in the case of Islamic societies, as we saw for the war on Afghanistan). However,
the ambiguously drawn figure of the “terrorist.” Linked most forcefully to the Middle East, and thus to
the immediate US oil and strategic interests in the foreign regions that obtain it
56
Link – Generic
Using Western knowledge practices or ideas to understand Latin America

continues the trend of coloniality which empirically results in disrespect and
violence
Grosfoguel 9 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley, Decolonizing Western Uni-versalisms:

Decolonial Pluri-versalism from Aimé Césaire to the Zapatistas,
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/01w7163v)
A horizontal, liberatory dialogue as opposed to a vertical, Western monologue requires the¶ decolonization
of global power relations. We cannot assume a Habermasian consensus (see¶ Habermas) or horizontal relations of equality
between cultures and peoples when these are divided¶ on the global level into the two poles of the colonial
difference. However, we can begin to imagine¶ “alter-ative” worlds beyond the dilemma of Eurocentric fundamentalism versus Third World¶
fundamentalisms. I will focus here on the concept of transmodernity as conceived by Latin ¶ American philosopher Enrique Dussel.¶ ii¶ His particular use of
the concept is an utopian project¶ meant to transcend the Eurocentric version of modernity. In opposition to the project of Habermas, ¶ which sees as its
central task the need to complete the unfinished and incomplete project of ¶ modernity, Dussel’s transmodernity is a project that seeks through a long process to
complete the¶ unfinished project of decolonization. Transmodernity would represent the concretization at the level ¶ of a political project of the concrete
universalism that Césaire’s philosophical intuition invites us to ¶ construct. Instead of a modernity centered on Europe/Euro-North-America and imposed on the ¶
rest of the world as an imperial/colonial global design, Dussel argues for a multiplicity of critical, ¶ decolonizing perspectives against and beyond Eurocentered
modernity, from the various epistemic¶ locations of the colonized people of the world. Just as there is no absolute outside of this worldsystem, ¶ there is not an
absolute inside. Alternative epistemologies can provide what Caribbean ¶ cultural critic Édouard Glissant proposes as a “diversality” of responses to the problems of
the¶ actually existing modernity (see particularly his Poetics of Relation). The
philosophy of liberation can¶ only come from the
critical thinkers of each culture in dialogue with other cultures. Women’s¶ liberation, democracy, civil
rights, and those forms of economic organization that represent¶ alternatives to the current system
can only emerge from the creative responses of local ethicoepistemic¶ projects. As a number of Third World
women have pointed out, Western women cannot¶ impose their understanding of liberation on women from
the Islamic or Indigenous world (see¶ Mohanty, Feminism; Lamrabet, El Corán). Similarly, Western men cannot impose
their understanding¶ of democracy on non-European peoples. This does not represent a call to seek fundamentalist or¶
nationalist solutions to the global coloniality of power. It is a call to seek in epistemic diversality and ¶ transmodernity a strategy or an epistemic mechanism
towards a decolonized, transmodern world¶ that moves us beyond both the Eurocentric First-Worldist and Eurocentric Third-Worldist¶ fundamentalisms.
During the last 520 years of the “European/Euro-North-American capitalist/patriarchal¶ modern/colonial world-system” we went
from “convert to Christianity or I’ll kill you” in the 16¶ th¶ century, to “civilize or I’ll kill you” in the 18¶ th¶ and 19¶ th¶
centuries, to “develop or I’ll kill you” in the¶ 20¶ th¶ century, and more recently, the “ democratize or I’ll kill you ”
at the beginning of the 21¶ st¶ century.¶ We have never seen respect or recognition of Indigenous, Islamic, or
African forms of democracy as¶ a systematic and consistent Western policy. Forms of democratic alterity are
rejected a priori. The¶ Western liberal form is the only one that is considered legitimate and accepted, provided that it does¶ not begin to infringe upon
hegemonic Western interests. If
the non-European populations do not¶ accept the terms of liberal democracy, it
is imposed on them by force in the name of progress and¶ civilization. Democracy must be
reconceptualized in a transmodern form in order to decolonize¶ itself of its Western, liberal form, that is,
from the racialized and capitalist form of Western¶ democracy.
57
Link – Generic Policy
The aff’s obsession with American business interests and scientific validation
imposes a hegemonic type of knowledge that redefines the other and enforces
silence while denying Latin America’s subordinate condition, ultimately
ensuring that no Latin American problems are ever resolved
Ibarra-Colado 6 (Eduardo, Head of the Department of Institutional Studies at the¶ Autonomous Metropolitan University, Campus
Cuajimalpa and professor of Management¶ and Organization Studies. He obtained his PhD in Sociology with Honors at the Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. He is National¶ Researcher of the Mexican National System of Researchers, and a regular member¶ of the
Mexican Academy of Sciences, “Organization Studies and Epistemic Coloniality in Latin America: Thinking Otherness from¶ the Margins,”
Organization 2006 13: 463)
In all these writings, we
can find a stereotypical version of the American¶ businessman: Caucasian, male,
liberal, upper class and heterosexual¶ (Mills and Hatfield, 1998). There is no place for different ethnicities,¶
races, genders, sexualities, classes, political positions or religious faiths ¶ (Calás, 1992). Indigenous, black,
mestizos and other races, so central to¶ understanding our region, are excluded.10 Specifically, any successful¶
example of prehispanic management still in existence as much as any¶ current case of local business success is totally ignored or hardly
documented¶ (Dávila, 1997: 583; Osland et al., 1999).¶ We may add to this the case study method popularized by Harvard¶ Business School;
the use of movies and videos produced in the Centre to¶ define otherness in a ‘convenient’ manner (Jack and Lorbiecki, 2003:¶ 220–5); the use
of different kinds of business simulation games for management¶ training; and, recently, the use of web-based educational platforms¶ and
software related to certain types of technology (Gopal et al., 2003: 238)¶ in order to impose a highly competitive individualist education that
aims¶ at creating the future ‘entrepreneurs’ (Alvarez, 1996).¶ The
cumulative effect of these knowledge devices results
in the construction¶ of an imaginary world in which the ‘other’ is reinvented. This is¶ done by
imposing types of knowledge that reinforce the colonial difference.¶ They tell us who we are, how we
live, and why we are what they¶ tell us we are (Priyadharshini, 2003). The coloniality of knowledge is a¶
means of control that disguises Latin America’s subordinate condition in order to guarantee its
silence , as if almost forced to accept the image of¶ itself which it sees in the mirror of its masters.¶ The
conservative spirit of the university has facilitated this falsification¶ and transfer of Organization Studies . It has been used to
reproduce the¶ hegemonic forms of knowledge, legitimate because of their so-called¶ ‘scientific
validation’ . It should also be pointed out that Latin American¶ universities were created in order to encourage modernization (Ibarra-¶
Colado, 2001). When they adopted the structure of the universities of the¶ Centre, they guaranteed their functionality as extensions of
internal¶ coloniality (Lander, 2004: 171). The
object of this coloniality is to turn us¶ into ‘moderns’, that is, to detach us from
our Latin American condition¶ and from our capacity for autonomous thought and remake us into
fake¶ citizens of the world represented by the stereotype of the international¶ American businessman.
Research has followed a similar path. It has developed through the¶ falsification and imitation of the Centre’s organizational knowledge.¶
Initially, Latin American researchers limited themselves to mainstream¶ theories and methods taken from the Centre in order to replicate their¶
findings in ‘tropical’ environments.11 This resulted in a paradox. Anglo-¶ Saxon theories proved difficult to be empirically validated overseas
and¶ this challenged their scientific (i.e. universal) validity. To shore up the¶ integrity of the knowledge from the Centre, ‘cultural arguments’
were¶ introduced that suggested that the problem was to be found in the¶ ‘anomalies’ of ‘underdeveloped’ societies, instead of in possible
limitations¶ (i.e. the ethnocentric rather than universal premises) of the Centre’s¶ theoretical frameworks (Ibarra-Colado, 1985: 30–3).¶
Eventually, cultural arguments became a very important epistemic¶ resource for internal colonization
(Florescano, 1994: 65–7). They permitted¶ drawing up classifications of differences between Latin America¶
and the Centre, establishing a hierarchy that guaranteed relations of¶ domination between the
‘developed’ and the ‘underdeveloped’. Cultural¶ studies and anthropology were used to tag these differences. They put¶ labels
on the anomalies, patterns of deviations and so-called pathological¶ characteristics. Moreover, they allowed other types of
knowledge, such as¶ economy, management and organizational knowledge, to be proposed¶ as
remedies (Dávila, 1999, 2005).¶ Ironically, this cycle repeated itself in the 1980s when critical analyses¶ in the field of Organization Studies
58
became of interest in the region¶ (Ibarra-Colado, 2005).12 Latin American researchers adopted these Eurocentric¶ critical theories which had
been remodelled in Anglo contexts¶ and incorporated similar topics and agendas that stimulated discussions¶ internationally (Ibarra-Colado
and Monta ˜ no, 1991a, 1991b; Prestes-Motta¶ and Caldas, 1997; Caldas and Wood, 1999; Gantman, 2005). The influence¶ of these approaches
became widespread through the consolidation¶ of the first organizational research groups in the region and by the¶ internationalization of the
discipline (Ibarra-Colado, 2000). In brief, the development of Organization Studies in Latin America can¶ be understood as a distorted version of
the functionalist or the critical¶ thought of the Centre.
It reveals the incompleteness and the impossibility¶ of
translating the diverse Anglo-Saxon approaches. Nevertheless, it has¶ been the dominant mode of organizational
knowledge creation in the¶ region. Paradoxically, Latin American scholars often express the uncomfortable¶ sense
that such approaches do not really explain what happens¶ in their countries, while acknowledging
that these frameworks give them¶ recognition in the international arena, which is another way to say
that to¶ be allowed in you must deny your own identity: To belong in ‘the¶ international community’,
you must speak the Centre’s language, use its¶ concepts, discuss its agendas and conform to the
stereotype of the¶ ‘imperfect south’ while keeping ‘a polite silence’ on the real causes of¶ your
problems .
59
Link – Generic Policy
Attempts to integrate and modernize destroy Latin American identity in favor of

Eurocentric universality
Ibarra-Colado 7 (Eduardo, Professor of Management Studies at the Department of Economic
Production, Metropolitan Autonomous University, “Organization Studies and Epistemic Coloniality in
Latin America: Thinking Otherness from the Margins”)
Who remembers Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) 100 years after his birth? Who remembers Frantz Fanon (1935–1961)
and The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon 1965)? Let us begin by pointing to this double amnesia. It is easily explained by the discomfort that their
opinions still produce.1 These clever social thinkers were not simply confronting modernity as a rhetorical gesture; they understood the
essence of modernity in a deeper sense. Hence, the relevance of the pointed words of a lucid European commenting on the devastating
indictment of an insubordinate non-European, stripping Modernity of its gaudy trappings to reveal its victims. The
ideas and actions
of Sartre and Fanon enable us to focus immediately on the issue that concerns us here: a dimension
of coloniality often ignored, having to do with the conquest of identities through knowledge.
Specifically, our concern is epistemic coloniality, the processes by which the institutionalization of
knowledge as scientific knowledge permitted the integration of native elites into the dominant
Anglo-EuroCentric ideology of modernity (Florescano, 1994: 65). In addressing Organization Studies, we are dealing with one
of the most important forms of epistemic coloniality of the last 150 years. Chronologically, we first find engineering knowledge, then
psychological knowledge and finally management knowledge (Shenhav, 1999: 71; Rose, 1999: 54–5). These forms
of knowledge
ordered and simplified the world by means of instrumental rationality. Thus, it is necessary to
recognize the ‘coloniality of knowledge’ as the root of the ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo,
2000). Further still, it is suggested that organizational knowledge is a particular example of epistemic coloniality
(Banerjee and Linstead, 2001; Calás and Smircich, 2003; Prasad, 2003a; Frenkel and Shenhav, 2006). My analysis here will then be carried out
from its own exteriority. That is, it will be done from the invaded ‘outside’ that was fabricated by the ‘inside’ invader. The aim is to recreate
‘otherness’ by confronting the image of Latin America (or Asia, or Africa, or the Caribbean) that was projected from the Centre with the
authenticity of its own (native) practices and ways of being. This is not an easy task because it is full of pauses, shades of meaning and silences
that must be recognized. Unlike Anglo-Saxon approaches to these analyses (March, 1965; Clegget al., 1996; Tsoukas and Knudsen, 2003; Jones
and Munro, 2006), Latin American analyses have not yet arrived at a balance of knowledge that can take
into account the origins, development, present state and future perspectives of Organization Studies (Ibarra-
Colado, 1985). That is, to discuss Organization Studies in Latin America is to discuss the importation, translation and repetition of
knowledge produced in the Anglo-Saxon world, and thus it is the history of a false discourse. Such is the thesis that I will try to
defend here, as a contribution toward clarifying the falsity of this strange montage, for it is widely accepted as locally valid, as if translations
into Spanish and Portuguese meant an immediate naturalization. Reasons abound; one may say that Latin America lacks the
necessary communicative and organizational capacities to enable local knowledge to spread
throughout the continent. Mostly, the academic and professional associations in the countries of our region are small and new. The
same thing occurs with the academic journals that are published with surprising irregularity. Yet, concurrently, ‘global knowledge’ is
developed and distributed by large American and European universities and powerful publishing
houses in the form of books, journals and, more recently, electronic resources, even if sometimes texts that
consist of Anglo-Saxon content are delivered with a Latin accent and tropical perfume. Altogether,60 locally generated ideas do not
find their way into the networks of power that constitute global knowledge. Thus, it is my intention, and it is an
urgent one, to reclaim the reality of organizational knowledge from this region, which has been hidden for too long in merely local discussions.2
It is necessary to write this history for several reasons. First, we must point out that the
very idea of ‘organization’ has been
reinvented as an indispensable artifice that homogenizes different realities. This dominant concept of
‘organization’ formulates the nations of the periphery as imperfect expressions of the nations of the
Centre. Even though its limitations are obvious, this concept has acquired greater relevance in recent decades
due to the insidious implementation of neoliberalism and the rationality of the market in Latin
America as elsewhere. These same facts help to explain the increasing importance of Organization Studies throughout the region.
Second, it would be difficult to deny that modern societies all over the world are now governed by the imposition
60
of instrumental rationality. Such rationality has been adapted into modes of organizing quickly gaining autonomy and producing
risks and unexpected effects everywhere. Organizational problems are nowadays a permanent preoccupation; they prefigure the challenges
and possibilities confronted by global modernity (Ibarra-Colado, 2006). Yet, advantages of modernity must now be considered together with
opportunities offered by different modes of organizing founded on the (hitherto ignored) existence of ‘otherness’ (nos/otros, us and them).
The recognition of ‘otherness’ brings us to understanding that global inclusion should not eliminate the particularities
of every local reality (Clegg et al., 1999; Radhakishnan, 1994). Even if globalization seems to mean the elimination of differences, there
is evidence everywhere that indicates that these differences remain and multiply (e.g. Appadurai, 1990). Therefore,
it is necessary to
analyse organizational problems in Latin America from its exteriority; that is, to see ourselves as colonized nations
searching for our own identity by means of recognition of our local forms of organization and
management, and by recovering cognitive forms so deeply rooted in our countries. Third, no matter how difficult it might be, Latin
America, as well as other regions of the world that have endured colonization, must provincialize Europe (and consequently the United
States). This must be done in order to come to terms with the fact that the world is both Anglo-Euro-Centric Modernity and Otherness (Dussel
and Ibarra-Colado, 2006), which recognizes the
importance of geopolitical space in the construction of our
identities and our different forms of being. This concerns not only economic and social differences; it is related above all to
epistemic differences. Hence, what is under dispute is our capacity for intellectual autonomy and our capacity for seeing with our own eyes
and thinking in our own languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Nahuatl, Aimara, Zapotec, Quechua or Mapuche), even though sometimes we must
write in English. As Dussel points out: ‘To be born in the North Pole or in Chiapas is not the same thing as to be born in New York City’ (Dussel,
2003: 2). When we consider the problems of our countries through the eyes of the Centre, what we are doing is accepting unreflectively the
problems of the Centre in61 its effort to submit and dominate the region. Thus, we see the Centre’s
constant effort to impose
on us its idea of modernization as the only available option, but just as with any sort of loan, the
interest rates have always been enormous. This useless dependency on the knowledge of the Centre (useless because the
problems modernization set out to resolve are still with us, and aggravated) emphasizes the urgency of moving from translation and imitation
to original creation as emancipated creation. Only then will we be able to break our silence and start a real transformation. A different
organizational knowledge is needed, constructed from the perspective of ‘otherness’. It must be original insofar as it relates to its origins and is
not the result of translation, imitation or falsification. It must analyse the organizational realities of Latin America from the standpoint of the
specific history of its economic and political formation and from its vast cultural heritage. These realities function under modes of rationality
that differ significantly from the instrumental mode of the Centre. These are, in short, the orienting ideas of this meditation, which I develop in
following three sections: The first one establishes the main characteristic of the development of
Organization Studies in Latin America as its tendency towards falsification and imitation of the
knowledge generated in the Centre. The second section recognizes the role played by the term ‘organization’ as an
artifice that facilitates the comparison of different realities through their structural variables, but also the inability of this term to
recognize any reality that escapes instrumental rationality and the logic of the market. It also
articulates the increasing importance of such concepts in the context of neoliberalism. The third section
concludes by renewing the urgency of appreciating the organizational problems of Latin America from the outside by proposing a preliminary
research agenda built from original approaches that recognize otherness
61
Link—Hegemony
The discourse of benign hegemony is denial and papers over 500 years of coloniality
through the dangerous economic encounters with Latin America
Joseph 1998 [Gilbert, Professor of History & International Studies at Yale, doctorate from Yale University in Latin American history, “Close
Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations” pages 5-8]
This volume represents the first systematic attempt to take stock of¶ this exciting watershed and, in the process, to theorize a new
interpretive¶ framework for studying the United States' formidable presence in Latin¶ America.12 Contributors explore a series of power-laden
"encounters" -¶ typically, close encounters—through which foreign people, ideas, commodities,¶ and institutions have been received,
our use of the
contested, and appropriated¶ in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America. We should be clear¶ at the outset:
term encounter in conceptualizing the range¶ of networks, exchanges, borrowings, behaviors,
discourses, and meanings¶ whereby the external became internalized in Latin America should¶ not be
construed as a euphemizing device, to defang historical analysis¶ of imperialism. Sadly, in much of the literature on the 1992 Columbian¶
quincentenary, the term performed just this sanitizing function.13 Equally,¶ it is not our intention to reify "Imperialism," validating Leninist
we are
identifications¶ of it as the "highest stage of capitalism," or imposing other¶ teleological conditions for its study.14¶ Rather,
concerned in this volume with the deployment and contestation¶ of power, with scrutinizing what Mary Louise
Pratt refers to as¶ the "contact zones" of the American empire.15 As these essays vividly¶ demonstrate, U.S. power has been
brought to bear unevenly in the region¶ by diverse agents, in a variety of sites and conjunctures, and through¶ diverse transnational
arrangements. Forms of power have thus been multiple¶ and complex: simultaneously arranged through nation-states and¶
via business and communications¶ networks and culture industries;
more informal regional relationships;
through scientific foundations and philanthropic¶ agencies; via imported technologies; and through
constructions¶ of nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Contact zones are not¶ geographic places
with stable significations; they may represent attempts¶ at hegemony, but are simultaneously sites of
multivocality; of negotiation,¶ borrowing, and exchange; and of redeployment and reversal.¶ We feel no obligation to
rehearse the attenuated debate over whether or¶ not the United States has been an imperial power—a debate that continues¶ to preoccupy
U.S. diplomatic historians and American studies scholars.¶ To argue in the manner of George Kennan and subsequent generations¶ of "realists"
(and latter-day "postrevisionists") that if the United States¶ briefly had an empire in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, it¶ promptly
gave it away; that, therefore, imperialism has always been inconsequential¶ to U.S. history;16 that, unlike the great powers of Europe,¶ the
historical experience of the United States has been characterized by¶ "discovery" not "imperium," "global
power" not "imperialism," "unipolarity" not "hegemony" is to perpetuate false notions of "American ¶
exceptionalism" and to engage psychologically in denial and projection.17¶ Such arguments also ignore structures,
practices, and discourses of domination¶ and possession that run throughout U.S. history.18 A quarter century¶ ago, as the United States'
defeat in Vietnam became apparent, the notion¶ that the United States was an imperial power gained wide acceptance;¶ leading politicians like
Senator J. William Fulbright openly described the¶ nation's foreign policy as "imperialist."19 By contrast, today, amid the¶ continuing
celebration of the defeat of the Stalinist regimes of Eastern¶ Europe, "you need an electron microscope to find 'imperialism' used to¶ describe
the U.S. role in the world."20¶ A provocative recent collection, The Cultures of United States Imperialism,¶ edited by American studies scholars
this "ongoing pattern of denial" among U.S. policymakers and¶
Amy Kaplan and Donald Pease,¶ dissects
academics and seeks to "name" the empire again.21 The volume's contributors¶ argue compellingly that the politics
of U.S. continental and international¶ expansion, conflict, and resistance have shaped the history of¶
American culture just as much as the cultures of those the United States¶ has dominated. The book makes a
powerful case for restoring empire to¶ the study of American culture(s) and for incorporating the United States into contemporary discussions
of "postcoloniality."¶ Cultures of United States Imperialism also begins to fill the lacuna that ¶ most preoccupies contributors to this volume: the
The¶ realist school's overriding
absence of cultural¶ analysis from the overseas history of U.S. expansion and hegemony.
emphasis on high politics, the balance of power,¶ and national security interests had not gone
unchallenged: beginning in¶ the mid-1950s, William Appleman Williams and a subsequent generation¶ of New Left, "revisionist"
diplomatic historians called into question realism's¶ paradigm of denial, focusing almost exclusively on
the economic¶ determinants of empire. In doing so, however, they neglected the role of¶ culture in the imperial expansion of
"America's frontier."22 Kaplan writes:¶ Revisionist emphasis on economic causality may have stemmed in part from¶ the effort to endow
imperialism with reality and solidity against the subjective¶ explanations ["moral idealism," "mass hysteria" generated by the yellow press]¶
The economic approach,
given by those "realists" who relegated empire to a minor detour in the march of¶ American history.
however, embodied its own contradictions,¶ which led to multiple debates among historians . . . about whether the¶
62
fabled markets. . . were mere "illusions," as opposed to having "real" economic¶ value. If economics is
privileged as the site of the "real," then cultural phenomena such as the belief in markets, or racialist
discourse, or the ideology of "benevolent¶ assimilation" can only be viewed as "illusions" that have
little impact on a¶ separate and narrowly defined political sphere.23>¶ To combat such dichotomized, economistic
thinking (which Williams¶ himself would temper in a later volume on "empire as a way of life"),24 the¶ contributors to Cultures of United States
Imperialism wrote about "those¶ areas of culture traditionally ignored as long as imperialism was treated ¶ as a matter of foreign policy
conducted by diplomatic elites or as a matter¶ of economic necessity driven by market forces." 25 Nevertheless, given¶ their predominant
orientation as American studies scholars, and literary¶ and cultural critics, the volume's contributors focused overwhelmingly on¶ questions of
representation and disproportionately on how U.S. imperialism¶ had influenced or consolidated North American rather than foreign¶ cultures.
And although the editors wisely caution against theoretically¶ segregating material and cultural/discursive analysis, the former is largely¶
conspicuous by its absence in this otherwise absorbing volume.¶ While our project has much to say about the "representational machines"¶ of
empire—the technologies and discourses that conveyed empire¶ to audiences back home (see particularly the essays by Salvatore and¶ Poole)
—it is more concerned with representation as an integral dimension¶ of imperial encounters "on the ground." Particular attention is given¶ in
these essays to a materially grounded, processual analysis of U.S. interaction¶ with Latin American polities, societies, and cultures. The manner¶
in which international relations reciprocally shaped a dominant imperial¶ culture at home, although implicit in several of the essays, is not a
central¶ concern here; even less so are the modes by which imperial relations¶ have been contested within the United States. For these matters
readers¶ can profitably consult Cultures of United States Imperialism.¶ If terms such as encounter or engagement, which appear in many of
the¶ contributions, are not meant to affirm the neutral notion of social gatherings¶ that much recent scholarly writing has chosen to emphasize,
what¶ do they connote? Certainly they designate the connectedness of specific¶ material and discursive interactions in the contact zones of
empire; moreover,¶ they are multivalent. On the one hand, they index attempts by people¶ of different "cultures" to enter into relationships
that need not deny or¶ obliterate the subjectivity of the other party: efforts to understand, empathize¶ with, approach the other; gestures to
establish some type of bond,¶ commitment, or contract. On the other hand, encounter and engagement¶ also connote contestation and
conflict, even military confrontation (not for nothing are these terms synonymous with battles in military parlance). Indeed the
derivation
of encounter from the Latin is itself instructive: the word fuses in (“in”) with contra (“against”). ¶ Thus,
these terms designate processes and practices through which the other is rendered proximate or
distant, friend of adversary (or some more ambiguous, ambivalent status), practices that entail mutual
constructions and misunderstandings – the recourse to “othering” and “Orientalizing” that is inherent
in the power-laden contexts. Our emphasis on close encounters in Latin American contact zones – or, as
bill Roseberry prefers in his contribution, diverse “social fields” – suggests interactions that are usually fraught with
inequality and conflict, if not coercion, but also with interactive improvisational possibilities. Such a
perspective, according to Pratt, treats imperial relations “not in terms of separateness and apartheid, but in
terms of copresence, interaction, interlocking understandings and practices.”
63
Link – Heidegger
Heidegger’s theory of Dasein disregards colonized subjects, and at best marks

them as primitive
Maldonado-Torres 7 (Nelson, Professor Comparative Literature at Rutgers, "ON THE COLONIALITY

OF BEING: Contributions to the development of a concept 1." Cultural Studies 21.2-3 (2007): 240-
270)OG
While the anticipation of death provides the means for the achievement of¶ authenticity at an individual level, a Fuhrer or leader became for
Heidegger the¶ means to achieve authenticity at a collective level. Resoluteness at a collective¶ level could only emerge by virtue of a leader.
From here that Heidegger came¶ to praise Hitler’s role in Germany and became an enthusiastic participant in the¶ Nazi administration. War in
some way provided a way to connect these two¶ ideas: the wars of the volk (people) in the name of their leader provide the¶ context for a
confrontation with death, and thus, to individual authenticity.¶ The possibility of dying for the country in a war becomes a means for¶ individual
and collective authenticity.46 This picture, to be sure, seems to¶ reflect more the point of view of the victor in war, than that of the
vanquished.¶ But it could be said that the vanquished can also achieve authenticity through¶ the confrontation with death in war. Anybody can.
Yet, the missing factor here¶ is the following: if the previous account of coloniality in relation to the nonethics¶ of war is
plausible then it must be admitted that the encounter with¶ death is no extra-ordinary affair, but a constitutive
feature of the reality of¶ colonized and racialized subjects . The colonized is thus not ordinary Dasein, ¶
and the encounter with the possibility of death does not have the same impact¶ or results than for
someone whose mode of alienation is that of¶ depersonalization by the One or They. Racialized
subjects are constituted in¶ different ways than those that form selves, others, and peoples. Death is
not so¶ much an individualizing factor as a constitituve feature of their reality. It is the¶ encounter with
daily forms of death, not the They, which afflicts them. The¶ encounter with death always comes too
late, as it were, since death is already beside them. For this reason, decolonization, deracialization, and des-
generaccio¶ ń (in sum, decoloniality) emerge not through an encounter with one’s¶ own mortality, but from a
desire to evade death, one’s own but even more¶ fundamentally that of others. In short, while a vanquished people in war could¶
achieve authenticity, for subjects who are not considered to be part of ‘the¶ people’ the situation is different. For some subjects
modernity changed the¶ way of achieving authenticity: they already live with death and are not even¶
‘people’. What Heidegger forgot is that in modernity Being has a colonial side, and that this has far-
reaching consequences. The colonial aspect of Being, that is, its tendency to submit everything to the
light of understanding and signification, reaches an extreme pathological point in war and its
naturalization¶ through the idea of race in modernity. The colonial side of Being sustains the color-line. Heidegger,
however, looses from view the particular¶ predicament of subjects in the darker side of this line and
the significance of¶ their lived experience for theorization of Being and the pathologies of¶ modernity.
Ironically, Heidegger recognizes the existence of what he calls¶ ‘primitive Dasein’, but in no way he connected it with colonized Dasein.47¶
Instead, he took European Man as his model of Dasein, and thus the colonized appeared as a ‘primitive’.
He forgot that if the concept of Man is a problem, is¶ not only because it is metaphysical, but also because it does away with the idea ¶ that, in
modernity, what one finds is not a single model of human being, but¶ relations of power that create a world with masters and slaves. He
needed to¶ break with the idea of Europe and the European as models, in order to uncover¶ the complex dynamics of Dasein in the modern
period both of European and¶ colonized Dasein, to which we will refer here as the damne´. But we are already¶ in the territory of discourse on
the coloniality of being.
64
Link – Historical Materialism

Criticism of modernity begins with epistemology – privileging material progress
reproduces coloniality
Vallega 12 [Alejandro A., Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon | “Remaining
with the Crossing: Social-Political Historical Critique at the Limit in Latin”, Research in Phenomenology 42
(2012) 229–250 | DOI: 10.1163/156916412X651210]
Fanon’s statement above raises a question beyond its very confines. If, on the one hand, Western philosophy or ontology does not
permit us to understand the being of the black or colored person, what, on the other hand, would suggest
that seeking the being of the colored person would be the path towards the articulation of that
existence? How is the “being” of the colored person conceived if not from the Western philosophical tradition, both as Fanon writes the
statement and as one comes to it? Indeed, the statement may easily fold into a single totality. This happens as soon as one turns to the ideals
of Western Modern philosophy, to its single historical narrative and time line, to its project of a single progress of humanity through
instrumental rationalism, and to the human sciences in order to reclaim being, and more specifically the human being, “l’homme” that Fanon
seeks in Black Skin White Masks. Is the human that one seeks to claim not already contextualized as “fact” and rational subject in the Western
project of progress and freedom, in its agenda, within its horizon? In other words (now crossing, betraying the geopolitical divide), when
Western thought’s rationalism is put into question, is not the subjectivity of the colored person also
put into question? If one does not address these questions, if one does not take up the risk in Fanon’s statement, his
very words may become almost a tautology from being to being, as one moves back into the totalizing exclusive
inclusion one attempts to overcome in remaining under the reasoning that sustains the exclusion.
Moreover, this tautology may not be saved by a mere shifting of registers from philosophy understood as
the expression of Western colonialist power over the other’s existence to philosophy seen from a
geopolitical perspective that recognizes differences, that is, if the grounds for the recognition of
difference are the very same principles and rationalist instrumental materialism that underlies and
defines the operation of Western philosophy as colonizing power. In what follows I want to show that, if the question
that Fanon raises may become a question, its issuing concerns a limit (always arising beyond Western thought), a delimitation of existence that
is risked and put at risk without recourse to the project or operation of that which situates it . . . a spacing that remains to be engaged, and in
that engagement undergone and withstood as it is thought in its concrete temporalizing movement. In other words, to
critique Western
thought from the situation of the colonized is not merely to recognize the subjectivity, agency, and
power-knowledge potential for progress of those peoples and cultures excluded and oppressed under the Western
Modern tradition. What must not remain intact are the concepts I have just mentioned. And this means that the very epistemic
structures that sustain these concepts as well as the dispositions and subconscious expectations
constituted by practices of bodies and imaginaries that project the very horizons of existences must
be undone. But the point is that this also means putting into question the manner in which one takes the very
issue of coloniality and philosophical thought, particularly with respect to the perpetuation of the manner and
disposition, the expectations and drives that underlie Western modernity and colonialism, and which may be
repeated by the very critique that attempts to dismantle them.
65
The market can’t explain colonial abuses—colonial attitudes determine the

location of where the market prioritizes
Quijano 00, Anibel, professor at San. Marcos University and Director of the. Centre for Social Research,
Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism,¶ and Latin America, Nepentla: Views From the South 1(3), 2000)
There is nothing in the social relation of capital itself, or in the¶ mechanisms of the world market in general, that
implies the historical¶ necessity of European concentration first (either in Europe or elsewhere) of¶ waged labor and
later (over precisely the same base) of the concentration¶ of industrial production for more than two centuries. As events after 1870¶
demonstrated, Western European control of wage labor in any sector of the¶ world’s population would
have been perfectly feasible, and probably more¶ profitable for Western Europe. The explanation ought to lie, then,
in some¶ other aspect of history itself. The fact is that from the very eginning of the colonization of¶
America, Europeans associated nonpaid or nonwaged labor with the dominated¶ races because they
were “inferior” races. The vast genocide of the¶ Indians in the first decades of colonization was not caused principally by¶ the violence of
the conquest nor by the plagues the conquistadors brought,¶ but took place because so many American Indians were used as disposable¶
manual labor and forced to work until death. The elimination of this colonial¶ practice did not end until the defeat of the encomenderos in the
middle of¶ the sixteenth century. The subsequent Iberian colonialism involved a new¶ politics of population
reorganization, a reorganization of the Indians and¶ their relations with the colonizers. But this did not
advance American Indians¶ as free and waged laborers. From then on, they were assigned the status¶ of unpaid serfs. The serfdom of the
American Indians could not, however,¶ be compared with feudal serfdom in Europe, since it included neither
the¶ supposed protection of a feudal lord nor, necessarily, the possession of a¶ piece of land to cultivate instead of wages. Before
independence, the Indian¶ labor force of serfs reproduced itself in the communities, but more than¶
one hundred years after independence, a large part of the Indian serfs was¶ still obliged to reproduce
the labor force on its own.8 The other form of unwaged or, simplyput, unpaid labor, slavery, was assigned exclusivelyto¶ the “black”
population brought from Africa.¶ The racial classification of the population and the earlyassociation¶ of the new racial identities
of the colonized with the forms of control¶ of unpaid, unwaged labor developed among the Europeans the
singular¶ perception that paid labor was the whites’ privilege. The racial inferiority¶ of the colonized implied
that theywere not worthyof wages. Theywere¶ naturallyobliged to work for the profit of their owners. It is not
difficult¶ to find, to this veryday , this attitude spread out among the white property ¶ owners of
anyplace in the world. Furthermore, the lower wages “inferior¶ races” receive in the present capitalist centers for the same work as
done by¶ whites cannot be explained as detached from the racist social classification¶ of the world’s population—in other words, as detached
from the global¶ capitalist colonialityof power. The control of labor in the new model of global power was
constituted¶ thus, articulating all historical forms of labor control around the¶ capitalist wage-labor
relation. This articulation was constitutivelycolonial,¶ based on first the assignment of all forms of unpaid labor to colonial races¶
(originallyAmerican Indians, blacks, and, in a more complex way, mestizos)¶ in America and, later on, to the remaining colonized races in the
rest¶ of the world, olives and yellows. Second, labor was controlled through the¶ assignment of salaried labor to the colonizing whites.¶
Colonialityof labor control determined the geographic distribution¶ of each one of the integrated
forms of labor control in global capitalism.¶ In other words, it determined the social geographyof capitalism:
capital, as¶ a social formation for control of wage labor, was the axis around which all¶ remaining
forms of labor control, resources, and products were articulated.¶ But, at the same time, capital’s specific social
configuration was geographicallyand¶ sociallycon centrated in Europe and, above all, among Europeans¶ in the whole world of capitalism.
Through these measures, Europe and¶ the European constituted themselves as the center of the capitalist world¶ economy.
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Link – In-round “activism”

When the privilege of the intellectual is utilized in “service” of the oppressed in
debate and other forums of knowledge production, it inevitably only serves to
maintain and securitize that position in dominant power structures. To counter this,
radical measures must be taken
Maduro 11, Otto, Latino philosopher and sociologist of religion at Drew University,, “Decolonizing
Epistemologies” Chapter “An(Other) Invitation to Epistemological Humility” Fordham University Press,
November 2011
No wonder, symmetrically, that, for their part, those already esteemed and recognized by most as
intellectual authorities, as experts, as the people who really know, and who know what is really
important, try (without knowing that they are trying) to keep their knowledge rare, either by “giving”
of it only that modicum that they deem accessible to the populace (somehow letting the recipients
know that this is the case and earning recognition for their charitable donations) or by denying that
knowledge to the common folk, clothing their wisdom in esoteric, obscure, “specialized” jargon, thus
redoubling their distinctive preeminence as experts with an impossibility of being understood save by
their peers.¶ Unless acutely aware of such complementary epistemological tendencies between elites
and the subaltern, the very groups and individuals¶ engaged in an intellectual struggle (supposedly) in
solidarity with the oppressed and against the dominant elites, might easily end up swal- lowed by
those same dynamics of intellectual distinction, carving secondary niches of expertise (in churches,
unions, NGOs, opposition parties, etc.), where authority, recognition, connections, self esteem, and
other forms of capital can be accumulated and later exchanged for yet further types of capital-probably
contributing, in the end, not to dismantle, but to reinforce and further veil the role of (recognized)
knowledge (theirs included) in the reproduction and cover-up of relations of domination. Ironically,
this is at times the case with Bourdieu’s thought and jargon- originally supposed to have emerged to
expose elitist relations and oppressive hierarchies, but every so often used instead to re-create and
reinforce dynamics of exclusion and self aggrandizement.¶ Nobody is exempt from the temptation and
possibility of slowly sliding from (honestly believing that they are) producing and using their
knowledge mainly in the service of vulnerable, at-risk populations, to using the privileged position of
the “intellectual” among the subaltern (and to increasingly orient their production of knowledge) to
secure, enhance, and reinforce their own position of privilege-thus enabling themselves to
accumulate enough capital (relations, prestige, selflesteem, etc.) to exchange for positions in other
social locations, including in the service of the dominant power structures and elites. I submit that,
rather than an anomaly, this is the “normal” (tragic) tendency of intellectuals, especially when we
refuse to acknowledge that this is the normal tendency and to take the necessary collective measures
to counter it.
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Link – International Law
International law is a eurocentric notion used to objectify and make dispensible

non-european subjects
Mignolo 9 (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University,Dispensible and Bare Lives.
Coloniality and the Hidden Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity. HUMAN ARCHITECTURE: JOURNAL
OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE, VII, 2, SPRING 2009, 69-88)
International Law is an integral part of¶ coloniality: it legalizes the rhetoric of modernity while
simultaneously enforcing the¶ logic of coloniality. It was prompted by the¶ “discovery” of unknown
lands and unknown people; and by traffic of enslaved¶ Africans to the New World. In 1979, U.O.¶ Umozurike,
from the University of Nigeria,¶ published a report on International Law and¶ Colonialism in Africa. The book was published by Nwamife
Publisher Limited, in¶ Enugu, Nigeria. Given the book-market¶ and the trade-names of European and US¶ scholars and intellectual, the book did
not¶ get much attention, beyond a numerical¶ minority interested in the topic. In the¶ 1990s Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui, an African¶ political
theorist based at John Hopkins¶ University, followed
up on the issue re viewing international law in the modern/¶
colonial world from the histories of colonial¶ Africa and the colonial experience of Africans. For the purpose at hand, here is
a¶ lengthy paragraph that would help us in¶ unveiling the interconnections between international law,
dispensable and bare lives: ¶ As a constituent element of Western culture, the law of nations has¶ been
integral to a discourse of inclusion and exclusion. In this regard, international law has formed¶ its subject
and objects through an¶ arbitrary system of signs. As rhetoric of identity, it has depended¶ upon metaphysical
associations¶ grounded on religious, cultural, or¶ racial similarities and differences.¶ The legal subject,
for the most part,¶ has been composed of a Christian/¶ European self. In contrast, the European
founders of the law of nations created an opposite image of¶ the self (the other) as a legal object.¶
They materialized this legal objectification of non-Europeans¶ through a process of alterity. The¶ other
has comprised, at once, nonEuropean communities that Europe has accepted as its mirror image and
those it has considered to¶ be either languishing in a developmental stage long since surpassed¶ by
Europe or moving in historical¶ progression toward the model provided by the European self (Grovogui,
1996, 65). ¶ The simultaneous epistemic process of¶ inclusion/exclusion, led first by Christian¶ theology,
later on by philosophy and science, and lately by political economy supported by political theory , of
which¶ international law was and continues to be a¶ key instrument, is at the historical foundation of
the modern/colonial world, of modernity/coloniality and of imperial¶ capitalism. Francisco de Vitoria in
Salamanca, Spain, in the mid sixteenth century;¶ Hugo Grotius in the Netherland at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and¶ Seraphin de
Freitas, in Portugal, critically¶ responding to Hugo Grotious, constitute¶ three pillars of International Law in the historical foundation of the
modern/colonial¶ world. Subjects whose subjectivities and¶ sensibilities have not been formed by the¶
European memories of Greece and Rome,¶ of Greek and Latin, and by its modern imperial languages (Italian, Portuguese,¶
Spanish, French, German and English), began to be constructed, in the European discourse of international law,
as legal objects.¶ “Legal objects” have been stripped of their¶ language, religions, families,
communities,¶ sensibilities, memories—in sum, legal objects became, for European international¶ law,
not only bare but above all dispensable¶ lives. If non-European people were and are¶ targets of
commodification of human lives,¶ they are also targets to be outlawed. As legal objects, non-European
subjects had no¶ say in International Law, unless they¶ agreed with the terms stipulated by European
law-makers
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Link – Katrina
The affirmative reifies the “too depraved to be saved” narrative surrounding

Katrina victims—beginning with evidence of black cultural resilience is key.
Their focus on the failures of the black masses feeds cultural amnesia.
King 11 (Joyce, Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair Professor of Social Foundations of Education at
Georgia State University, Who Dat Say (We) “Too Depraved to Be Saved”?,
http://hepg.org/her/abstract/824)
Remembering Katrina/Haiti (and Beyond): Critical Studyin’ for Human Freedom¶ With regard to teaching and learning beyond the
disaster narratives of Katrina/Haiti, my concern is about curriculum and pedagogy that can address the
ideological knowledge problem of hegemonic miseducation and collective cultural amnesia that
undergird denigrating discourses of Blackness/African- ness in so far as the humanity of African people is concerned.
These discourses also overshadow and obscure economic, political, and cultural realities of Black
people’s dispossession. Thus, my lesson objective was validated when my students indicated that
everyone had heard about the “Katrina rapists” but no one had read or heard any of the statements of government officials
or journalists who disavowed that particularly depraved acts of sexual violence, which were widely reported as fact, had actually taken place
(Garfield, 2007; Gray, 2006). Moreover, mystudents were unaware of the real reason the television news cap-
tured those painfully disturbing images of helpless women, crying dehydrated babies and young
children, as well as sick and elderly people suffering and dying in the sweltering heat outside, in front of the Convention
Center.¶ Why were the most vulnerable there? Because young Black men had actually organized the people who
had made their way to the Convention Center. They were told that buses were coming to evacuate people, so these
unheralded first responders made sure the women and children, the sick and the elderly—the most
vulnerable—were out front, ready to be picked up first. As I told my class, eyewitnesses—my friends and family—
described to me how young Black men had played heroic roles during these “saddest days” (King & Robertson, 2007). This account has since
been reported in the news and in at least one book (Flaherty, 2010; Moore, 2005). Questions to consider, however, are: Why is the “Black
rapist,” a standard trope of racist rationalizations of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, such a preponderant theme in the media’s stories about
Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti at this time in our history? Why are women and children in Black communities—or anywhere—likely to be
victimized in disasters nowadays?¶ I want to underscore two points here. First,
the young Black men who aided their
families, neighbors, and, in many cases, strangers were acting in concert with the best of traditional
Black cultural ideals, such as generosity, respect for women and elders, and collective care for the
community’s children—that is, a community-minded consciousness—ideals that are actually under
assault by the broader society’s politics of abandonment (Asante, 2009; Chang & Cool Herc, 2005; Heath, 1989; Tedla,
1997). Despite exponentially high rates of incarceration, intensifying poverty, gentrification, and joblessness, these cultural ideals—which are
simply human values—had not been totally obliter- ated from Black life in pre-Katrina New Orleans. This is particularly so among the Black
Mardi Gras Indians—warriors—who remain deeply rooted in their neighborhoods and Black community traditions and who “do not bow down”
(Kennedy, 2010; Sublette, 2009; Woods, 2010).3¶ My second point is that the heroic acts of young Black men (and women)
were overshadowed by the exaggerated reports of sexual assaults that projected racialized and sexualized
representations of Black men. As such, these representations that dehumanized the Black community
were not only possible to imagine, but also were so readily believed—even by Black people—be-
cause of the historical distortion and erasure of the “African presences” from the nation’s cultural heritage and its
public memory (Young & Braziel, 2006). This historical erasure, akin to what Joseph Young and Jana Braziel refer to as “ racial cultural
amnesia” (2007, p. 2 ), undermines our ability to mobilize in the long tradition of the Black Freedom
Struggle . This assault on Black people’s collective cultural memory and identity must be added to the loss of lives and livelihoods, as well as
the “traumatic stress reaction” to “forced displacement” and the loss of community life that is so central to all New Orleanians (Fullilove et al.,
2008, p. 305). Psychiatric researcher Mindy Fullilove (2008) calls this reaction “root shock,” a concept that recognizes that the harm caused
69
when people lose their emotional ecosystem goes far beyond the loss of their “human habitat” (p. 305). Such
loss remains
incalculable. Another inestima- ble cost of this tragedy for Black people, the Gulf Coast region, and the
nation is the idea that Black New Orleanians were “unworthy victims”—too depraved to be saved—an
idea that has historical roots that still linger in the public’s imagination long after the floodwaters
have receded (Garfield, 2007).
The emotional pictures of Blackness the 1AC creates are an intended strategy to
elicit paternalism from the US government and delegitimize the possibilities of
agency from the people of New Orleans themselves.
Dei and Kempf 6 (George Sefa, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of
Toronto, PhD in 2010 in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, & Arlo, PhD in
1986 in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, “Katrina, Cronulla Beach and
France on Fire: An Anti-Colonial Critique of Empire”, Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, 2006,
1(2), pp. 4-25)
G: It’s
how we read Blackness. In this case, it’s equated with these notions about poverty and¶ the other
troubling ideas expressed here. I think it
is crucial that we speak about resistance and¶ further, that we speak
about the possibilities of agency. So when we process these images and¶ texts about hapless people,
designed for public consumption and to elicit the paternalistic¶ empathy of the audience, we must
keep our gaze on resistance. The mainstream media talks¶ about how we need to help these poor,
downtrodden folks but there’s no attempt to connect this¶ discussion to how people are struggling or
finding ways to support themselves.¶ A: Well, when they do that they’re looters of course. G: Right. As many have mentioned
sarcastically (and not so sarcastically) when Black folks¶ break into a store, they ‘loot’ food while Whites doing the same simply ‘find’ food.¶ A:
Finders keepers, looters weepers. Maybe George Bush is right when he says the hurricane did¶ not discriminate; but the media certainly did.
Let me give you another quote before we return to¶ Mr. Bush. This is from BBC correspondent Matt Frei, on October 2nd., 2005. He reports:¶
“The battle between nature and man is almost over, but the battle between man and man¶ is just
beginning. The scene here is more Africa than America. From the air, the¶ destruction is humbling.
Luxury yachts thrown about like toys. Looking closer, there’s¶ stagnant, dirty water, and then there
are the survivors, mostly poor, black and angry. You¶ see dead bodies here, as you wander around the
streets” (Frei, 2005). Now that statement is problematic for a number of reasons. How do you respond to
this sort of¶ old school colonial racism?¶ G: This is again, the attempt to deny the basic humanity of
African peoples. Powerfully, it is¶ couched in a hollow empathy for the people and their suffering.
There’s a way you can present¶ the story without denying the basic humanity of the people. We must
ask why such an approach¶ is not taken. For some of us, our rage comes in an attempt to restore that
basic humanity. We¶ need answers to these questions.
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Link – Katrina
Describing Post-Katrina New Orleans as “Thirld World” is a tool to protect our

image of America as white and privileged, and hide poverty throughout the
US—framing questions are ESSENTIAL for understanding the effects of their
demand
Dominiguez 6 (Virginia. June 11. Seeing and Not Seeing: Complicity in Surprise. Current editor of
American Ethnologist, co-director of the International Forum for U.S. Studies, and professor of
anthropology and international programs at the University of Iowa. ¶
http://forums.ssrc.org/understandingkatrina/seeing-and-not-seeing-complicity-in-surprise/)
Saddened, surprised, shocked. By now these words are everywhere, brought to us by the media in OpEd pieces, newspaper editorials, interviews with caring observers, consultants, and celebrities. The sadness and the shock are, to
People say they are surprised to see the U.S.

be sure, in part about the physical collapse and devastation of a battered, flooded city. But it is the other part that concerns me.
looking so “Third World.” It is clear from what they say and how they say it that the surprise is often deep and very genuine.¶ This is revealing. It is also troubling. When social studies teachers,
sociologists, demographers, geographers, social anthropologists, historians, and economists tell people about existing, palpable inequalities in the U.S., is there little or no audience? The research exists. The experts are there. It is
true that some social scientists exclusively do research projects that are highly technical and require advanced knowledge of math and statistics, or specialized expert terminology to understand. But many social scientists, both in
their writings and in the classroom, do not. There are powerful films, photoessays, life histories, family tales, maps, and readable textbooks that tell the story. And this is not new. Surprise should not really be
the typical reaction, and yet it is a widespread one.¶ Are Americans simply not using the resources already in this country, paid for with their taxes? It is there in the public schools, community colleges, state colleges and state-
. Something is clearly amiss if so many people are so surprised

assisted universities—places in which this knowledge is generated, taught, and discussed
by the images on television and shocked that it makes the U.S. look like “the Third World” (or, more
likely, their idea of something called “the Third World”). We must ask why the message is not being
heard or, if heard, not really understood. And, for the sake of the country and all of its people now and in the future, we must be willing to go wherever the answer(s) takes us—
even if it leads us into the delicate terrain of our own complicity in continuing patterns of inherited social inequalities in the U.S.¶ University of Virginia law professor, Rosa Brooks, took a few steps in that direction in a Special piece
she wrote for the Los Angeles Times published Friday, September 9, 2005, and reprinted in my local newspaper, the Iowa City Press-Citizen, among others. My local paper’s headline on the Editorial Page that day read, “Our
Homegrown Third World.” Indeed the phrase “Third World” appeared 13 times in that Brooks essay, spanning the five half-columns of the Editorial Page. It was not the first time I heard it used after the hurricane hit; it was the first
As Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf

time I recall seeing someone use the phrase while commenting on others using it, too.¶ Her own opening included the term. She wrote, “
Coast, American reporters made a startling discovery. The Border Patrol guys must have been sleeping
at their posts because, somehow, while the rest of us were distracted by those enchanting info-
graphics on the Weather Channel, the Third World managed to sneak into the United States.” She
quoted New York Times reporter David Carr: “it was left to reporters embedded in the mayhem to let
Americans know that a Third World country had suddenly appeared on the Gulf Coast.” She quoted USA Today, too. In
what Rosa Brooks described as “a horrified editorial,” that paper said that the situation in New Orleans resembled something in “Third World refugee camps.” CNN, U.S. News & World Report, and Fox News are all quoted. All the
quotes include “Third World” and all use the phrase to describe what they’re seeing on their television screens or on the ground in New Orleans. Producer Michael Heard reportedly described Interstate 10 in New Orleans as “very
Third World”; U.S. News & World Report is quoted as writing about “the Third World images of death and devastation [that] reeled across the nation’s TV screens”; and Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is quoted as lamenting that
criticize
we can “remove the dead, repair the levee, pump out the water and move on” but that we will be “forever scarred by Third World horrors unthinkable in this nation until now.”¶ Rosa Brooks went on to
these reporters for their surprise, arguing that they have probably never “set foot in Washington’s
Anacostia district, or South Central Los Angeles, or the trailer parks of rural Arkansas”—places in which
large numbers of people live in poverty, places in which “conditions for poor Americans rival those in
developing countries.” But Rosa Brooks’ message is about, and for, professional reporters, TV anchors, and news producers. By the time one is done reading her essay, the U.S. media looks bad.
Their viewers and readers, however, come through unscathed. And yet aren’t very many of us complicitous?¶ Illinois Senator Barack Obama tried to broaden people’s thinking, when he appeared on ABC’s “This Week.” Asked if he
—a habit of thought, I would

thought racism could explain the slow federal government response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he made a point of talking about a deeper type of neglect
say, that equates “America” with middle-classness, industrial or postindustrial prosperity, and the
political, military, and economic power to do anything it decides to do.¶ This habit of thought is so widespread that many with good reason
to worry about whether or not they themselves are accepted as full-fledged Americans can be “caught” buying into it. Let me give but one example. On Thursday, September 8, 2005, the Iowa City Press-Citizen published a Guest
Opinion on page 7A written by the coordinator of the Iowa chapter of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Shams Ghoneim. He described being in mourning “as many Americans are” and feeling outrage mixed with deep sorrow at
the countless lives lost and the extended suffering of the thousands waiting to be rescued at the Superdome, the Louisiana Convention Center, or their homes and nursing homes. But by the fifth sentence of a fairly lengthy opinion
—that habit of thought. “How could the richest and most technologically sophisticated
piece, there it was
country on earth,” he writes, “wait so long to assist these much-damaged cities and communities?”
And three columns later: “What excuse do we have in America for not being better prepared for this
disaster, with our vast resources and modern technology? The answer is hard to come by.”¶ I do not
think it is much of a stretch to say that this is a habit of thought that ignores, cannot digest or even see
all the counter-evidence that exists and surrounds us. “Whoever was in charge of planning,” Senator
Obama said in his interview on ABC’s “This Week,” “was so detached from the realities of inner city life
71
in New Orleans…that they couldn’t conceive of the notion that they couldn’t load up their SUV’s, put
$100 worth of gas in there, put some sparkling water and drive off to a hotel and check in with a
credit card.” He added: “There seemed to be a sense that this other America was somehow not on
people’s radar screen.” I think he’s right. But let’s put that in perspective. As Rosa Brooks reminds us,
“even using the federal government’s Scrooge-like definition, about 13 percent of Americans—and 18
percent of American children—live in poverty. They live in poverty all year round, not just on special
occasions like during hurricanes. And they’re all over this nation, not just in New Orleans” (Sept. 9,
2005, p. 11A, ICPC). I can imagine people responding that this is really just 1 in 8 Americans, which
means that 7 out of 8 Americans do not live in poverty. True enough, but 13% of 290 million (the
estimated population of the U.S. in 2003 according to the U.S. Census) is over 37 million Americans.¶
Where do we all think those 37 million people live? How could we not see them or, if we see them, not
really notice them? Is it that we cannot imagine Americans as poor and, therefore, have to mentally
register them as “defective,” “foreign” or unwilling to assimilate, or as guests but never as members?
The Des Moines Register’s Editorial on Sunday, September 11, 2005, is right to point out that “it wasn’t
just the storm-ravaged areas [devastated by Hurricane Katrina] that looked Third World,” but that “it
was the incompetent response of the federal government, which had Americans wondering why the
richest country in the world, with the supposedly most powerful government, left its people stranded
in misery and squalor for days” (p. 1OP). But, as the Register added, it was also “the television images
that exposed to view masses of impoverished Americans who normally remain unseen.” How can 37
million people be unseen?¶ The viewing public is now indeed seeing some of them. These people are
there on their TV screens day and night. They are increasingly present in their schools, clinics, malls, and
streets, as New Orleanians spread across the country to seek housing, schooling, jobs, and medical care.
But how are we seeing them? This increasing talk of the U.S. looking so “Third World” is worrisome
and telling. Even if people using this phrase say that they are really referring to the scene of
destruction, to people milling about, and to the apparent absence of efficient government help right
there on the ground, are we so sure that they do not also mean that the people they are seeing on
their TV sets are themselves “Third World”?¶ This phrase carries meaning. “Third World” is never used
in this country as praise. It is typically used to refer to other countries, especially in Africa, Latin
America, and Asia—places Americans see as non-European and, therefore, as inhabited exclusively or
overwhelmingly by non-whites.¶ Seeing those New Orleanians on TV as “Third World” is problematic
even if it is understandable given lifelong habits of thought so widespread in the U.S. that keep people
from seeing its dangers. Mentally equating poor people with non-white people and both with “the
Third World” quietly allows viewers to slip easily into familiar forms of perception of the U.S., even
when they appear new and surprising. One of its greatest dangers is that it mentally allows people to
think that poverty and non-whiteness are non-American things, even when they are present in the
U.S. in significant numbers.¶ There is a whole racial element in all this, one that runs deep and makes
most of us complicitous. If our television screens were showing us hour after hour of “white people”—
dirty, frantic, worried people but still people we saw as “just white people”—would all these
references to “Third World” conditions have surfaced? I doubt it. Far likelier would have been
references to the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the San Francisco Earthquake at the turn of the
20th century, or even the condition of Bosnian or Croatian refugees in the Balkans as war tore apart
Yugoslavia.¶ The black skin of the overwhelming majority of the people caught on camera at the
Superdome or the Convention Center, on rooftops or with guns is hard to miss. In a country like the U.S. that has always put people
in racial categories, that does not allow anyone to escape being put in some racial category, and that regularly argues that it cannot work towards becoming a more just society if it does not racialize its entire population, viewers
see those New Orleanians on TV as black and as likely to be poor and uneducated. Americans watching the coverage of the aftermath of Katrina on CNN or MSNBC saw black people at the Superdome, the Convention Center,
wading through infested waters, or breaking into stores. Those from the metropolitan area of New Orleans watching the coverage from elsewhere also saw the absence of the lighter-skinned, the racially mixed, those whose
families have both European and African ancestry and have old ties to New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. What I do not know is how many of us have stopped to think about what it all means—both why we see “those people” as “Third
World” and why it’s those people and not others we see on TV in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.¶ Seeing doesn’t just happen. We learn to see things in certain ways. We teach others to do the same. And once we’re
accustomed to it we just do it, largely without noticing. To see ourselves seeing others in particular ways—to allow ourselves to learn from an experience such as the Katrina disaster—we have to work hard to catch ourselves doing
it.¶ And we are all involved. I caught myself reacting to the images on TV. I kept not trusting my reaction and doubting my memory. As a scholar of New Orleans history and society, and author of a book on New Orleans, White by
Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana (Rutgers University Press, 1986, 1994), I felt nothing should surprise me. But something kept surprising me. I kept thinking that I must have missed something huge in the years
since the book was published, years I have devoted to asking related questions elsewhere, in the U.S., the Middle East, Europe, and the Pacific, but not focusing on Louisiana at all. Had New Orleans turned into a black and poor city
while I was not looking?¶ New Orleans always had a sizeable population not thought of as white in the U.S., though they varied greatly over the years in looks, degree of European and African ancestry, and racial self-identification.
But New Orleans has never been 99% black—using any definition of blackness—and the TV screen made it look that way. Where is the rest of the population of New Orleans, I asked myself quietly for a few days, afraid to reveal to
72
I kept seeing people I saw as black—not even as brown or mixed. I kept noticing the
anyone what I was thinking.
absence of people I saw as white New Orleanians. I also saw people I read as poor or in poor health
and without means. I knew I was seeing them in terms of race and class. I knew I was thinking in
terms of race and class. I knew I disliked what I was doing but that I have been brought up to spot both throughout my lifetime.¶ Then the questions multiplied. If I was seeing this and in these terms,
what was the rest of the country seeing? What was the rest of the world seeing? And what would they make of it? Would this be good for New Orleans or bad for New Orleans? Good for the U.S. or bad for the U.S.? Would viewers
outside the area be less empathetic because of what they were seeing on their television screens, or more empathetic? Would viewers outside the U.S. who currently feel quite negative about U.S. government policies, or even
more broadly, U.S. society, even see those Americans walking into and around the Superdome as American? And, if they did, were they seeing them as Americans implicated in the war in Iraq, as Americans to be exempted from
Or, were they seeing these

their anger and critique, or as Americans whose very presence and plight prove that the U.S. social, economic, and political system is deeply flawed?
Americans as “Third World”—presumably poor and black, undereducated and unlike “us,” somehow
behind the times in technology, knowledge, and morality?¶ This was the part about how we were seeing who we were seeing—and what its consequences
might be. Then I stopped to think about why we were all seeing a particular population of the New Orleans metropolitan area and not the many others. New Orleans is a metropolitan area, not just a city without suburbs. New
Orleans is also a place with a long-standing attention to class and status as well as racial groupings. None of that was visible at the Superdome, the Convention Center, or the Houston Astrodome. All of that, however, was
implicated in who ended up at the Superdome, the Convention Center, and the Houston Astrodome, and who did not.¶ The 2000 census of the City of New Orleans, excluding all of its many suburbs, shows that 67.3% of the
population of the city proper is officially black. Even if we chose to ignore the rest of the population of the metropolitan area—that which makes the New Orleans metro area 1.3 million strong and not just 484,674—where is the
other third of the population, the third not at all in the New Orleans Superdome, the terribly flooded Ninth Ward, or those homes in which people stayed behind because they do not own cars or know where to go without cash or
n. A resulting distortion of the city’s

credit cards? Clearly they left town. The tables are now turned. They are the ones we are in the habit of seeing, but they are now nowhere to be see
demographics makes the whole city on TV look black and poor—and by implication “Third World.”¶
…¶Exceptionalizing New Orleans, that is, deciding that this is yet another peculiarity of a city many
Americans have long treated as unique and different from the rest of the country, is one big mistake I
hope the American public will not allow itself to make. New Orleans is really a very American city, its
French and Spanish history notwithstanding. Poverty and blackness are very American things. They are
the way of life of many homegrown Americans and not just foreign-born Americans. A very
disproportionate part of the American population of African origin is poor, without decent healthcare,
and with inadequate economic opportunities or means. Yes, the poverty rate is higher in the State of
Louisiana (19.6%) and higher still within New Orleans city limits, and the percentage of the population
that is recorded as black is closer to 1 in 3 for the State and two-thirds within New Orleans city limits.
But let us not forget how different the figures look when we take the entire metropolitan area as our
unit of analysis, nor how similar quite a few other U.S metropolitan areas really are. White flight and
middle class suburbs are very American things, too.¶ In the end the real surprise should be that people
are surprised. New Orleans is really no more and no less “Third World” than the country as a whole. I
know it is hard to accept that because we have grown accustomed to thinking that we live in a
prosperous, middle class, powerful country. But who are we thinking of when we say we? And how
many millions of Americans are we not thinking of? Clearly both the inequality that exists and the
habits of thought of so many about “America” need serious fixing.
73
Link – Kritikal Affs
Local solutions are key—rather than deconstructing colonialism by positing it

somewhere out there, we should decolonize the spaces of our everyday life like
debate
Berkeley, May 27. Third World Quarterly. Beyond the Third World: imperial¶ globality, global coloniality
¶The corollary is the need to build narratives from the perspective of¶ ¶ modernity/coloniality ‘geared
towards the search for a different logic’.40 This¶ ¶ project has to do with the rearticulation of global
designs from local histories;¶ ¶ with the articulation between subaltern and hegemonic knowledge
from the¶ ¶ perspective of the subaltern; and with the remapping of colonial difference¶ ¶ towards a
worldly culture—such as in the Zapatista project, that remaps¶ ¶ Marxism, Third Worldism and
indigenism, without being either of them, in an¶ ¶ excellent example of border thinking. Thus, it
becomes possible to think of¶ ¶ ‘other local histories producing either alternative totalities or an
alternative to¶ ¶ totality’.41 These alternatives would not play on the ‘globalisation/civilisation’ ¶ ¶
couplet inherent to modernity/coloniality; they would rather build on a ‘mundializacioń/culture’
(MC) relation centred on the local histories in which colonial¶ ¶ global designs are necessarily
transformed. The diversity of mundializacioń is¶ ¶ contrasted with the homogeneity of globalisation,
aiming at multiple and diverse¶ ¶ social orders—in sum, pluriversality. One may say, with Mignolo, that this¶ ¶
approach ‘is certainly a theory from/of the Third World, but not only for the¶ ¶ Third World… Third
World theorizing is also for the First World in the sense¶ ¶ that critical theory is subsumed and
incorporated in a new geocultural and¶ ¶ epistemological location.’42
74
Link – Kritikal Affs - Solidarity
Their position of charity and false solidarity that takes place from a distance and
above are precisely the sort of voyeuristic investments in suffering that not only
make true solidarity impossible but also invest in the narratives of power at the
root of the violence they describe.
El Kilombo Intergalactico 7 [Collective in Durham NC that interviewed Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, Beyond Resistance:
Everything p. 1-2]
In our efforts to forge a new path, we found that an old friend—the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista Arm of National Liberation, EZLN)—was
already taking enormous strides to move toward a politics adequate to our time, and that it was thus necessary to attempt an evaluation of Zapatismo that would in
turn be adequate to the real ‘event’ of their appearance. That is, despite the fresh air that the Zapatista uprising had blown into the US political scene since 1994,
we began to feel that even the inspiration of Zapatismo had been quickly contained through its insertion into a well-worn and untenable narrative: Zapatismo was
another of many faceless and indifferent “third world” movements that demanded and deserved solidarity from leftists in the “global north.” From our position as
an organization composed in large part by people of color in the United States, we
viewed this focus on “solidarity” as the foreign
policy equivalent of “white guilt,” quite distinct from any authentic impulse toward, or recognition of,
the necessity for radical social change. The notion of “solidarity” that still pervades much of the Left in
the U.S. has continually served an intensely conservative political agenda that dresses itself in the
radical rhetoric of the latest rebellion in the “darker nations” while carefully maintaining political
action at a distance from our own daily lives, thus producing a political subject (the solidarity provider)
that more closely resembles a spectator or voyeur (to the suffering others) than a participant or active
agent, while simultaneously working to reduce the solidarity recipient to a mere object (of our pity
and mismatched socks). At both ends of this relationship, the process of solidarity ensures that subjects and political action
never meet; in this way it serves to make change an a priori impossibility. In other words, this practice of
solidarity urges us to participate in its perverse logic by accepting the narrative that power tells us
about itself: that those who could make change don’t need it and that those who need change can’t
make it. To the extent that human solidarity has a future, this logic and practice do not!¶ For us,
Zapatismo was (and continues to be) unique exactly because it has provided us with the elements to shatter this tired
schema. It has inspired in us the ability, and impressed upon us the necessity, of always viewing
ourselves as dignified political subjects with desires, needs, and projects worthy of struggle . With the
publication of The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle in June of 2005, the Zapatistas have made it even clearer that we must move beyond appeals to this
stunted form of solidarity, and they present us with a far more difficult challenge: that wherever in the world we may be located, we
must become “companer@s” (neither followers nor leaders) in a truly global struggle to change the
world. As a direct response to this call, this analysis is our attempt to read Zapatismo as providing us with the rough draft of a manual for contemporary political
action that eventually must be written by us all.
75
Link—Labor
The hidden imperialism embedded in the 1AC is exemplified by their faith in labor
politics. US Labor has been co-opted and their free trade tinkering will do nothing to
change that. The history of labor imperialism demonstrates that the affirmative will
be used to discipline foreign workers under the guise of solidarity.
Scipes 2005 [Kim, former rank and file member of the Graphic Communications International Union, the National Education Association,
and the American Federation of Teachers, and is currently a member of the National Writers Union/UAW. He teaches sociology at Purdue
University North Central, Labor Imperialism Redux?: The AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Since 1995, Monthly Review Volume 57, Issue 01,
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qHtzXsulSYkJ:monthlyreview.org/2005/05/01/labor-imperialism-redux-the-afl-cios-
foreign-policy-since-1995+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us 2005]
McWilliams appears to recognize that U.S. foreign policy has weaknesses that must be addressed. In this case, he argues that globalization is
doing harm to the world’s workers, that it is a mistake to ignore these escalating problems, that U.S. labor—particularly because of its relations with
labor around the world—is uniquely capable of presenting labor’s concerns to foreign policy makers, and that labor should be
reincorporated into the government’s foreign policy processes: The U.S. would benefit from engaging international labor in the pursuit of shared goals such as democratization, political
stability and equitable economic and social development. An alliance between the U.S. and labor today would focus on worker rights, including ensuring that economic development is not
based on the exploitation of child labor, forced labor or employment that discriminates against women and minorities, and on economic justice, ensuring that globalization’s benefits flow to all
and not simply to the few best placed to profit from it. A revitalized labor diplomacy today would foster democratic freedoms by shoring up fragile democracies, just as the U.S. labor alliance
of the Cold War era did. (emphasis added) Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recognized the strength of the argument, even before McWilliams published it. After receiving the first report
by the ACLD—“A World of Decent Work: Labor Diplomacy for the New Century”—and having a couple of months to evaluate its recommendations, Secretary Albright stated at the November
8, 2000, meeting of the ACLD, “I am absolutely convinced after four years of doing this job that we can’t have a successful U.S. foreign policy without effective labor diplomacy.” She also
added: “And becoming a part of the US Government may not have been something you intended in this way, but I do believe it has been a very important partnership.” (emphasis added)17
the Clinton
The ACLD, although initially only expected to last for two years, was continued by the Bush administration. However, where the first report—during
administration—addressed “the importance of labor diplomacy in U.S. foreign policy and the
promotion of worker rights in the context of economic globalization”—by its second report in late 2001 (that is, after September 11, 2001), the
focus had shifted to “the role and importance of labor diplomacy in promoting US national security and
combating the global political, economic, and social conditions that undermine our security interests.” (emphasis added) This emphasis can further be seen in the title of the ACLD’s second
report, “Labor Diplomacy: In the Service of Democracy and Security.” There is a lot of talk in the second report, just like in the first one, about the importance of labor rights and democracy.
However, one only has to read a little into the second report to see that workers’ rights are important
only if they help advance U.S. security : The war on terrorism provides one more example of why
labor diplomacy functions are so important. Working conditions that lead to misery, alienation, and
hopelessness are extremely important in the constellation of forces responsible for terrorism, especially when
demagogues blame the United States, globalization or other external forces. Policies to improve these conditions are necessary components of strategies to prevent and counter terrorist
activities. Effective labor diplomacy is important in informing American analysis and shaping its policy to combat the conditions that breed terrorism around the world. (emphasis added)
Further, the 2001 report argues, “…the promotion of democracy needs to be part of any sustainable U.S.-led effort to combat terrorism, promote stability and ensure national security.” The
report discusses “Trade Unions in Muslim Countries.” It notes, “These unions are a political battleground because they are proxy
political institutions and instruments for controlling the hearts, minds and jobs of workers in these
countries .” (emphasis added) Further, they note the role of ACILS in these unions: As the U.S. Government-supported programs of the American Center
for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) already demonstrate, a policy that aims to cultivate union leadership
at the enterprise and industrial sector levels represents the most promising approach to inculcate
modern economic thinking and democratic political values among workers in Muslim countries. (emphases added) So, without beating the
issue to death, it is clear that by the second ACLD report, ACLD members are seeing labor diplomacy as a vital part of U.S. foreign policy and national security efforts, and they are encouraging
the Bush administration to address areas of concern that they have identified.18 This certainly includes conditions that they believe facilitate terrorism, and particularly within the Muslim
world. And yet, they state that labor has already been working within the Muslim world, trying to win “the hearts and minds” of workers in these countries. But while great concern is
expressed—again and again in the report—for U.S. national security, concern for the well-being of the world’s workers and any possible expressions of mutually-beneficial solidarity-based
there is a contradiction that can be seen in McWilliams’s argument, and it is one advanced throughout almost all
actions by the AFL-CIO are all but absent. Now, obviously,
labor’s role in the Cold War was terribly

of the government’s foreign policy public documents. The evidence presented in this paper has shown that
reactionary. It acted against democracy in a number of societies and labor movements as well as internally within the U.S. labor movement itself as it sought
to maintain U.S. hegemony in the world. McWilliams acknowledges and even celebrates the close ties between labor and government during that period, and argues for their reestablishment.
And yet he claims that the shared interest of labor and the government is to “spread democracy.” How can
these contradictory claims/realities be resolved? To do this, it is useful to turn to William Robinson’s Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony.19 In an excellent
analysis of U.S. foreign policy, Robinson argues that this policy began shifting in the mid-1980s from supporting any dictator who promised fealty and control of “his” people to intervening
actively in the “civil society” of targeted nations for the purposes of building support among the more conservative politicians (including labor leaders), and for linking their interests with the
United States. Key to this are “democracy-promoting” operations. However, while using the rhetoric of “popular” democracy—the one-person, one-vote grassroots-driven version that we are
76
taught in civics courses and supposedly exists here—the United States is, in fact, promoting polyarchal or top-down, elite-driven, democracy. This polyarchal democracy suggests that citizens
get to choose their leaders when, in fact, they only get to choose between those presented as possible choices by the elites of that country. In addition, viable solutions to social problems can
only emerge from possibilities presented by the elites. In other words, polyarchal democracy only appears to be democratic; in reality it is not. And institutionally, the United States projects
this polyarchal democracy through its “democracy-building programs,” especially through USAID and the Department of State. State, in turn, channels its money and its efforts through the
National Endowment for Democracy, upon which the 2001 report comments: “The National Endowment for Democracy (a government-supported but independent agency) funds its four core
grantee institutions, including the Solidarity Center, as well as a large number of grantee groups around the world.” This understanding provides a means to “decipher” government reports.
When they promote “democracy” and claim it is one of the four interrelated goals of U.S. foreign policy—along with stability, security, and prosperity—in
reality, it is a particular form of democracy, a form of democracy that has no relation to the popular
democracy that most Americans think of when they hear the word. When labor leaders use the term “democracy” in this manner, they are collaborating with
the government against workers around the world, both in the United States and overseas. Where does all this leave us? The AFL-CIO’s
unwillingness to clear the air appears to be not an oversight or a mistake. It seems a conscious decision because foreign policy leaders fear a backlash from union members should their long-
lasting perfidy become widely known, as they should. The AFL-CIO , through its American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS),
was actively involved with both the CTV and FEDECAMARAS in Venezuela before the April 2002 coup , and these organizations both
helped lead the coup attempt. ACILS was given over $700,000 by the National Endowment for Democracy for work in that country between 1997 and 2002. These efforts and receipt of the
money were not reported to AFL-CIO members and, in fact, the AFL-CIO has actively worked to keep these operations from being known, despite a growing number of AFL-CIO affiliated
organizations formally requesting this information. These activities and receipt of this money has not been reported in any labor press, including its own Web site, by the AFL-CIO. And this
As if that weren’t bad enough,
intentional refusal to address member organization concerns has also been formally condemned by a number of AFL-CIO affiliates.
labor leaders also have been actively participating in the State Department –initiated Advisory
Committee for Labor Diplomacy (ACLD), which has been designed to advance the labor diplomacy efforts of
the United States. While considerable benefit to the U.S. government has been established, there has been no or little benefit to workers either in the United States or in the rest of the world.
Again, there has been no transparency by the AFL-CIO foreign policy leaders. Active involvement in the ACLD has taken place not only under the Clinton administration but also under the Bush
administration. In short, there are good reasons to believe that under AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, labor’s foreign policy
has reverted back to “traditional” labor imperialism . In light of these findings, it seems obvious that any of the
current efforts to “reform ” the AFL-CIO are doomed to failure unless they explicitly address the return of
labor imperialism at the highest levels of the federation. While certainly not the only issue of importance, it is one of the most important, and this cannot be
sidestepped should meaningful change be sought. Should this continue to be the case, it is clear that labor activists must consider their own future actions in regards to AFL-CIO foreign policy.
The well-being of workers in the United States and around the world—and our allies—will be deeply affected by the choices made.
That’s particularly true in the context of their mechanism – the affirmative repeats the
history of Northern-led unions “saving” Mexican workers through false and
opportunistic solidarity
Carr 99 (Barry, History Department Professor, La Trobe University, Australia, research concerns the labour and agrarian history of twentieth-
century Latin America, especially Mexico, ‘Globalization from below: labour internationalism under NAFTA’, International social science journal
International social science journal, 3-1999)
The contrast between this legacy of relatively symmetrical labour internationalism and the trans-border
activism of the NAFTA era is particularly striking and has attracted academic comment (Carr, 1996). Since 1994, most
transborder worker and union initiatives, whether they involve bureaucratic petitioning under the
NAALC or information exchange and solidarity efforts between unions ‘on the ground’ in Mexico, the United States and
Canada, have originated in the north – either in the United States or Canada. In the discourse of NAFTA labour
internationalism, Mexico is almost invariably constructed as ‘the problem’, ‘the weak link in the
chain’ or a ‘Trojan Horse for multinational capital’. The ‘advanced’ character of Mexican labour
legislation and the breadth of the social wage entitlements which Mexican workers have obtained
over the decades (their poor enforcement and constant violation notwithstanding) are not yet sufficiently acknowledged
in the United States and Canada. Understandably, UNESCO 1999. ‘southern’ actors (both the Mexican government and pro-
government unions) view the asymmetricality present in both the rhetorical construction and the material
base of trans-border labour cooperation as a cover for narrow FirstWorld labour protectionism and
‘Mexico bashing’. Given that some of the most active transborder labour actors are linked to those northern unions that have been most
vulnerable to capital and labour flight, this is a not entirely inaccurate view. Some US protagonists (the Teamsters are an example)
have occasionally introduced chauvinist language into their presentation of labour solidarity issues. The
77
current Teamster campaign against the liberalization of access by Mexican truckers to the US market generates caricatures of Mexican truckers
as ignorant amateurs, with claims being made that untrained drivers have been given ‘a licence to kill on US highways’. Perhaps it is no
surprise that US and Canadian unionists and workers have had difficulty identifying suitable Mexican
counterparts with whom they can work on transborder issues. The FAT has had to carry most of the burden; yet it is a
small and poorly resourced organization. It is of course possible that Mexican unions and unionists’ interest in building transnational ties with
US and Canadian unions has been diminished by suspicions that ‘northern’
unions have only begun talking about labour
internationalism when the jobs of their members have been placed at risk.
78
Link – Liberalism
The 1AC’s liberal reading of the world normalizes the West as an independent
subject, ignoring individual geopolitical stances within and obscuring personal
responsibility with colonialism—that feed back into a Eurocentric epistemic
lock-in and generalizes the Other
Lander 2K (Edgardo, Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas,
Eurocentrism and Colonialism in Latin American Social Thought, Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 1,
Issue 3, 2000 by Duke University Press)
The main currents in postmodernism have not been able to escape¶ from the limits of a grand Western,Eurocentric narrative. The recognition ¶
of the colonial experience is essentially absent.4 According to Gayatri¶ Chakravorty Spivak (1994,66),“Some of the most radical
criticisms coming¶ out of the West today is the result of an interested desire to conserve¶ the subject of the
West ,or the West as Subject. . . . Although the history of Europe as subject is narrativized by the law,political
economy and ideology¶ of theWest,this concealed Subject pretends it has no ‘geo-political determinations.’¶ ”
Exploring Foucault’s and Gilles Deleuze’s contributions,she concludes¶ that their findings are drastically limited by
ignoring the epistemic¶ violence of imperialism,as well as the international division of labor. Spivak¶ argues that
once the version of a self-contained Western world is assumed,¶ its production by the imperialist
project is ignored (86). Through these¶ visions, the crisis of European history—assumed as universal—
becomes¶ the crisis of all history. The crisis of the metanarratives of the philosophy¶ of history,of the certainty
of its laws, becomes the crisis of the future as¶ such. The crisis of the subjects of that history turns into the dissolution of¶ all
subjects. The disenchantment of a Marxist generation that experienced¶ in its own flesh the political and theoretical collapse of Marxism and
socialism¶ and lived through the existential trauma of the recognition of the¶ gulag evolves into universal skepticism and the end of collective
projects¶ and politics. This justifies a “cool” attitude of noninvolvement,where all¶ ethical indignation in the
face of injustice is absent. In reaction to structuralism,¶ economism,and determinism,the discursive processes and the¶ construction
of meanings are unilaterally emphasized. Economic relations¶ and all notions of exploitation disappear from the cognitive
map. The crisis¶ of the political and epistemological totalizing models leads to a withdrawal¶ toward the partial
and local,rendering the role of centralized political,military,¶ and economic powers opaque. The GulfWar thus
becomes no more¶ than a grand show,a televised superproduction.¶ For these perspectives,the crisis is not of modernity as such,but of¶ one of
its constitutive dimensions: historical reason (Quijano 1990). Its other¶ dimension,instrumental
reason (scientific and technological
development,¶ limitless progress,and the universal logic of the market),finds neither¶ criticism nor resistance. History
continues to exist only in a limited sense:¶ the underdeveloped countries still have some way to go
before reaching¶ the finish line where the winners of the great universal competition toward¶ progress await them. It seems a
matter of little importance that the majority¶ of the world’s inhabitants may never reach that goal,due
to the fact that¶ the consumer patterns and the levels of material well-being of the central¶ countries are possible only as a consequence of an
absolutely lopsided use of¶ the resources and the planet’s carrying capacity.
79
Link – Market Rationality
The Affirmative’s market approach is part and parcel of a wider strategy of intellectual
domination designed to keep colonial difference in place through the Trojan horse of
technocracy and pragmatism
Ibarra-Colado 06 (Eduardo. Head of the Department of Institutional Studies at the¶ Autonomous
Metropolitan University, Campus Cuajimalpa and professor of Management¶ and Organization Studies.
He obtained his PhD in Sociology with Honors at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. June
20. Organization Studies and¶ Epistemic Coloniality in Latin¶ America: Thinking Otherness from¶ the
Margins. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa, Mexico)
For the last two decades, however, the economic opening up and the¶ implementation of the
rationality of the market have modified this scene.¶ These changes have offered researchers an
incentive to look at specific¶ problems of organization, governance and performance. More¶ specific
research focused on growth and transformation is now a priority¶ of businesses and other social
organizations (including government agencies) which are now acting on their own account and have to
vouch for¶ their actions. More exact knowledge about the relations between these¶ organizations’
strategies, structures and outcomes seems to be urgently¶ required. As long as the market criterion is
imposed as a principle of¶ regulation (i.e. inasmuch as decision making does not depend on the¶
actions of the State), understanding organizational dynamics becomes¶ crucial. Furthermore, the role
of global competition in the fulfilment of¶ economic and social outcomes will mostly explain the
results (positive or¶ negative) attained in the region. This shows, on the one hand, the¶ relevance and
possible asymmetries of discussions concerning the processes of restructuring at a global level. On
other hand, it shows also the¶ conditions under which Latin American countries and their agents¶ design
strategies to deal with the region’s integration into the new¶ economic and political geography of the
planet.¶ As such, with the implementation of neo-liberalism, the concept of¶ ‘organization’ has been
incorporated into the daily language of our¶ countries and is being used to explain the economic
problems that result¶ from the rationality of the market. It may be said that we are going¶ through a
falsification process. This means that the organizational knowledge of the Centre has been transferred
and translated into the region in¶ such a way as to interpret problems without taking into account
political¶ considerations. Purely technical arguments dominate everything. From¶ this perspective, we
are not dealing with a problem of unequal exchange¶ between nations but with deficiencies in
organizational designs, which¶ obstruct the productive and efficient functioning of our countries.¶
Hence, we are facing a new stage in which Organization Studies and¶ social engineering become
strategic knowledge aimed at the maintenance¶ and reproduction of the colonial difference in the
context of globalization,3¶ legitimating to some extent the corporate domination of the¶ world
economy. This coloniality intends to impose a definition about¶ what are relevant problems, and
under which frameworks must they be¶ treated and solved. Such distorted knowledge clearly reveals
the existence of coloniality of knowledge, that is to say, the ways in which¶ knowledge is used as a
form of control to hide the colonial condition¶ (Mignolo, 2000).80808080
80
Their authors replicate the coloniality of knowledge in a vision of westernized

development
¶ Despite the fact that Organization Studies as knowledge has advanced¶ ¶ irregularly in Latin America, it is possible to recognize certain
colonization tendencies in these advances.4¶ ¶ For a start, the mechanical transfers¶ of programs and academic
textbooks from the Anglo-Saxon world can be¶ ¶ seen everywhere with the evident dominance of
American influence¶ ¶ (Wong-MingJi and Mir, 1997; Olds and Thrift, 2005). Business schools in¶ ¶ the region, which started in the early
1950s, adopted the syllabus of¶ ¶ their American equivalents (Alvarez et al., 1997). Thus, the education¶ ¶ of professional
managers centred on the totalitarian pragmatism of the¶ ¶ ‘one best way’ and the supposed scientific
character of a set of logical and¶ ¶ highly formalized mathematical knowledge. Nevertheless, the study¶ ¶ and
application of these models and techniques had to be ‘tropicalized’¶ ¶ in order to confront the cultural specificities of each country (Prasad,¶ ¶
2003b: 156–8).¶ ¶ This process of epistemic colonization has been assisted by the¶ ¶ increased translation of
textbooks distributed by large publishing houses¶ ¶ from the United States and other dominant Anglo
countries, which¶ ¶ guarantee the reproduction of their ideology.5¶ ¶ The analysis of syllabi from¶ ¶ any Latin American
university reveals the widespread presence of well¶ ¶ known American authors.6¶ ¶ Similarly, there are falsifications under the¶ ¶
signature of ‘Latin American’ authors7¶ ¶ that have acquired the ability to¶ ¶ think like Americans to the
point of ignoring their native reality by abdicating their own identity.8¶ ¶ Furthermore, we must not forget the
international bestsellers of the management gurus whose books occupy the¶ ¶ largest spaces in the study programs and classrooms of Latin
American¶ ¶ universities.9¶ ¶ In
all these writings, we can find a stereotypical version of the American
businessman: Caucasian, male, liberal, upper class and heterosexual¶ ¶ (Mills and Hatfield, 1998). There is no
place for different ethnicities,¶ ¶ races, genders, sexualities, classes, political positions or religious
faiths¶ ¶ (Calas, 1992). Indigenous, black, mestizos and other races, so central to ´¶ ¶ understanding our
region, are excluded.10 Specifically, any successful¶ ¶ example of prehispanic management still in existence as much as any¶ ¶ current
case of local business success is totally ignored or hardly documented (Davila, 1997: 583; Osland et al., 1999). ´¶ ¶ We may add to this the case
study method popularized by Harvard¶ ¶ Business School; the use of movies and videos produced in the Centre to¶ ¶ define otherness in a
‘convenient’ manner (Jack and Lorbiecki, 2003:¶ ¶ 220–5); the use of different kinds of business simulation games for management training;
and, recently, the use of web-based educational platforms¶ ¶ and software related to certain types of technology (Gopal et al., 2003: 238)¶ ¶ in
order to impose a highly competitive individualist education that aims¶ ¶ at creating the future ‘entrepreneurs’ (Alvarez, 1996).¶ ¶ The
cumulative effect of these knowledge devices results in the construction of an imaginary world in
which the ‘other’ is reinvented. This is¶ ¶ done by imposing types of knowledge that reinforce the
colonial difference. They tell us who we are, how we live, and why we are what they ¶ ¶ tell us we are
(Priyadharshini, 2003). The coloniality of knowledge is a¶ ¶ means of control that disguises Latin America’s
subordinate condition in¶ order to guarantee its silence, as if almost forced to accept the image of¶ ¶
itself which it sees in the mirror of its master
81
Economic management turns Latin America into a culturally backwards space striving
to meet the false universalism of western theories. Reject their poisonous remedies.
The conservative spirit of the university has facilitated this falsification¶ and transfer of Organization
Studies. It has been used to reproduce the¶ hegemonic forms of knowledge, legitimate because of
their so-called¶ ‘scientific validation’. It should also be pointed out that Latin American¶ universities
were created in order to encourage modernization (IbarraColado, 2001). When they adopted the
structure of the universities of the¶ Centre, they guaranteed their functionality as extensions of
internal¶ coloniality (Lander, 2004: 171). The object of this coloniality is to turn us¶ into ‘moderns’, that
is, to detach us from our Latin American condition¶ and from our capacity for autonomous thought
and remake us into fake¶ citizens of the world represented by the stereotype of the international¶
American businessman.¶ Research has followed a similar path. It has developed through the¶
falsification and imitation of the Centre’s organizational knowledge.¶ Initially, Latin American
researchers limited themselves to mainstream¶ theories and methods taken from the Centre in order
to replicate their¶ findings in ‘tropical’ environments.11 This resulted in a paradox. AngloSaxon
theories proved difficult to be empirically validated overseas and¶ this challenged their scientific (i.e.
universal) validity. To shore up the¶ integrity of the knowledge from the Centre, ‘cultural arguments’
were¶ introduced that suggested that the problem was to be found in the¶ ‘anomalies’ of
‘underdeveloped’ societies, instead of in possible limitations (i.e. the ethnocentric rather than
universal premises) of the Centre’s¶ theoretical frameworks (Ibarra-Colado, 1985: 30–3).¶ Eventually,
cultural arguments became a very important epistemic¶ resource for internal colonization (Florescano,
1994: 65–7). They permitted drawing up classifications of differences between Latin America¶ and the
Centre, establishing a hierarchy that guaranteed relations of¶ domination between the ‘developed’
and the ‘underdeveloped’. Cultural¶ studies and anthropology were used to tag these differences. They
put¶ labels on the anomalies, patterns of deviations and so-called pathological¶ characteristics.
Moreover, they allowed other types of knowledge, such as¶ economy, management and
organizational knowledge, to be proposed¶ as remedies (Davila, 1999, 2005).828282
82
Be skeptical of the 1AC’s claims of vague casual relations– these “rational concepts”
are usually void of any contextual truth and breed failed policices
The scant interest that Organization Studies has aroused in Latin America also has to do with an
absence of specific historical reference points,¶ which have impeded giving meaning to the term
‘organization’. Even¶ though such a concept played a very important social function in the¶ United States, it had no meaning for people
and communities in Latin¶ America. Modernization in Latin America has basically been understood¶ as the
incorporation of our countries into a world commanded and¶ designed from the centre, and has relied
on the formation of strong¶ national states, which determined the course of economy and society¶
through a combination of state corporatism and violence, instead of¶ economic performance and
technical rationalization.¶ Although this absence of historical meaning has prevailed in the¶
conceptualization of ‘organization’, over the course of the last two¶ decades, its usage has been
gradually reinforced by the adoption of¶ market rationality in the region. Nonetheless, the concept has
not worked¶ in the same way everywhere. Its enticing capacity in the Anglo-Saxon¶ world is associated
with the possibilities that it offers to naturalize¶ the market rationality. In contrast, this concept is
insufficient in Latin¶ America to understand the apparent politization of economic life and the¶
assumed bureaucratic pathologies that lead to informal behaviours not¶ attuned to instrumental
rationality (Duarte, 2006). At the same time, the¶ concept has enabled the weakening of Latin
American critical thought¶ through the imposition of certain organizational perspectives that reduce¶
problems to design and coordination deficiencies, thus denying the social¶ and political foundations of
these problems and the asymmetries which¶ are then produced.¶ As an epistemic artefact, the concept
‘organization’ acquires its power¶ from its characteristic ambiguity and neutrality, and from the
technical¶ (non-problematic) character that it gives to any organizational reality. It is¶ ambiguous because it
does not imply a specific meaning. This concept¶ refers to almost anything. It is an idea that refers to a
nonexistent reality¶ and entails a framework of abstract concepts to represent causal relations ¶
(Barnard, 1948). The use of this word produced at least two effects.¶ Firstly, it allowed introducing
some convenient neutrality when it took¶ the place of other terms, such as ‘corporation’, ‘monopoly’
or ‘bureaucracy’. Important sectors of society strongly questioned these words¶ because of their association with the power of money
and state actions;¶ that is to say, because of the consequences that private accumulation and¶ state intervention had on employment and
Organization Studies had to be¶ careful not to appear
citizens’ welfare. Thus, the¶ nascent disciplines that would promote
as servants of power, nor employ terms that would¶ undoubtedly compromise their declared
objectivity. Their theoretical¶ asepsis was an indispensable condition for combating any suspicions¶
that could have brought into question the scientific nature of this set of¶ knowledge and practical
advises (Ibarra-Colado, 2000: 250–5).
83

Their “experts” know nothing, create more problems than they solve, hide real
solutions, and are responsible for the ambivalence towards modernity
He obtained his PhD in Sociology with Honors at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 2 June
The study of organizations and the examination of their structures¶ and management have been
generally considered non-problematic: organizations are structured and function under instrumental
rationality, so¶ individuals interiorize as normal some work routines and rules of¶ conduct that make it
difficult to appreciate the phenomenon in any¶ other terms. For these reasons, organizational problems are
immediately¶ assumed to be ‘essentially technical’, which ‘experts’ should properly ¶ solve. Because we
have become accustomed to live under their mandate,¶ we forget too easily that the operation of
organizing and governing, their¶ rules and instrumentation, has serious practical consequences. They¶
are disciplinary mechanisms producing certain effects that promote¶ specific forms of social
distribution. Yet, by appearing as natural or¶ given realities current modes of organizing and governing
are protected¶ from social criticism, and thus are able to demarcate behaviours and¶ mould identities.¶
The implications are obvious: a non-reflective approach to organizational problems lead to incomplete
interpretations of social problems, to¶ the tacit acceptance of the everyday realities in which we find
ourselves¶ immersed, leading us to the acceptance that nothing can be done. We¶ have simply stopped
asking ourselves if a different kind of existence is¶ possible, one that might lead to norms of
coexistence and mode of¶ organizing based on alternative notions of rationality, distinct from those¶
based on the market and economic exchange.84¶ Furthermore, through the terminological artifice represented by the¶ ¶
term ‘organization’, and with the new language that emerged from it,¶ ¶ the modern corporation recuperated its social legitimacy to the point
of¶ ¶ becoming the exemplar to follow in all modes of organizing. Thus,
the¶ ¶ corporation’s economic success and their
impressive technological contributions to society projected itself as the preferred laboratory for
organization experts; their task was to ‘discover’ the ‘universal principles’ of¶ ¶ structural design and
management that would guarantee the rational¶ ¶ operation of any formal organization.¶ ¶ It was this
structuralist vision that synthesized the ambivalences of¶ ¶ modernity into the progressive
bureaucratization of the world and,¶ ¶ concurrently, into the growing dissemination of a market-based
rationality (Du Gay, 2005; Ibarra-Colado, 2006). The tensions between general¶ ¶ regulation mechanisms and freedom of exchange
prefigured a new¶ ¶ landscape: a world dominated by an institutional isomorphism in which¶ ¶ organizations are committed to be free, so
they will be paradoxically¶ ¶ captive of the market. The modern world has become an enormous¶ ¶ institutionally regulated market,
which over the course of the last¶ ¶ century gradually incorporated institutions created by the State to¶ ¶ preserve the unity of society and to
protect public interest (Hodge and¶ ¶ Coronado, 2006)8484
84
Link – Marxism/Western Philosophy
Western political philosophy, even Marxism and its radical traditions, begin
from epistemic racism—non-western peoples are considered subhuman and
objectified
Grosfoguel 12 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley,
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/01w7163v, Decolonizing Western Uni-versalisms: Decolonial
Pluri-versalism from Aimé Césaire to the Zapatistas)
For example, the category of¶ labor is a simple one that emerges in a particular moment of human
history when labor is socially¶ detached from its concrete multiplicity. In agreement with Marx, this
only occurs in the capitalist¶ | R. Grosfoguel. Transmodernity (Spring 2012)¶ 93¶ system when mercantile
relations come to predominate in the social relations of production.¶ Economic thought can only create
this category as a simple and abstract concept at a determinate¶ moment in the development of human
history. Previously, to speak of labor one would refer to the¶ concrete labor carried out by the person:
shoemaker, seamstress, farmer, etc. It is only when these¶ various tasks are measured socially
according to their exchange value (the socially-necessary labor¶ time for the production of a
commodity), and not according to use value (the kind of qualitative¶ labor involved in production),
that the emergence of the category “labor” becomes socially possible¶ as an abstract concept
indifferent to particular concrete labor. That is to say, for Marx thought does¶ not spring from the heads of people in a determinate
moment of the development of Spirit as seems¶ to be the case for Hegel, but emerges instead from the determinate, concrete, historico-social¶
situation of the development of the political economy. So Marx epistemically situates the production¶ of knowledge not as the result of the
development of Spirit in an epoch, but rather of the material¶ development of the relations of production and forces of production (“mode of
production”).¶ This grounding of the history of Hegelian Spirit in the history of the political economy and¶ its relation to the thought of an epoch is
what causes Marx to give a materialist turn to the Hegelian¶ dialectic. As a result, Marx would emphasize the class character of the political, theoretical,
and¶ philosophical perspective in question. The point of view of the proletariat would be for Marx the¶ epistemological departure point for a critique
of what he deemed bourgeois political economy. This¶ represented an important rupture with the Western philosophical tradition with regard to these
two¶ types of universalism. In Type I, the universalism of utterances, Marx situated these utterances, as¶ did Hegel, in their historical context. Against
Hegel, this historical context was no longer that of¶ Universal Spirit, but rather the development of the political economy, the mode of production,
and¶ the corresponding class struggle. The conditions of production assume primacy over consciousness¶ in all
historical eras, still an abstract universal utterance, but one in which the operation of the¶
determination “in the last instance” of economic processes will vary in each epoch. We have here an¶
abstract universal that is filled with the political-economic content of every historical epoch, thereby¶
becoming concrete.¶ In Type II, the abstract epistemic universalism of the subject of enunciation, Marx situated¶ the position from which
subjects think in relation to classes and class struggle. Hence, against the¶ tradition that spans from Descartes to Hegel, Marx situates his
geopolitics of knowledge in relation¶ to social classes. Marx thinks from the historico-social situation of the European
proletariat, and it is¶ on the basis of this perspective that he proposes a global/universal design as the solution to the¶ problems of all humanity:
communism. What Marx maintains in common with the Western¶ Bourgeois philosophical tradition is that his universalism, despite having emerged
this subject is European,¶ masculine,
from a particular¶ location—in this case, the proletariat—does not problematize the fact that
heterosexual, white, Judeo-Christian, etc. Marx’s proletariat is a conflictive subject¶ internal to
Europe, which does not allow him to think outside the Eurocentric limits of Western¶ thought.
Neither cosmological and epistemological diversality nor the multiplicity of sexual, gender,¶ racial,
and religious power relations are incorporated or epistemically situated within his thought.¶ Just like
the Western thinkers that preceded him, Marx participates in the epistemic racism in¶ | R. Grosfoguel.
Transmodernity (Spring 2012)¶ 94¶ which there only exists a single epistemology with access to universality:
the Western tradition. In¶ Marx, in the epistemic universalism of the second type, the subject of enunciation remains¶ concealed,
camouflaged, hidden beneath a new abstract universal that is no longer “man,” “the¶ transcendental subject,” “the ego,” but instead “the proletariat”
and its universal political project,¶ “communism.” Hence the 20th-century communist project was, albeit from the left, yet another¶ Western global
85
imperial/colonial design which under the Soviet empire attempted to export to the¶ rest of the world its universal abstract of “communism” as “the
solution” to global problems.
Marx¶ reproduces an epistemic racism much like that of Hegel, which does not
allow him to grant to non-¶ European peoples and societies either temporal coevalness or the
capacity to produce thought¶ worthy of being considered part of the philosophical legacy of humanity
or world history. For Marx,¶ non-European peoples and societies were primitive, backwards, that is,
Europe’s past. They had not¶ reached either the development of the forces of production or the levels
of social evolution of¶ European civilization. As a result, in the name of civilizing them and pulling
them out of the¶ ahistoric stagnation of pre-capitalist modes of production, Marx would support the
British invasion¶ of India in the 18th century and the United States’ invasion of Northern Mexico in
the 19th century.¶ For Marx, the “Asiatic mode of production” was the Orientalist concept through which he¶ characterized
non-Western societies. This “Asiatic mode of production” was characterized by its¶ incapability of change and transformation, that is, by its always
infinite and eternal temporal¶ reproduction. Marx participated in the linearity of time characteristic of Western evolutionist¶ thought. Capitalism was a
more advanced system and, following Eurocentered modernity’s rhetoric¶ of salvation (Mignolo, Local Histories),
it was better for the non-
European peoples to accelerate their¶ evolutionary process toward capitalism through imperial
invasions than to continue their stagnation¶ in antiquated forms of social production. This
economicist evolutionism would lead 20th-century¶ Marxists down a blind alley. Marxist thought,
despite being from the left, ended up trapped in the¶ same problems of Eurocentrism and colonialism
that had imprisoned Eurocentered thinkers of the¶ right.¶ At this point, I want to highlight two crucial
points:¶ 1- Any cosmopolitanism or global proposal that is constructed through the abstract¶
universalism of the second type, that is, through the epistemological universalism of the egopolitics¶
of knowledge, will not be able to avoid becoming another global imperial/colonial¶ design. If
universal truth is constructed through the epistemology of a particular territory or¶ body (whether it
be Western, Christian, or Islamic), and through the exclusion of others,¶ then the cosmopolitanism or
global proposal that is constructed through this abstract¶ universalist epistemology will be inherently
imperialist/colonial.¶ 2- Abstract epistemic universalism in the modern/colonial Western philosophical
tradition¶ forms an intrinsic part of epistemological racism. Another way of saying this is: epistemic¶
racism is inherent to modern Western philosophy. If universal reason and truth can only¶ emerge through
a white-European-masculine-heterosexual subject, and if the only tradition¶ of thought with this capacity for
universality and with access to truth is the Western tradition¶ (inferiorizing all non-Western knowledge), then
there can be no abstract universalism¶ | R. Grosfoguel. Transmodernity (Spring 2012)¶ 95¶ without epistemic racism.
Epistemological racism is intrinsic to a Western “abstract¶ universalism” which conceals who speaks
and from where they speak.¶ So the question is: How can we escape the dilemma between isolated
provincial particularisms and¶ abstract universalisms camouflaged as “cosmopolitan,” but equally provincial?
How can we¶ decolonize Western universalism?
86
Link – Mexico – Borders

The true borders lie in the epistemic location within the state—the border is
merely a tool to reinforce deep-seated assumptions about the Mexican state
Orozco-Mendoza 8 (Elva, doctoral student currently concentrating in political theory at UMass,
Borderlands Theory: Producing Border Epistemologies with Gloria¶ Anzaldúa, Thesis submitted to the
Faculty of¶ Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 4/24/2008)
The concept of borders (or frontiers) is precisely the mechanism that Europeans employed to¶ perpetuate and to
reinforce difference. These sites were meant to mark a distinct division¶ between those who could have
access to the rights and benefits of the state and those who could¶ not. Thus, who was to be included or excluded
was/is to be determined by people’s emplacement¶ on one or the other side of the border. To put it in Hannah Arendt’s terms, people’s right to
have¶ rights is then determined by their status as nationals or foreigners of a state, since “national ¶ institutions rest upon the formulation of a
rule of exclusion, of visible or invisible ‘borders,’¶ materialized in laws and practices” (Balibar, 2004: 23). Needless to say, the
determination of¶ who belongs in, and who belongs out, (or who does what in terms of labor) continues to be¶
inscribed upon the same racist values employed during colonialism and modernity . According to¶ Castro-
Gomez, “the world-system is a sui generis set of social relations configured in the¶ sixteenth century as a consequence of the European
expansion over the Atlantic” (Castro-Gomez¶ and Johnson, 2000: 509). For a long time, it was expected that borders were capable of keeping
strangers at distance;¶ yet such a role turned out to be a fallacy insofar as the flow of transnational immigration, as has¶ been observed, is a
phenomenon as old as human history and, as such, has been proven to¶ surpass the capacities of even the most powerful states. For instance,
it has been stated that “ever¶ since the emergence of modern territorial states, with their delineation of
borders formally¶ designating the extent of state’s authority and the domain of citizenship, migration has
posed¶ governments the long-term challenge of managing cultural and political change” (Heisler and¶
Layton-Henry, 1993). Despite such efforts, states historically fail in stopping people from¶ migrating to places that
they consider offer better opportunities. The best example available can¶ be found in the case of
Mexico and the United States, who have failed to prevent “illegal”¶ immigration despite increasing militarization and technological
advancements used to patrol the¶ border. These circumstances have scholars re-evaluating the importance of state’s borders in¶ today’s
political context. According to recent analyses, borders are situated neither at the¶ periphery not at the margins of
a state, but rather, at the core. This is evident especially when¶ dealing with issues of security; not
only because after the 9/11 attacks borders became increasingly regarded as a line of defense that
needs to be constantly monitored and secured, but¶ because “as a structure, the nation-form produces
and perpetuates a differentiation that must be¶ defended” (Balibar, 2004: 23).¶ Assimilation is one of the problems
most commonly associated with transnational migration.¶ It is stated that migrant communities are not easy to assimilate into mainstream
culture. For that¶ reason, they represent a threat to the social security of the host country. Current trends of¶ immigration show a tendency of
people moving from areas of high political, social, or economic¶ insecurity to what migrants tend to perceive as areas of lower insecurity
(Heisler and¶ Layton-Henry, 1993). Yet this process is considered turbulent due to the effects it causes in¶ hosting countries. On a secondary
level,
it is believed by many that immigrants carry with them¶ the underdevelopment characteristic of
their place of origin. The perceived problem with¶ immigrants is that they do not want to put their
culture aside in order to adopt the dominant¶ culture. For instance, in the case of Mexicans in the U.S., language, religion,
traditions, and¶ poverty are considered to be completely antithetical with the American way of “making good”¶ (Nostrand, 1970: 642). In
addition, Mexican heritage is closely associated with a tradition of¶ failure (Poyo and Hinojosa, 1988). Thus, slow
assimilation, in combination with stereotypes of¶ failure and laziness, are the reasons for which Mexicans appear undesirable to white America.
87
Link – Mexico – Immigration

The aff’s framing of Mexicans is ethically bankrupt—immigration is seen only as
an economic means to an end
Current debates about illegal immigration in the United States still contain, directly or¶ indirectly, traces of
colonial values since Mexicans are regarded as inferior. This supposed¶ inferiority further complicates the
problem of Mexican illegal immigration in a country that,¶ ironically, has been largely influenced by immigrants
from all over the world. However, I argue¶ that Mexican presence in the United States is problematic since there is
less likelihood that¶ Mexicans are considered subject to rights. Instead, they are more likely regarded
as agents ready¶ to perform the hard work that the American economy needs at a cheap cost (Vargas, 2005). In¶
this dynamic, assimilation plays a key role, since it is the basis of Mexican exclusion.11 Mexican¶ assimilation into the dominant
culture, hence, is neither possible nor it is desirable from an¶ Anglo point of view, since Mexicans are
considered inferior because of their culture. As already¶ stated, Mexican attachment to their native language,
traditions, customs, and culture are hard to¶ eradicate. Moreover, Mexicans are seen as inferior, since the racial mixture that took
place during colonization produced a large population of mestizos. In short, Mexicans are regarded as¶ the other. Ironically, the relationship
between Mexicans and Americans is further complicated by¶ the border that these two countries share.
88
Link – Moral Obligations
Moral obligations are a paradoxical system of circular, irrational violence that

excuses itself as inevitable and just
Dussel 2k (Enrique D, professor in the Departament of Philosophy in the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), Campus
Iztapalapa in Mexico City, doctorate in philosophy in the Complutense University of Madrid and a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne of
Paris. He also has a license in theology from Paris and Münster. He has been awarded doctorates honoris causa from the University of Fribourg
in Switzerland and the Higher University of San Andrés in Bolivia; “Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism” Nepantla: Views from South, Volume
1, Issue 3, 2000, pp. 465-478)
Modernity, as a new paradigm of daily life and of historical, religious,¶ and scientific understanding, emerged at the end of the fifteenth¶
century in connection with control over the Atlantic. Thus the seventeenth¶ century was already the product of the sixteenth century. In other
words,¶ since Holland, France, and England developed the possibilities already¶ opened up by Portugal and Spain, they constituted the second
modernity.¶ In its turn,
Latin America entered modernity—well before North¶ America—as the “other side,”
that which was dominated, exploited, and¶ concealed.13¶ In this framework, modernity implicitly contains a
strong rational¶ core that can be read as a “way out” for humanity from a state of regional¶ and
provincial immaturity. On the other hand, this same modernity carries¶ out an irrational process that
remains concealed even to itself. That is to say,¶ given its secondary and mythical negative content,14 modernity can be
read¶ as the justification of an irrational praxis of violence. The myth could be¶ described as follows:¶ 1. The
modern civilization casts itself as a superior, developed civilization¶ (something tantamount to unconsciously
upholding a Eurocentric¶ position).¶ 2. The aforementioned superiority makes the improvement of the¶ most barbaric,
primitive, coarse people a moral obligation (from¶ Ginés de Sepúlveda until Kant or Hegel).¶ 3. The model of this educational
process is that implemented by Europe¶ itself (in fact, it is a unilineal, European development that will¶ eventually—and unconsciously—result
in the “developmentalist¶ fallacy”).¶ 4. Insofar as barbaric people oppose the civilizing mission, modern¶
praxis must exercise
violence only as a last resort, in order to destroy¶ the obstacles impeding modernization (from the “colonial¶ just
war” to the GulfWar).¶ 5. As the civilizing mission produces a wide array of victims, its¶ corollary violence is
understood as an inevitable action, one with¶ a quasi-ritual character of sacrifice; the civilizing hero manages to¶
make his victims part of a saving sacrifice (I have in mind here the¶ colonized indigenous people, the African slaves, women,
and the¶ ecological destruction of nature).¶ 6. For modern consciousness, the
barbarians are tainted by “blame”15¶
stemming from their opposition to the civilizing process, which allows modernity to present itself not
only as innocent but also as¶ absolving the blame of its own victims.16¶ 7. Finally, given the “civilizing” character of
modernity, the sufferings¶ and sacrifices —the costs— inherent in the “modernization” of¶ the “backward,”
immature people,17 of the races fitted to slavery,¶ of the weaker female sex, are understood as
inevitable .
89
Link – NAFTA
Free Trade Zones are produced by of racialized colonialism in Latin America –

hyper-exploitation of darker populations guts labor rights and solidarity
Werner 11 (Marion, University at Buffalo-Department of Geography, “Coloniality and the Contours of

Global Production in the Dominican Republic and Haiti”, 2011, 7/30/13.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~wernerm/Werner_Antipode.pdf|Ashwin)
Since the 1970s, there has been a substantial surge in foreign direct investment ¶ (FDI) in industrial production in the global South. Scholars have,
for the most part, ¶ characterized this increase as a new phenomenon that indicates a structural shift in global ¶ capitalism, arguing that the global
South is no longer enrolled in capital accumulation ¶ primarily via the extraction of raw materials for industrial processes in the global North.i ¶
Rather, transnational capital has been able to take advantage of depressed wages in the ¶ global South
through developments in finance, advanced communications technologies, 4¶ as well as multilateral
and macroregional trade liberalization. Mainstream debates about ¶ these new patterns of global production – in the
circum-Caribbean, for example – have ¶ largely been restricted to analyses of the efficacy of these
arrangements in terms of ¶ national capitalist development.ii These debates, however, obscure other
geographies: on ¶ the one hand, they do not recognize the historical and material continuity of new ¶
production arrangements with those of the colonial past; and, they fail to engage with the ¶ racial and
gendered ideologies and practices that are reproduced in relation to colonial ¶ formations , to great
material and economic effect (Hart 2002; Nagar, Lawson, ¶ McDowell, and Hanson 2002) The work of Peruvian scholar Anibal Quijano can be
helpful in this regard. ¶ Quijano names the articulation of hierarchical forms of social difference with wage and ¶
non-wage forms of labour control, “the coloniality of power.” He argues that the racial ¶ hierarchies forged
through the conquest of the Americas constitute a terrain of ¶ articulation, one that adapts historic
patterns of exploitation to the contingent necessities ¶ and attendant conflicts of contemporary
capitalist accumulation (2000). It is this terrain ¶ of articulation that draws contingently from the invention of race through conquest in ¶
order to structure hierarchical relations of domination and exploitation: ¶ The distribution of social identities [through racial
categories] would henceforth ¶ sustain all social classification of the population in America. With and
through it, ¶ diverse forms of exploitation, labour control and relations of gender would be ¶
articulated in changing forms depending on the necessities of power in each ¶ period. (Quijano 1998: 30, my
translation) ¶ In terms that are not dissimilar to those in the early work of Stuart Hall (1980; cf. ¶ Althusser 1990), coloniality does not presume
any essential connection between subjects ¶ marked by social difference and the relations of exploitation and domination that they ¶ experience.
The invention of race established particular geographical and social roles in ¶ the global division of
labour of capitalist accumulation – and the spatial distribution of ¶ forms of labour, i.e., waged, paid, unpaid,
slave, indentured, etc. – despite the fact that ¶ neither capitalism nor racism nor sexism exist in relations of necessary dependence. And ¶ yet, these
structures are not simply analogical, as Spivak reminds us (1988). Rather, ¶ there
is a way in which accumulation proceeds
through the iterative production of the ¶ coloniality of power: that is, the reworking of hierarchies of
social difference and forms ¶ of labour in order to recuperate profits from their interminable
tendency towards ¶ stagnation and decline. ¶ If coloniality is fundamentally a relational process linking hierarchies of raced ¶
and gendered workforces – made “national” through additional practices of the state – to ¶ capitalist accumulation, it is also, fundamentally, a
spatial endeavour. It is not only the ¶ articulation of race, gender, class, and nation that shape the contours of wage labour and ¶ those rendered as
superfluous to its relation, but also the relational production of place. 6¶ Places are processes formed through specific histories of accumulation,
disinvestment, ¶ violence, dispossession, and resistance in relation to other places. The structural position ¶ of places within hierarchies of capital
accumulation is reproduced (or not) through ¶ processes shot through by the coloniality of power (see Massey 1994; Sheppard 2002). ¶ The
relational production of place is central to the contours of accumulation that I ¶ trace in the following sections. Two key localities figure in this
story: the inland city of ¶ Santiago, the erstwhile capital of export garment production in the Dominican Republic, ¶ and the border towns of
Ouanaminthe (Haiti) and Dajabón (DR) (see Map). These places ¶ have very different trajectories: Santiago has long served as a center of capital ¶
accumulation in the country’s northern region, called the Cibao, possessing a wellestablished and globally connected provincial elite. The
proximate border region, on the ¶ other hand, is defined by state violence, subsistence forms of livelihood, and substantial ¶ out-migration for
much of the 20th century. I trace the conditions of possibility for the ¶ new connections being forged between Santiago and the border through
apparel ¶ production outsourcing as part of redrawing the relational boundary between exploitable ¶ workers and those produced as excess to
90
In doing so, I discuss not only ¶ proximate changes in accumulation strategies in the
accumulation.
Dominican Republic but the layers of ¶ violence, disinvestment and dispossession in the border region
that make the latter ¶ conceivable as a new low-wage frontier. The creation of trade zones in the Dominican
Republic was celebrated during the ¶ 1980s and 1990s by proponents of neoliberal policy for diversifying exports following ¶
declines in sugar prices and shrinking US sugar import quotas, the country’s source of ¶ foreign exchange for much of the 20th century
(Kuczynski and Williamson 2003).vi¶ Sugar plantations promoted through the parallel US occupations of the Dominican ¶ Republic (1916-1924)
and Haiti (1915-1934) incorporated Haitian workers, mostly men, ¶ in the Dominican Republic as low-wage labour, forming a long-standing
“temporary” ¶ workforce confined through policing, deportations, and racial profiling to the plantation ¶ regions in the southeast until the model’s
crisis in the 1980s. Dominican men worked in ¶ related agro-industrial production as well as state-promoted manufacturing, although the ¶ total
wage employment in both activities barely topped 100,000 (Lozano 2001; Moya ¶ Pons 1992). ¶ Structural adjustment, including two steep
Over the
currency devaluations, and President ¶ Reagan’s Caribbean trade policy facilitated a proliferation of trade zones in the 1980s. ¶
course of the decade, the number of zones grew from three, employing 16,000 ¶ workers, to twenty-
five, employing 135,000 workers. Employment reached its peak in ¶ 1998 at nearly 200,000 workers (CNZFE 1999). Employment
generation was just as ¶ significant as the distribution of these jobs. Trade zones were established in secondary ¶ cities and towns in part because
provincial industrialists, excluded from import substitution subsidies from the Dominican state largely reserved for state clients in the ¶ capital
city, sought alternative avenues for capital accumulation (Moya Pons 1992). ¶ Thus, the zones were significant in arresting, to a degree, out-
migration from provincial 918¶ areas to the capital city (Ariza 2000; Santana 1994) as the possibility of paid ¶ employment, albeit poorly
remunerated and insecure in multiple ways, grew in other ¶ regions of the country. ¶ Trade zones were initially promoted to absorb Dominican
men retrenched from ¶ collapsing sugar mills; Dominican women, however, formed two-thirds of the workforce ¶ in the first two decades of
export manufacturing (Portorreal 1991; Safa 1990; Safa 1995). ¶ Not surprisingly, early studies of the country’s new export strategy emphasized
its ¶ gendered aspects – especially changing relations in households associated with new ¶ female entrants into relations of wage employment. In
hindsight, two other aspects were ¶ key to this “feminization” of labour: regional consolidation of the garment industry and a ¶ reconfiguration of
racialized spatial divisions of labour. First, while jobs were created in ¶ trade zones based in declining sugar mill towns associated with the
eastern plantation ¶ economy (alleviating the local burden of restructuring to a degree while dramatically ¶ altering gender relations), employment
largely consolidated in the northern Cibao region, ¶ an area associated with smallholding agriculture and secondary agricultural exports like ¶
tobacco (Schrank 2003). The center of this strategy was the city of Santiago where local ¶ industrialists took over many US-owned operations or
formed joint ventures with US ¶ firms in the trade zones, a sector dominated by garment production for the US market. ¶ As we will see, this
contingent outcome of northern regional dominance would prove ¶ highly significant in shaping the spatial reorganization of the industry since the
2000s, as ¶ well as gendered forms of exclusion in the Dominican garment sector. ¶ Second,
trade zones represented a spatial
strategy on the part of the state and capital to produce Dominican labour as an exclusive object of
low-wage exploitation by multinational capital in the Dominican Republic. The incorporation of Haitian workers ¶ in
Dominican trade zones was prohibited in practice. The director of the Industrial ¶ Promotion Agency (Corporación de Fomento Industrial, CFI)
explained the restrictions ¶ on foreign workers in Dominican trade zones as follows: ¶ …[T]he effort by the government to construct and develop
industrial parks is to ¶ solve the problem of unemployment. The trade zones must be for Dominican ¶ workers. For this reason, the employment of
foreign machine operators, especially 9¶ Haitians, must be strictly forbidden because this would provoke a devaluing of ¶ wages since Haitians
come to the country and work for anything.vii¶ The
notion that the mere presence of working Haitian bodies
decreased wages justified ¶ state efforts to distinguish, contain and separate Haitian and Dominican
workers. The ¶ context of this spatial strategy, however, was precisely the collapse of state schemes
to ¶ manage the Haitian workforce through guest worker programs and the containment of ¶ Haitian
workers to sugar concerns, the latter being dismantled throughout the 1980s. As ¶ Haitian workers were incorporated massively as a
largely undocumented workforce in ¶ cities and towns, as well as in domestic and secondary agricultural exports (like coffee) ¶ (see Lozano
2001),viii Dominican
trade zones reinforced new geographies of ¶ segmentation, guaranteeing the
relational and hierarchical reproduction of “Dominican” ¶ and “Haitian” labour, violent abstractions
underpinning a gradient of hyper-exploitation ¶ (see Merrill, this issue). ¶ By the early 2000s, Santiago, a city of just over half
a million inhabitants, was ¶ home to the country’s largest trade zone, employing nearly 40,000 workers, principally ¶ dedicated to apparel
production for the US market. The city also anchored three other ¶ zones on its edges while garment firms based in Santiago and the nearby town
of La ¶ Vega subcontracted production to a half-dozen zones in secondary towns in the Cibao. ¶ Thirty-five percent of the occupied workforce in
the province of Santiago was directly ¶ employed in trade zone production and the region as a whole concentrated two-fifths of ¶ all trade zone
jobs in the country (PNUD 2008: 258-261). The
consolidation of trade ¶ zone employment in the Cibao saw a
decisive shift in the “feminization” of the ¶ workforce: men made up an increasing proportion of
workers, reaching near parity in ¶ garment production by the middle of the decade. The slow
exclusion of female workers ¶ can be attributed to a complex mix of factors: my research suggests the
importance of ¶ paternalist labour relations in the Cibao, the recuperation of sewing as skilled,
masculine ¶ work related to the industry’s consolidation and restructuring in the 1990s, and growing ¶ participation of women in
international migration.ix Industry consolidation underwrote ¶ the accrual of domestic returns from garment exports to a handful of Santiago-
based 10¶ industrialists whose firms grew at breakneck speed in terms of employment, from a few ¶ hundred to as many as fourteen thousand
workers in less than a decade.
91
Link – NAFTA
NAFTA has forced of the Mexican population into a constant state of hunger –
and causes economic woes for both countries
Chomsky 99 (Noam, Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, and
Heinz Dieterich. Latin America: from colonization to globalization. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1999)
We can discover what's happened since the passage of NAFTA. It's been very beneficial for the rich in both
countries and very harmful to the poor in both countries. In the United States, probably hundreds of thousands of
reasonably well-paying jobs have been lost as transnationals have simply shifted operations to Mexico where they
can get far cheaper and more suppressed labor. That's not a benefit to Mexico which has also lost
millions of jobs because the productive apparatus collapsed - as of course was going to happen. The point of
forcing them to open up the barriers was to allow them to be taken over by transnationals that export
to foreign markets, obviously they aren't going to be able to sustain that. In fact, the Mexican Chamber of Commerce predicted that and
it now reports that more than half of businesses have suffered, but mainly smaller businesses. The associates of the big
transnationals are doing fine. Mexico is exporting to the United States, but that's not because export industry has increased. It's because the
domestic market has collapsed.¶ There's no need to talk about the effects on Mexican society. Probably about
half the population
can barely get enough food to survive, while the man who controls the corn market is still on the list
of billionaires which is the one category in Mexico that ranks pretty high. And that's, I think, the general picture
and it's not at all surprising. It was largely predictable.
92
Link – Nationalism
Colonialism creates false forms of geographical representation

Radcliffe 96 (Sarah A. Radcliffe, senior Lecturer in Latin American Geography at the University of
Cambridge, Jan. 1, 1996, Imaginative Geographies, Postcolonialism, and National Identities:
Contemporary Discourses of the Nation in Ecuador, Cultural Geographies)
The ways in which nation, space, and representation come together in a discussion¶ of postcolonial
national identities raises the further question of how the nation is¶ defined. Dependent upon notions
of closure and boundedness, the nation is¶ engaged in the production of these relations just as it is
defined by them.8 Such¶ ambivalence in turn destabilizes the confidence with which geography and
geographers, traditionally so deeply implicated in official imaginative geographies, can now¶ accept
analyses of the ambivalent, contingent, and highly contested issue of national¶ identities.9¶ The state,
through the medium of geographical education, is often central in creating and maintaining imagined
geographies, as well as in their practical applications. Through a variety of institutions and strategies, the
state articulates nationalist¶ imagined geographies. In Latin America, for example, the task of producing
the¶ sense and actuality of ’Ecuadorianness’ (ecuadorianidad) has been an explicit or tacit¶ aim of
those in control of the state during much of the republican period.¶ However, alongside the state’s
official imagined geographies, the ’machineries of¶ nationalism’,’° popular cultures and ’non-formal’
geographies of belonging are produced, circulated, and reworked. State practices, actively designed to
produce a¶ coherent space for national identity, are subject to constant resistance, slippage, and¶
challenge. For example, the emergence of a nationwide indigenous movement within Ecuador during
the past decade has entailed new discourses of national identity¶ and place, and different
representations of a national geography.¶ My focus here on both ’official’ and ’popular’ versions of
national identities seeks¶ to move away from a conflation of postcolonial experiences with Third
World nationalisms. A distinction is drawn between nationalism, as a political discourse which¶
mobilizes ’identity-in-place’ - the sense of belonging to a particular sovereign territory - and
postcolonialism as a project that is critical of colonialism. Postcolonial critiques may be similar to
nationalism in being founded on an opposition between¶ ’outside/other’ and ’inside/self, but
postcolonial criticisms are not coterminous¶ with nationalism.
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Link – Nuclear Terror

The problem isn’t the threat—it’s the politicized framing of your impact—the
aff’s fantastic depiction of nuclear terrorists align the “responsibility” of owning
pre-emptive weaponry towards the colonizers
Hecht 3 [Gabrielle, Professor Department of History, University of Michigan, “Globalization Meets Frankenstein?¶ Reflections On
Terrorism, Nuclearity, And¶ Global Technopolitical Discourse” History and Technology, 2003 Vol. 19(1) pp. 1-8, accessed via Ebsco]
At various moments, Westernnuclear powers have censured India, Pakistan, North Korea,¶ South Africa,
Iran, Iraq, and Israel for their efforts to acquire nuclear weaponry. Bush’s "axis¶ of evil" phrase is only
the most recent version of a longstanding discourse in which nuclearity¶ was defined as appropriate
for some nations but not for others. In return, these¶ inappropriately nuclear nations have condemned the NPT and IAEA
safeguards as neo-¶ colonial. Thus the nuclear and the post-colonial both confront and depend on each other¶ repeatedly in a battle for
geopolitical legitimacy. The regimes
of discourse produced in these¶ confrontations shape the possibilities for action,
insistence on the illegitimacy of "third" or¶ "second" world nuclear aspirations means, in effect, that
attempts to persuade these nations¶ not to develop nuclear weapons are decried as neo-colonial, and are therefore
themselves¶ illegitimate. Because the dichotomies of nuclear rupture-talk tend to erase national or¶
regional political complexities and insist on a rupture from colonial relations, they have¶ become – somewhat
paradoxically – worse than useless in non-proliferation efforts.¶ On another front, consider the US's latest anti-ballistic missile defense
fantasies. These¶ descend directly from unrequited Cold War lusts embodied in systems such as SAGE and¶ SDI. These systems never worked to
fulfill their stated purpose of automatically tracking and¶ shooting down incoming bombers (in the case of SAGE) or missiles from space (in the
case¶ of SDI)-though they did work in other, political and economic ways. There’s ample¶ evidence that the latest version of a protective shield
won't work either: its detection systems¶ can’t tell the most basic differences between a decoy and a warhead. There's also good¶ reason to
think it won't work politically, These problems don't seem to bother most¶ lawmakers in Capitol Hill or the White House, however. Insisting on
the "post-ness" of the¶ post-Cold War world, ABM
proponents argue that these systems will defend America from¶
"rogue states," despite bloody evidence that "states" aren't necessarily our worst enemy, and¶ that
you don't in fact need a nuclear missile (or even biological or chemical weaponry) to¶ terrify a superpower. No matter:
the fantasists have apparently persuaded the nation to cling¶ bravely to the conviction that
technopolitical power can be circumscribed and fully specified;¶ that despite the "diabolical" clevemess of turning box-
cutters and airplanes into extra-¶ ordinarily effective weapons, the
true threat comes from those good old Cold War¶
technologies: missiles and weapons of mass destruction.¶ Here the "axis of evil" slogan helps the fantasist cause
mightily, since it defines states that¶ could-if they were stupid and insane enough-manage to lob a missile over to US territory.¶ Of course, since
even the fantasists must admit that missile defense doesn't currently work,¶ Bush and his Dr Strangeloves have
several new plans allegedly aimed at foiling such scenarios.¶ Plan A: attack Iraq. The justifications for such an attack oscillate. Some days Iraq's
potential¶ possession of nuclear weapons gets trotted out. When the imminence of Iraqi nuclearity is¶ contested, the need for a "regime
change" is invoked, At this writing, the fate of Plan A is very¶ much up in the air, And debates about it have deflected attention from Plan B,
which is in some¶ ways bigger, more sweeping, and likely to keep the military-industrial complex happy for years¶ to come: the 2002 Nuclear
Posture Review (NPR). In this latest manifestation of nuclear¶ rupture-talk, the US would develop tactical nuclear weapons to burrow into
underground¶ bunkers in which the "axis of evil"• might be confectioning nuclear. chemical. or biological¶ weapons. (This is not the only aim of
the NPR, but I`lI limit myself to this for this paper.) Plan¶ B seemed to surprise observers, but as recently as October 2001 congressman Steven
Buyer¶ eerily presaged elements of the NPR when he advocated plugging up Afghan caves with¶ tactical nuclear weapons-an idea also favored
by several other Republican representatives.¶ Plan B has been both decried and praised as a post- (or post-post-?) Cold War plan: either way.¶
observers view the NPR as technopolitical mpture. Its opponents claim that this is the first time¶ the US has contemplated using nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear States; they forget Korea¶ and Vietnam. Proponents claim that September ll signaled the death-knell of
traditional¶ nuclear deterrence; in the era of suicide bombers, nuclear retaliation is no longer a protective ¶ threat. They funher insist that such
mini-nukes (a cutesy designation to soften the blow?),¶ aimed at burrowing deep underground, wouldn`t cause widespread radioactive
devastationÂ»-¶ this in the face of clear evidence that such weapons could never go deep enough to be¶ significantly contained.¶ Like its
predecessors, this latestmanifestation of nuclear rupture-talk is aimed at soothing¶ and/or terrifying its
audience. And like its predecessors, what it decidedly does not do is leave¶ room for complexities. The portion of the NPR aimed at "rogue
states" leapfrogs over the¶ deterrent posed by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction because these states don 't¶ have arsenals the size
of Russia’s. In initial public discussions of the NPR there was-¶ weirdly, given September 11-no sense that other forms of retaliation might be
possible. No¶ sense that states subjected to nuclear attack might have angry friends. Certainly no admission¶ of
94
the ways in which imperial power regimes remain embedded in our own technopolitical¶ systems. And ongoing total incomprehension of why
and how former empires might want to¶ Strike back.¶ Just
as the stark dichotomies posited by the Cold War world got
fuzzier the closer you¶ examined them, so too for today's dichotomies. Consider my personal favorite: the line¶
between nuclear and non-nuclear. I’ve argued that even during the Cold War it was not in fact¶ all that clear what was nuclear diplomacy and
what wasn't. But in those good old days, you¶ knew what nuclear weapons were (or at least you thought you did). Now, it's not so apparent.¶
Do munitions loaded up with depleted uranium count as "nuclear"? Not if you're NATO or¶ the U.S.
using them in the Balkans or the Gulf War. But if you’re a terrorist contemplating¶ packing a bomb with radioactive material
purchased on the black market, you’ve violated a¶ fundamental taboo. By crossing the nuclear/non-nuclear divide, you`ve committed an act
of¶ pollution: you’ve made a "dirty bomb." (One does wonder which bombs are the clean ones.)¶ What
qualities such bombs as
"dirty" is not so much the technical infraction of mixing the¶ "nuclear" with the "conventional" but
rather the technopolitics of who’s doing the mixing.¶ how, and to what ends. The stubborn persistence of global
technopolitical hierarchies figures¶ here in important ways, most interestingly in the "how" part: calling these bombs "dirty"¶ signals not just
moral outrage at technological pollution, but also disdain for the inability of¶ the bomb builders to produce a "real" nuclear weapon.¶ My
point, of course, is not that it should be acceptable for terrorists to make radioactive¶ weapons of any kind, or
that Saddam Hussein should be allowed to develop weapons of mass¶ destruction. Rather, it’s that the current shape of global
technopolitics has deep roots in the¶ dialectics between nuclear and post-colonial rupture-talk,
between nuclear and post-colonial¶ technopolitics. These dialectics have defined the parameters for global
power relations, and¶ shaped geopolitical subjectivities in multiple registers and in ways whose significance we¶ have barely begun to
grasp, lf we are indeed in a "post" or a "post-post-" Cold War world.¶ then it’s the same kind of "post-ness" that we find in the "post-colonial."
The infrastructures¶and discourses of Cold War technopolitics continue to shape the parameters of
global and¶ local action, just as the infrastructures and discourses of colonialism do, We ignore those¶ roots-
and the contradictions they produce-at our peril.¶
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Link – Planning
The aff scholarship is imperial planning

Those studies are very interesting. They are never investigated by academic scholarship . They're public, but
they might just as well be censored. They are never discussed, there's never an article written about
them in the mainstream literature. The reasons are pllain .if you look at their content - they reveal very
rational imperial plannmg , no sentimentality. They constructed the concept of what they called the "grand area." The
"grand area" was to be a region "strategically necessary for world control," in their words. That's the grand
area and the grand area had to be coordinated with and subordinated to the needs of the American economy. Then they went through a geo-
political analysis to figure out what the grand area should be and the conclusion was that at a minimum it should include the Western
hemisphere, the Far East and the former British Empire. The maximum would be the universe. And
then they.developed
institutional planning concerning the grand area, that IS, how it should be reorganized and
subordinated to the needs of the American economy. Then .plans were made for South East¶ Asia and so on and so forth.
Well, that's rational imperial planning. Of course, there's a commitment by scholarship and the media
to ensure that this picture.isn't presented . What is presented is a picture of benevolent, endearmg,
good-hearted people, who sometimes don't understand which is why they make mistakes.
96
Link – Postcoloniality
Postcolonial studies is privileged and bankrupt – that reproduces coloniality by

ignoring ongoing destruction
Santos 2 (Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics, University
of Coimbra. Winter 2002.“Between Prospero and Caliban: Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Inter-
identity” http://www.jstor.org/stable/3513784)
I resorted to postcolonialism to criticize celebratory postmodemism and offer an alternative:
oppositional postmodemism. Resorting to postcolonialism was justified in that it places at the center of the analytical field a power
relation that is particularly asymrnehical- the colonial relation. The analysis proper to postcolonialism, I suggested, might be relevant for the
analysis of other kinds of asymmetrical social relations outside the modernist analytical canon. The
proposed articulation with
postcolonialism aimed then to ground utopian emancipatory practices and subjectivities outside the
modernist canon.1° Resorting to a device dear to postmodernism and postcolonialism alike, I grounded the emancipatory utopias on
three metaphors: the frontier, the baroque, and the South (Santos, 1995: 475-5 19; 2000: 305-354). I used the concept of frontier, in the sense
of extremity rather than contact zone or borderland, to signify the displacement of the discourse and practices from the center to the margins. I
advanced a phenomenology of frontier marginality based on the selective and instrumental use of traditions;" on the invention of new forms of
sociability; on weak hierarchies; on the plurality ofjuridical powers and orders; on the fluidity of social relations; on the promiscuity between
strangers and intimates, between inheritance and invention." "To
live in the frontier," I concluded, "is to live in the margins
without living a marginal life" (Santos, 1995: 496; 2000: 327). The concept of the baroque allowed me to ground the concept
of mestizaje, close to hybridity, and understood as "the creation of new forms of constellations of meaning,
which are truly unrecognizable or blasphemous in light of their constitutive fragments" (Santos, 1995: 503;
2000: 335). The baroque metaphor also permitted a discussion of the construction of utopian subjectivity on the basisof baroque
"extremosidad" (Maravall, 1990: 421), mainly the extremism of the baroque feast informed by disproportion, laughter, and subversion. Finally,
I used the South metaphor to signify the systemic human sufferance caused by global capitalism. I
meant, on the one hand, the size and multifaceted character of oppression in contemporary societies ; on
the other, the capacity for creation, innovation, and resistance of the oppressed peoples once they
were liberated from their condition of victims. Unsuspected latent possibilities of emancipation reside
in this capacity. I therefore proposed an epistemology of the South based on three orientations: to
learn that the South exists; to learn how to go to the South; to learn from and with the South (Santos,
1995: 508; 2000: 342). I conceive of the colonial relation as one of the unequal power relations on which
modem capitalism is grounded, but not the only one. It cannot be fully understood without articulating it
with other power relations, such as class exploitation, sexism, and racism (only partially taken into account by
postcolonialism). The analysis of culture or discourse cannot do without the analysis of political economy.'3
In the second half of the twentieth century the silences of postcolonialism became more strident. Authors like Anne McClintock (1 995), Stuart
Ha11 (1996), Patrick Chabal (1997), and John McLeod (2000) have addressed this issue eloquently. Aijaz Ahmad has pointed out
that the
striking absence of class problems in postcolonial criticism derives from the fact that postcolonial
studies are the product of an academic and intellectual class that ignores the actual social problems
or has no interest in them (Ahmad, 1995). Overlooking neocolonialism is one of the most disempowering
limitations of postcolonialism. While eager to criticize homogeneity and applaud fragmentation and difference, postcolonialism
ended up homogenizing the colonial relation because of its total lack of historical and comparative perspective. Even within the British Empire,
there were wide differences among the Irish, Indian, Australian, Kenyan, South African, and other experiences. Not to mention other
colonialisms, namely the Portuguese and Spanish colonialism.
97
Link – Postmodernism
Postmodernism is rooted in Eurocentrism, is too general, and fails to address

the positivity of the altern, ultimately replicating colonial impacts
Dussel 2 (Enrique D, professor in the Departament of Philosophy in the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), Campus Iztapalapa
in Mexico City, doctorate in philosophy in the Complutense University of Madrid and a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne of Paris. He also
has a license in theology from Paris and Münster. He has been awarded doctorates honoris causa from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland
and the Higher University of San Andrés in Bolivia; “World-System and "Trans"-Modernity” Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 3, Issue 2,
2002, pp. 221-244)
The phenomenon of “postmodern” thought (Dussel 1999; 1998b, 54; 1996,¶ 129; 1985) has habituated us to a certain
critique of modernity and to a¶ modernity in terms of the domination of the cogito’s quantity and
subjectivity¶ over the radical ontological understanding of being (Heidegger),¶ as well as to critiques of
instrumental reason (Horkheimer), of abstract¶ universality from difference and the “différend” (Derrida,
Lyotard), of the¶ “pensiero forte” (Vattimo), and so on. “Postmodernity’s” critique of modernity¶ does not
question the centrality of Eurocentrism and, in a certain way,¶ thinks that the postconventional, urban,
postindustrial, freely chosen cultural¶ market society will install itself universally, and along with it,
global¶ postmodernity as a “situation” of general human culture in the twenty-first¶ century.¶
Postmodernity critiques the universalist and “foundationalist” pretensions¶ of modern reason (Richard Rorty), but it critiques it
as “modern”¶ and not as “European” or “North American. ” In principle, postmodernity¶ also articulates a
respect for other cultures in terms of their incommensurability,¶ difference, and autonomy, though it
expresses this in general,¶ and not specifically with respect to Chinese, Hindustani, Islamic, African¶ Bantu, and Latin American
cultures (the works of Alasdair MacIntyre and¶ Charles Taylor are examples). It is not sufficiently aware of the “positivity”¶
of these cultures , which have been excluded by the colonial process of early¶ modernity (1492–1789),
and by the “enlightened” industrial globalization¶ of mature modernity (1789–1989), which Wallerstein (1995)
situates under¶ the hegemony of liberal politico-economic ideology, opposed to the¶ conservative and socialist ideologies.¶
Postmodernity’s “post” does not eliminate its Eurocentrism since¶ postmodernity assumes that
future humanity obviously will reach the same¶ “cultural situation” as postmodern Europe and the
United States to the degree¶ that humanity modernizes by the process of “globalization” (which¶ is
considered irreversible and inevitable). This belief in modernizing “inevitability”¶ makes
postmodernity profoundly Eurocentric. It cannot imagine¶ that the cultures whose positivity has been
excluded by the modern¶ (since 1492) and enlightened colonial processes (since 1789, when Europe¶ attained industrial hegemony in
the world-system due to the disappearance¶ of preindustrial—but not premodern—China and Hindustan) might¶ be able to develop
in an autonomous, “modern,” and creative fashion their¶ own “universal” cultures in the next stage,
that is, the stage after the extinction¶ of European–North American modernity with its claims to
“sole”¶ universality, beyond its present crisis, beyond its limit, beyond modernity’s ¶ “post”-modern
moment.22 It is necessary then, to think this matter more¶ radically.
98
Link – Poverty and Labor

Hegemony and poverty are intertwined– each gives US justification intervene into
formerly colonized land to promote equality for the “uncivilized”
Ahmad 11 (Zafaryab. April 21. Coloniality of Power and Human Rights: An unpublished paper by
Zafaryab Ahmad. Pak Tea House. Fellow @ Colby College Institute of Human Rights.
http://pakteahouse.net/2011/04/21/coloniality-of-power-and-human-rights-an-unpublished-paper-by-
zafaryab-ahmad/)
There were no hesitations for the United States, like in the case of League of Nations a couple of decades ago, particularly,
when it was replacing Great Britain as world hegemon. The transfer of hegemony necessitated that
the US as the world power ostensibly stands for democracy, human rights justice and legal equality in the
world – not in the US though. To be the new hegemon also necessitated the end of the British empire
as it was essential to free the British colonies to open the world for its commodities. The situation was
so volatile that even the charter of a monstrosity like the World Bank was messianic and even today
its mission statement is to create a world free of poverty. This self professed messianic mission
however as based on a division of the world into rich and the poor as fait accompli, hence civilized and
uncivilized.¶ It was otherwise not possible, as the accumulation of capital at the world scale and
consequent global division of labor had created a structurally unequal world. The idealogues of the
capitalist regime divided the world into rich and poor countries: The latter with inherent structural
conditions to be poor. Poverty of the majority of the people of the world, however, as we would see,
is an essential condition of the existence of capitalist relations production and accumulation of capital
at global scale. This division of the world into a world of rich and of the poor brings in the
fundamental question of coloniality of power i.e, organization of the society both at the local and
international level around the axis of power of the capital, based on discrimination and organization
of labor at world scale.¶ Colonialaity of power as we understand is a structure of relationship organized around
different forms of labor control. This labor control is a coercive relationships. To use coercion legally,
the bourgeoisie society, circumscribe an individual into a being who can be coerced. It not only created
institutions of coercian and also created ideologies to justify and legitimize coercion. We also believe that
social systems do not evolve in isolation, they evolve in a dialectical interaction between the individual and the
society in a nexus of various forms of power relationships, in response to corresponding class
struggles.
99
Link – Rationality
The aff’s homogenizing knowledge production of “rationality” feeds dangerous

binaries of civilized/not civilized which justify racially hegemonic Eurocentrism
Quijano 2000 (Anibal, Professor of sociology at Binghamton University, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,”
http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/wan/wanquijano.pdf, 2000)
The incorporation of such diverse and heterogeneous cultural histories into a single world dominated
byEurope signified a cultural and¶ intellectual intersubjective configuration equivalent to the
articulation of¶ all forms of labor control around capital, a configuration that established¶ world
capitalism. In effect, all of the experiences, histories, resources, and¶ cultural products ended up in one global cultural order revolving around¶ European or Western hegemony. Europe’s hegemony
over the new model¶ of global power concentrated all forms of the control of subjectivity, culture, and
especially knowledge and the production of knowledge under its¶ hegemony .¶ During that process, the colonizers
exercised diverse operations¶ that brought about the configuration of a new universe of intersubjective ¶ relations of
domination between Europe and the Europeans and the rest of the regions and peoples of the world,
to whom new geocultural identities¶ were being attributed in that process. In the first place, they expropriated
the¶ cultural discoveries of the colonized peoples most apt for the development¶ of capitalism to the
profit of the European center. Second , they repressed as¶ much as possible the colonized forms of
knowledge production, the models¶ of the production of meaning, their symbolic universe, the model
of expression and of objectification and subjectivity. As is well known, repression in¶ this field was most violent, profound, and long lasting among the Indians of¶
Ibero-America, who were condemned to be an illiterate peasant subculture ¶ stripped of their objectified intellectual legacy. Something equivalent happened in Africa. Doubtless, the repression was much less intense in Asia,¶
where an important part of the historyof the intellectual written legacyhas¶ been preserved. And it was preciselysuch epistemic suppression that gave¶ origin to the category“Orient.” Third, in different ways in each case, they ¶
forced the colonized to learn the dominant culture in anywaythat would be¶ useful to the
reproduction of domination, whether in the field of technology¶ and material activityor subjectivity, especiallyJudeo-Christian religiosity.¶ All of those turbulent
processes involved a long period of the colonization of¶ cognitive perspectives, modes of producing
and giving meaning, the results¶ of material existence,the imaginary,the universe of intersubjective
relations¶ with the world: in short, the culture.11 The success of Western Europe in becoming the center of the¶ modern world-system, according to Wallerstein’s suitable formulation, developed
within the Europeans a trait common to all colonial dominators¶ and imperialists, ethnocentrism. But in the case of Western Europe, that¶ trait had a peculiar formulation and justification: the racial classification of ¶ the world
population after the colonization of America. The association of¶ colonial ethnocentrism and universal racial classification
helps to explain¶ why Europeans came to feel not only superior to all the other peoples of¶ the world,
but, in particular, naturally superior. This historical instance is¶ expressed through a mental operation of fundamental importance for the¶
entire model of global power, but above all with respect to the intersubjective relations that were hegemonic, and especially
for its perspective on¶ knowledge: the Europeans generated a new temporal perspective of history¶
and relocated the colonized population, along with their respective histories¶ and cultures, in the past
of a historical trajectory whose culmination was¶ Europe (Mignolo 1995; Blaut 1993; Lander 1997). Notably, however, they¶ were not in the same line of
continuityas the Europeans, but in another, naturally different category. The colonized peoples were inferior races and¶ in that manner were the
past vis-à-vis the Europeans. That perspective imagined modernity and rationality as exclusively
European products and experiences. From this point of view, intersubjective and cultural relations between
Western Europe and the rest of the¶ world were codified in a strong play of new categories :East-
West, primitive-civilized, magic/mythic-scientific, irrational-rational, traditional-modern¶ —Europe
and not Europe. Even so, the onlycategorywith the honor of¶ being recognized as the other of Europe and the West was “Orient”—not¶ the Indians of America and not the blacks of Africa, who were simply¶
“primitive.” For underneath that codification of relations between Europeans and non-Europeans, race is,
without doubt, the basic category.12 This¶ binary, dualist perspective on knowledge, particular to
Eurocentrism, was¶ imposed as globally hegemonic in the same course as the expansion of European
colonial dominance over the world.¶ It would not be possibleto explainthe elaboration of
Eurocentrism¶ as the hegemonic perspective of knowledge otherwise. The Eurocentric¶ version is
100
based on two principal founding myths: first, the idea of the¶ historyof human civilization as a
trajectorythat departed from a state of¶ nature and culminated in Europe; second, a view of the
differences between¶ Europe and non-Europe as natural(racial) differences and not consequences¶ of
a historyof power. Both myths can be unequivocallyrecognized in the¶ foundations of evolutionism
and dualism, two of the nuclear elements of¶ Eurocentrism.
101
Link – Rationality
European conceptions of reason/body dualism posit non-white people –

especially women – as irrational and closer to nature, and therefore dominable
and exploitable
With Descartes the mutation of the ancient dualist approach to¶ the bodyand the nonbodytook place.23 What was a permanent copresence¶
of both elements in each stage of the human being, with Descartes came
a¶ radical separation between
reason/subject and body. Reason was not only a¶ secularization of the idea of the soul in the
theological sense, but a mutation¶ into a new entity, the reason/subject, th e only entity capable of
rational¶ knowledge. The body was and could be nothing but an object of knowledge.¶ From this
point of view the human being is, par excellence, a being¶ gifted with reason, and this gift was conceived as
localized exclusively in the¶ soul. Thus the body, by definition incapable of reason, does not have
anything¶ that meets reason/subject. The radical separation produced between¶ reason/subject and body and their relations
should be seen only as relations¶ between the human subject/reason and the human body/nature, or between¶ spirit and nature. In this way,
in Eurocentric rationality the body was fixed¶ as object of knowledge, outside of the environment of
subject/reason.¶ Without this objectification of the body as nature, its expulsion¶ from the sphere of
the spirit (and this is mystrong thesis), the “scientific”¶ theorization of the problem of race (as in the case of the comte
de Gobineau¶ [1853–57] during the nineteenth century) would have hardly been¶ possible. From the Eurocentric
perspective, certain races are condemned¶ as inferior for not being rational subjects. They are objects
of study, consequently bodies closer to nature. In a sense, they became dominable and¶ exploitable.
According to the myth of the state of nature and the chain of¶ the civilizing process that culminates in European civilization, some races—¶
blacks, American Indians, or yellows—are closer to nature than whites.24¶ It
was only within this peculiar perspective that
non-European peoples¶ were considered as an object of knowledge and domination/exploitation by¶
Europeans virtually to the end of World War II.¶ This new and radical dualism affected not only the racial relations¶ of
domination, but the older sexual relations of domination as well. Women,¶ especially the women of inferior
races (“women of color”), remained stereotyped¶ together with the rest of the bodies, and their place
was all the more inferior for their race, so that they were considered much closer to nature or ¶ (as was
the case with black slaves) directly within nature. It is probable (although¶ the question remains to be investigated) that the
new idea of gender¶ has been elaborated after the new and radical dualism of the Eurocentric¶ cognitive perspective in the articulation of the
colonialityof power.¶ Furthermore, the new radical dualism was amalgamated in the¶ eighteenth century with
the new mystified ideas of “progress” and of the¶ state of nature in the human trajectory: the
foundational myths of the Eurocentric¶ version of modernity. The peculiar dualist/evolutionist historical¶ perspective
was linked to the foundational myths. Thus , all non-Europeans¶ could be considered as pre-European and at the
same time displaced on a¶ certain historical chain from the primitive to the civilized, from the
rational¶ to the irrational, from the traditional to the modern, from the magic-mythic¶ to the
scientific . In other words, from the non-European/pre-European to¶ something that in time will be Europeanized or modernized.Without
considering¶ the entire experience of colonialism and coloniality,this intellectual¶ trademark, as well as the long-lasting global hegemonyof
Eurocentrism,¶ would hardlyb e explicable. The necessities of capital as such alone do not¶ exhaust, could not exhaust, the explanation of the
character and trajectory¶ of this perspective of knowledge.
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Link – Rights
Epistemic rights precede cultural ones—mere recognition by the state

ultimately precludes actual incorporation
Mignolo 5 (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, The Idea of Latin Americ,
BLACKWELL PUBLISHING)
“ Interculturalidad,” then, is a claim made from the perspective of¶ Kichua, in Ecuador, and not from that of Spanish. Even if the claims¶ are
“pronounced also in Spanish,” Spanish is only a tool to translate¶ Kichua and, in the process of translation, to take away the memory¶ imbedded in Spanish (or any language) in order to reinscribe the¶ Kichua memory that the
imposition of Spanish contributed to¶ making invisible. No doubt, Spanish is in the soul of every Indian¶ and every Black in Spanish America; although in a different manner ¶ than the language is in the soul of Creoles of European
descent.¶ That does not mean, however, that Indians and Blacks are cultural ¶ Spaniards; or that they want to be. Santería is a far cry from canonical ¶ Spanish beliefs, just as Andean rituals and celebrations do not fit¶ with the
traditions of the Christian church. Spanish is the language¶ of the state, the official language, while Kichua is the language of ¶ one of the branches of the Inca Empire (which is today Ecuador ¶ and southern Colombia).
Through “interculturalidad” (which is also¶ inter-epistemology), the claim is made for the right of Indigenous¶
people to co-participate in the making of the state and in education .¶ It is not a claim for simple
recognition (like “multiculturalism ” in¶ the US) that begs for acceptance into a nation in which they, Kichua¶ as a civilization and a language, do not have a place because
their¶ position on the margins , precisely, defines the limits of the modern¶ nation . Instead, “interculturalidad”
would lead to a pluri-cultural¶ state with more than one valid cosmology. And “pluri-culturalidad,”¶ at the
level of knowledge, of political theory and economy, of ethics¶ and aesthetics, is the utopian goal toward which
to build, a new¶ society constructed over the cracks and the erosions of the liberal¶ and republican state. The creation of
Amawtay Wasi (the Universidad Intercultural de¶ las Nacionalidades y Pueblos Indígenas) is a natural consequence of¶ a claim for epistemic rights.22 There is no space for Indigenous¶
people attending a state (or private) university to address their own needs. The entire philosophy of
education remains in the hands of¶ the state or private capital. Above all, it is determined within the¶
framework of knowledge that was put in place with the Renaissance¶ university, changed with the Enlightenment university, and
has now¶ developed into the corporate university modeled in today’s US and¶ applied around the world. That is, the university itself remains within¶ the march of progress and newness. Amawtay Wasi doesn’t fit into¶ that
When the
history.23 Amawtay Wasi has been conceived in the paradigm of ¶ co-existence. It represents a spatial shift in the geography of knowledge¶ rather than a temporal break in the linearity of Western¶ thought.
Latin” America came into existence, as¶ we saw in chapter 2, the colonial universities (in Mexico, Peru,¶ Argentina, and the Dominican Republic)
idea of “
became state universities¶ in the service of building new nations, and no longer universities¶ serving the church and the king. “Latin” America was born under¶ the sign of the so-called Kantian-
Humboldtian university, the university¶ of the Enlightenment in which philosophy supplanted theology¶ and culture and disseminated the idea of “national” cultures. It¶ was a state-oriented
university, although it also contributed to the¶ formation of intercontinental identities, such as

“Europe” and “Latin” America. A similar process can be traced in the US. (The University¶ of Mexico was founded in 1552, Harvard in 1636.) Philosophy and¶ science reigned over theology.
That was part of the transformation¶ of theology into egology. Kant put philosophy above theology,¶ medicine, and law and attributed to it – and to a transcendental¶ Subject – the task of vigilance in the production of
knowledge. The¶ Enlightenment university has egology (philosophy and science, and¶ the sovereignty of the individual) as its master framework. After ¶ World War II, another transformation took place in the linear series¶ of
Western thought, and the corporate university (the US contribution¶ to this story) emerged with “organology” (the knowledge of¶ organization and the organization of knowledge, where the sovereign¶ subject vanishes) as its
relevance of the individual recedes as organization takes its¶ place. The corporate
master framework.24¶ The
university is marked not only by a different¶ philosophy, but also by the marketing of particular values: expertise¶ and efficiency are the desired goals, rather than
the humanist ones of¶ the Renaissance university or the critical, philosophical, and scientific ones of the Enlightenment university. Organization of knowledge and¶ knowledge of organization lead to expertise and efficiency. The
institution¶ of the Enlightenment university, in which “Latin” America was¶ born as an idea, is now being dismantled and replaced by the corporate¶ one. Similarly, in the US, the humanities are becoming a commodity¶ bought
by wealthy families, who give money to universities¶ to teach Western civilization. The benefactors purchase education that¶ will not be critical but promotional.
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Link – Standpoint Epistemology

“Looking from the stances of the oppressed” is an elitist action absolving
responsibility over Western epistemic racism—only unflinching self-criticism
strikes at colonial roots
Maldonado-Torres 4 (Nelson, Professor in Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers, The topology of
being and the¶ geopolitics of knowledge¶ Modernity, empire, coloniality1, CITY, VOL. 8, NO. 1, APRIL 2004)
Bypassing the much relevant divide for¶ German romanticism between French ideas¶ of civilization and
Germany’s Kultur, the¶ figure that bridges France and Germany is¶ the most renown German figure of
the¶ Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. Kant’s¶ work brings France and Germany together¶ while also
promoting global institutions of¶ authority, which, translated into the present,¶ would counter US
unilateralism. Habermas¶ and Derrida do not interrogate the¶ ties of Kant with the imperial mentality of¶
his times or the way in which their “plea¶ for a common foreign policy, beginning in¶ the core of Europe”
has all the problematic¶ ties with a tradition of searching for roots¶ in Europe.82 In a very condescending
gesture¶ Habermas and Derrida write that¶ Europeans “could learn from the perspective¶ of the
defeated to perceive themselves¶ in the dubious role of victors who are¶ called to account for the
violence of a¶ forcible and uprooting process of modernization.¶ This could support the rejection of¶
Eurocentrism, and inspire the Kantian hope¶ for a global domestic policy”.83 In their¶ reference to
“victors” called to account for¶ the “uprooting process of modernity” it¶ would seem that Habermas
and Derrida have more Heidegger in mind than former¶ colonized peoples. It is also as if they are¶
responding more to the complaints of German¶ romantics who were very critical of¶ the Enlightenment,
than to colonized peoples¶ everywhere. They reduce the challenges¶ of Europe’s imperial past to the¶
“uprooting of modernity”, a process to¶ which Europeans, among others, have¶ being victims. They
cannot see the peculiarity¶ of the challenge that emerges in the¶ colonial world. That is why they
posit the¶ search for roots at the core of Europe as a¶ response to the marginalization of Europe.¶ Fanon’s
statement remains as significant¶ today as it was when Heidegger was forging¶ his mythical project of
searching for¶ roots: “For centuries [Europeans] have stifled¶ almost the whole of humanity in the
name¶ of a so-called spiritual experience. Look at¶ them today swaying between atomic and¶ spiritual
disintegration . . . Europe now lives¶ at such a mad, reckless pace that she has¶ shaken off all
guidance and reason . . . It is¶ in the name of the spirit, in the name of the¶ spirit of Europe, that
Europe has made her¶ encroachment, has justified her crimes and¶ legitimized the slavery in which she
holds¶ four-fifths of humanity. Yes, the European¶ spirit has strange roots.”84¶ Until figures like
Habermas and Derrida¶ come to terms with this statement, I believe¶ that it will be impossible for
them to¶ overcome the epistemic racism that continues¶ today through so many different means .
Habermas and Derrida at most gesture¶ toward a Eurocentric critique of Eurocentrism.¶ Instead of
challenging the racist geopolitics¶ of knowledge that have become so¶ central to Western discourse,
they continue¶ it by other means. Why not engaging seriously¶ Muslim intellectuals?85 Why not
trying¶ to understand the deeply theoretical¶ claims that have emerged in contexts that¶ have
known European coloniality? Why¶ not breaking with the model of the universal¶ or global and
furthering the growth of an epistemically diverse world?86 Fanon did¶ not do all these things, but in
some ways¶ he set a mark below which theorists and¶ intellectuals should not allow themselves to¶ go.
His radicalism was about a critique of¶ the roots, which was inspired by the need¶ to respond to the
damned of the earth. The¶ concepts of coloniality of power, coloniality¶ of knowledge and coloniality of
104
being¶ follow Fanon’s radicalism. Yet they also¶ can become problematic if they do not¶ make space
for the enunciation of non-¶ Western cosmologies and for the expression¶ of different cultural, political
and social¶ memories. Radical critique should take dialogical¶ forms. It should also take the form¶ of
radical self-questioning and radical dialogue .¶ The project of searching for roots¶ would be, in this
regard, subordinated to¶ the project of criticizing the roots that¶ maintain alive the dominant
topology of Being and the racist geopolitics of knowledge.¶ Radical diversality would involve the¶
effective divorce and critique of the roots¶ that inhibit dialogue and the formulation of¶ a decolonial and
non-racist geopolitics of¶ knowledge. Part of the challenge is to think¶ seriously about Fort-de-France,
Quito, La¶ Paz, Baghdad and Algiers, not only Paris,¶ Frankfurt, Rome or New York as possible¶ sites of
knowledge. We also need to think¶ about those who are locked in positions of¶ subordination, and
try to understand both¶ the mechanisms that create the subordination¶ and those that hide their reality
from¶ view to others. There is much in the world¶ to learn from others who have been¶ rendered invisible
by modernity. This¶ moment should be more about examining¶ our complicity with old patterns of
domination¶ and searching for invisible faces,¶ than about searching for imperial roots;¶ more about
radical critique than about¶ orthodox alignments against what are persistently¶ conceived as the
barbarians of¶ knowledge.
105
Link – Terrorism
Coloniality extends itself primarily through the figure of the terrorist

coloniality incorporates colonialism and imperialism but goes beyond them; this is why coloniality did not
Some partial conclusions:
end with the end of¶ colonialism (formal independence of nation states), but was rearticulated in¶ terms of the post-World War II
imaginary of three worlds (which in turn¶ replaced the previous articulations in terms of
Occidentalism and Orientalism).¶ Similarly, the ‘end of the Third World’ entails a rearticulation of the
coloniality¶ of power and knowledge. As we have seen, this rearticulation takes the form of¶ both imperial
globality (new global link between economic and military power) and global coloniality (the emergent classificatory orders and forms of alterisation that are replacing the cold war order).
The new coloniality regime is still¶ difficult to discern. Race, class and ethnicity will continue to be
important, but¶ new, or newly prominent, areas of articulation come into existence, such as¶ religion
(and gender linked to it, especially in the case of Islamic societies, as¶ we saw in the war on
Afghanistan). However, the single most prominent vehicle¶ of coloniality today seems to be the
ambiguously drawn figure of the ‘terrorist’.¶ Linked most forcefully to the Middle East, and thus to
the immediate US oil and¶ strategic interests in the region (vis a` vis the European Union and Russia, on
the¶ one hand, and China and India in particular on the other, as the most formidable¶ potential challengers), the imaginary of the terrorist can have a
wide field of¶ application (it has already been applied to Basque militants and Colombian¶ guerrillas,
for instance). Indeed, after 11 September, we are all potential¶ terrorists, unless we are American,
white, conservative Christian, and Republican—in actuality or epistemically (that is, in mindset) .106
106
Link – Terrorism
Constructing the threat of foreign terrorism is just a smokescreen for the biggest
terror state of all to continue its mass killings
NC: Well, it's a leading terrorist state. The United States air raid against Libya was one of the major
terrorist acts, probably the major terrorist act of this year, at least. They killed dozens of people. That's probably five
times as many people as can plausibly be attributed to Libyan-sponsored terrorism in the last 10
years. And that's one raid. In fact, if you look at the kinds of charges that are made against Libya and you apply the same standards to
the United States, you draw some very interesting conclusions. Libya is accused of involvement in, say, bombing of
airplanes, although only a loose connection is evident. But you know, the major terrorist act of 1985 in the
Middle East, in terms of the number of people killed, was a car bombing in Beirut where 80 people were
killed, which was carried out by people associated with the CIA. Well, the CIA said it wasn't directly involved, so that
exculpated them, but there is no proof that Libya was any more involved in the things that are attributed to Libya. These were groups working
with the CIA who carried out a bombing and missed somebody and killed 80 people. The
biggest terrorist act of 1985 was the
bombing of the Air India plane, in which 350 people or so were killed. That was probably carried out
by terrorists who were trained in the southern United States. Now, by the standards we apply to Libya, the United
States is responsible.¶ Look at real terrorism, not this small scale terrorism, terrorism like the state
terrorism in El Salvador, where a U.S. mercenary army is massacring and slaughtering people at a
fantastic rate - maybe 60,000 people in the last six years. Or, take the terrorist army in Guatemala, which the United
States has always supported, or the Contras, the leading terrorist force in the world. U.S. terrorist activities against Cuba have also been
phenomenal. Since the Kennedy administration, Cuba has been the target of more international terrorism than any other state in the world,
probably more than all other states put together, until, say, Nicaragua. What we¶ have here is a major terrorist power.
"Gangster state" is an appropriate description.
107
Link – Venezuela
The aff’s reductive good-bad binary between pro and anti-Western
governments relies on corporate-dominated, Western epistemologies—they
ignore individual differences and define the world along lines of US-interest
Ciccariello-Maher 13 (George, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Drexel University, Constituent
Moments, Constitutional Processes Social Movements and the New Latin American Left, Latin American
Perspectives published online, 2/11)
Recent years have seen an undeniable rebirth of leftist movements and thought across Latin America, and this
rebirth has found its institutional culmination in the election of a wide range of leftist leaders across the
continent. But this wave of success for leftist regimes and movements alike has also been met with the resurrection of an
old red herring in the insistence of Jorge Castañeda and others that “there is not one Latin American left today; there are
two” (Castañeda, 2006: 29; Castañeda and Morales, 2008). The “good left”—which he revealingly calls the “right left” (whether intending
the pun or not)—is “modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist,” having accepted both the
inescapable economic fate imposed by neoliberalism and the geopolitical imperative to cozy up to the
great empire in the North (Castañeda, 2006: 43, 29). This left—which generally includes Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chile’s
Michelle Bachelet, and Uruguay’s Tabaré Vázquez—has tended to continue
or reproduce the economic and political
policies of its more conservative predecessors, whether fiscal austerity or limited representative democracy. In contrast,
the “bad ” or “wrong” left, instead of breaking decisively with the radical errors of previous generations,
has become a “cult of the past,” drawing not upon the example of revolutionaries of the 1960s but upon “the great tradition of
Latin American populism” (Castañeda, 2006: 34, 29). As a result, these new regimes—and especially those of Hugo
Chávez in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and Evo Morales in Bolivia— are “nationalist, strident, and close-
minded ” (Castañeda, 2006: 29). With little to offer their people aside from empty rhetoric, this left opts for “giving away money” while
shoring up political support by “taunting the United States” (Castañeda, 2006: 34, 38). There are many good reasons to resist
such a reductive binary framework. Some writers, for example, draw upon revisionist histories of
populism that demonstrate its complexity, multiplicity, and clear resonance with the poorer sectors of Latin American society, one largely
due to a nonlinear view of history not shared by social democrats (Ellner, 2011). Others are at pains to avoid merely inverting
or complicating this opposition and instead reject the social-democratic/populist binary entirely as one that “serves a disciplinary
purpose” by “distract[ing] attention from the failures of neoliberalism [and] the poor performance of democratic regimes” (Cameron, 2009:
345; see also French, 2009: 349, and Beasley-Murray, Cameron, and Hershberg, 2009: 324).1 While
many contributors to this
issue effectively confront various aspects of the good- left-versus-bad-left opposition, here I will focus
primarily on one element: the blindness of Castañeda and other proponents of the good/bad binary to “the
importance of social struggles” and “the combativeness of the popular sectors” and their concomitant fetishization of “established
institutions” (Ellner, 2011). Put differently, whether a leftist regime is “good” or “bad” is a question of who leads it and how. It is this overt and
systematic neglect of extrainstitutional space, of social movements in all their potential and messiness, that I hope to fill in, because attention
to this element, so neglected by Castañeda, can shed necessary light on the shortcomings of his framework as a whole.
By dissecting this
top-down view, it becomes easier to grasp the complexity of the left as a dynamic and shifting
relationship between movements and the state, between the top-down (constituted power) and the bottom-up
(constituent power). More specifically, however, and in an effort to avoid fetishizing either extreme, I begin
by delineating a distinction between what I call “constituent moments”—sudden and explosive rebellions from
below—and the “constitutional processes” that occasionally propel the energy of such moments toward the reconstruction of the institutional
structure. In so doing, my hope is to avoid fetishizing either the constituent power from below or the constituted power of the state
by focusing instead on the dynamic interplay between the two.
108
Link – Warming
Environmental protection rhetoric reduces the environment down to a question

of Climate Change and denies any inherent value to the environment or
recognition to indigenous groups
Management by exclusion arises from the democracy curse and is another practice that is commonly
used to govern the political economy. During the negotiations leading up to the Kyoto protocol, one of
the tasks allocated to a policy group was to develop a global forest policy that would develop forestry
management and reforestation policies to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Conscious of the fall out from the
riots that accompanied the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and similar riots at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Genoa
organizers were careful to be seen to be inclusive and invited green groups, unions,
and Melbourne, the
community organizations, apart from corporations, policy makers and scientists. Unfortunately, in their
quest to come up with a global forest policy, they omitted to invite representatives of millions of
people who actually live in forests, mainly Indigenous tribes. The forest tribes held their own climate
change summit and proclaimed their own resolution at the International Indigenous Forum on
Climate Change: The measures to mitigate climate change currently being negotiated are based on a
worldview of territory that reduces forests, lands, seas and sacred sites to only their carbon absorption capacity.
This worldview and its practices adversely affect the lives of Indigenous Peoples and violate our
fundamental rights and liberties, particularly, our right to recuperate, maintain, control and
administer our territories which are consecrated and established in instruments of the United
Nations. For Indigenous people who inhabit the region, forests are not just carbon sinks – forests are
their food, livelihood, source of medicine, housing, culture, society, polity and economy . Global trade
and environmental policies are often made without taking into account the violence and
dispossession of Indigenous communities that result from these policies. It becomes meaningless to
debate issues of forest rights when there are no forests left. Dispossession of local communities also
highlights the failure of both the market and the state where “citizens” of democratic states do not
have the right to determine their future. This is necrocapitalism.
109
Link – Western Knowledge
Western Knowledge is Elitist that is based upon hierarchal typologies of

humanity- Justification for colonial practices and world domination.
Smith 99 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Associate professor of education and director of the international
research institute for Maori and Indigenous Education at the University of Auckland, “Decolonizing
Methodologies Research and Indigenous Populations”, 1999
The development of scientific thought, the exploration and 'discovery' by Europeans of other worlds,
the expansion of trade, the establishment of colonies, and the systematic colonization of indigenous
peoples-in-the-eighteenth-and-nineteenth centuries are all facets of the modernist project. Modernism is
more than a re-presentation of fragments form the ‘new’ world expanded and challenged ideas the West held about itself. The
production of knowledge, new knowledge and transformed ‘old’ knowledge, ideas about the nature
of knowledge and the validity of specific forms of knowledge, became as much commodities of
colonial exploitation as as other natural recourses. Indigenous peoples were classified alongside the
flora and fauna; hierarchal typologies of humanity and systems of representation were fuelled by new
discoveries; and cultural maps were charted and territories claimed and contested by the major
European powers. Hence some indigenous peoples were ranked above others in terms of such things
as the belief that they were 'nearly human', 'almost human' or 'sub-human'. This often depended on whether it
was thought that the peoples concerned possessed a 'soul' and could therefore be 'offered' salvation and whether or not they were educable
and could be offered schooling. These systems for organizing, classifying and storing new knowledge, and for theorizing the meanings of such
discoveries, constituted research. Ina colonial context, however, this research was undeniably also about
power and domination. The instruments or technologies of research were also instruments of
knowledge and instruments for legitimating various colonial practices.¶ The imaginary line between
'east' and 'west', drawn in 1493 by a Papal Bull, allowed for the political division of the world and the struggle
by competing Western states to establish what Said has referred to as a 'flexible positional superiority' over
the known, and yet to become known, world.6 This positional superiority was contested at several
levels by European powers. These imaginary boundaries were drawn again in Berlin in 1934 when European powers sat around the
table once more to carve up Africa and other parts of 'their' empires. They continue to be redrawn. Imperialism and
colonialism are the specific formations through which the West came to 'see', to 'name' and to 'know'
indigenous communities. The cultural archive with its systems of representation, codes for unlocking
systems of classification, and fragmented artefacts of knowledge enabled travellers and observers to
make sense of what they saw and to represent their new-found knowledge back to the West through
the authorship and authority of their representations.
110
Impacts
111
Impact – Cuban Racism
Coloniality creates racial hierarchies in Cuba even after the formal end of
colonialism.
Torres 4 (Lena Delgado de, “Reformulating Nationalism in the African Diaspora: The Aponte Rebellion of 1812” CR: The New Centennial
Review, Volume 3, Number 3, Fall 2003, pp. 27-46 (Article) Michigan State University Press, Project Muse.
[http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ncr/summary/v003/3.3torres.html])
I will focus on the first layer of colonial power to shape Cuba—the Spanish; the social relationships between and within ethnic groups or
races in Cuba; and finally, the ways in which these colonial relationships continue to reproduce themselves
(though not in a static fashion). In the case of Afro- Cubans and creole Cubans, I understand an ethnic group to mean the
same as a “race.” I understand “race” to be a hierarchical, socioeconomic catego- rization based on skin color, class status, language, and
culture that has developed within the context of the capitalist modern world-system. It is created through social relationships between bodies
and the material structures of a racialized division of labor. Structures of knowledge accompany and further solidify these material structures.
Racial stratification within labor is closely tied to colonial power and, in fact, forms its foundation. A nation-state is supposed to be composed of
people all of the same race, or at least culture; however, most modern states, Cuba being no exception, are composed of many races and
cultures, in which privilege is arranged hierar- chically. Because the nation itself is a fictitious entity, it must be constantly buttressed against
the forces within its own borders that threaten to tear it apart. It
is important to point out that in the Spanish
Caribbean, race is not based on skin color in the North American sense, and that all of the criteria listed above are
related and become articulated in complex ways “on the ground,” or locally. For example, in Cuba we have inter- and intra-
racial stratification—namely, between and within races. Stratification based on culture and socioeconomic status occurred between
free people of color and enslaved Africans during the nineteenth century, when the whitening process was seen by some
Blacks as a desirable method of escaping the “stain” of slavery and African ancestry. Although Blacks did
come together in solidarity against whites, some also chose to opt out of their African identity,
purchasing “whiteness” from the Spanish authorities and discriminat- ing against non-acculturated Blacks
(Howard 1998, 30). Within the white racial/ethnic group, there was intra-ethnic stratification between
creole Cubans (white, Cuban-born) and Spanish-born peninsulares, and guajiros (white small farmers). Lastly, there
was the clear-cut stratification between whites and all people of color.4 I view intra-ethnic stratification as rooted
in colonial relationships. The reproduction of colonial relationships within ethnic groups is a clear example of
the way in which the coloniality of power creates repeating structures of inequality, even after formal
colonialism has collapsed.
112
Impact – Cultural Destruction

Eurocentric conceptions of modernity justify continued economic oppression
and epistemological disqualification for indigenous peoples: the banners of
science and reason allow the destruction of culture and abdication of
responsibility for the West
One of the goals of modernity8 was to change the obscurantism of the world into reason.¶ During this
period, the European civilization expanded all over the world due to the fact that they¶ managed to carry on
the social production of frontiers; a concept that according to Walter D.¶ Mignolo and Madina V. Tlostanova was described as “[a]
line indicating the last point in the¶ relentless march of civilization. On the one side of the frontiers was civilization; on the other;¶ nothing, just
barbarism or emptiness” (Mignolo and Tlostanova, 2006: 205).9 According
to this¶ classification, civilization was meant to be
a synonym of Western Europe while barbarism was to¶ be understood as the remainder, i.e. Africa, Asia,
and America. From this context, then, frontiers¶ became the spaces of influence that Europeans accommodated to exercise control over its¶
periphery on the basis of racist values that led to the establishment of opposing categories such ¶ as us and them, or, we and others. With
this classification, Europe “attempted to appoint itself the¶ center of the world and tried to divide up the
earth to organize the world’s exploitation and to export the ‘border form’ to the periphery” (Balibar, 2004:
7). Thus, exporting the border form to¶ the periphery not only implied organizing the world in units called nation-states, but it also¶ meant
developing a cultural or spiritual nationalism that required citizens to associate “the¶ democratic
universality of human rights
with particular national belonging… leading inevitably¶ to systems of exclusion: the divide between
…populations considered native and those¶ considered foreign, heterogeneous, who are racially or
culturally stigmatized” (Balibar, 2004: 8).¶ This mechanism was crucial to sustain colonization since colonized
people were, obviously,¶ not considered citizens of the imperial government; thereby they should not
have access to rights since they were not considered citizens in the first place. Castro-Gomez gives us a similar¶
argument that is worth transcribing at length:¶ Citizenship was not only restricted to men who were married,
literate, heterosexual, and proprietors,¶ but also, and especially, to men who were white. In turn, the
individuals that fell outside the space of¶ citizenship were not only the homosexuals, prisoners, mental patients and political dissidents¶
Foucault had in mind, but also blacks Indians, mestizos, gypsies, Jews, and now, in terms of¶ globalization, “ethnic minorities,” immigrants and
Auslandern (foreigners) (Castro-Gomez and¶ Johnson, 2000: 513).¶ To be sure, Europeans
not only denied colonized people a
citizen status but they also classified¶ native people as inhuman, devilish, or even animals, as inscribed in
the philosophies predicated¶ by Kant (1764), Hegel (1822), and others who considered that underdevelopment was a¶
characteristic proper of non-Europeans (Natter, 2008). Thus, since colonized people could not be¶ treated as “equals,” it was
quite acceptable to use their labor and land to benefit the colonizers, a¶ belief that has been extended to the present-day, as Mignolo and
Tlostanova explain: [T]he rhetoric of modernity (and globalization) of salvation continues to be implemented on the¶ assumption of
the inferiority or devilish intentions of the other and, therefore, continues to justify¶ oppression and exploitation as well
as the eradication of the difference (Mignolo and Tlostanova,¶ 2006: 206).¶ Change, in the European view, consisted of
turning “savages” into "gentlemen" and of bringing¶ them into civilization. However, until the moment
when that change actually happened¶ Europeans did not need to take into account the voice,
contributions, and knowledge of the¶ colonized. In that way, the epistemologies of indigenous peoples
were shadowed in¶ obscurantism, and reason was considered a characteristic exclusively associated
with whiteness ,¶ where epistemologies of colored people were denied as such. Accounts of this have been¶ recorded by researchers
such as Dwight Conquergood who explains, “[s]ince the enlightenment¶ project of modernity, the first way of knowing has been preeminent.
Marching under the banner¶ of science and reason, it has disqualified and repressed other ways of
knowing that are rooted in embodied experience, orality and local contingencies” (Conquergood, 2002: 146). On similar¶ lines, we find
Mignolo and Tlostanova (2006), who complain that the epistemologies of the¶ colonized were erased from world history, since they held no
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value in the eyes of Europeans.¶ Thus,

the following step in colonization consisted of imposing assimilation into
European settler¶ cultures; that is how the Nahuatl and Maya languages were changed into Spanish,
the Congolese,¶ Kituba, or Lingala into French, or the Dahomeyan into English. This was also the reason why¶
millions of people were forced to abandon their religion in order to be converted into¶ Christianity. In sum, the culture, traditions, and religion
of colonized people were used against¶ them to justify oppression. For instance, the
art and writing of the Maya civilization
was¶ destroyed under the justification that Maya texts were considered pagan. Similarly, the religious¶
rites and human sacrifices of the Aztec culture were used as a justification for the destruction and¶
subjugation of the Aztec people.¶ Although these events are highly problematic in themselves, there exist additional¶ implications
that are more disturbing; namely, the fact that the world inherited from modernity ¶ an international system that associates certain identities
with specific geographical places, thereby implying the problematic assumption that “to say we have an identity is just to say that¶ we have a
location in social space, a hermeneutic horizon that is both grounded in a location and¶ an opening or site from which we attempt to know the
world” (Saldívar, 2007: 344). Saldívar¶ criticizes this argument, since accepting it will be constitutive of geographical determinism,10¶ which
attempts to establish a direct association between the degree of development in a nation,¶ culture, or individual and his geographical location
in the globe. So, for instance, it is believed¶ that the reason why there is poverty in Colombia, Venezuela,
or the Caribbean is because these¶ countries are located in the south; a region where nature produces
food easier than in the north,¶ thus making people in the south lazier and more reluctant to work,
create, and innovate. Of¶ course, this version does not take any account of colonial history when attempting to
explain the¶ reasons why certain nations are economically more developed than others. In conclusion,¶
modernity implies that “certain areas of the planet were [are] designated as the location of the¶
barbarians and of the primitives” (Mignolo and Tlostanova, 2006: 205).
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Impact – Cultural Intervention/Epistemic Injustice

Eurocentric framing ignores the non-Western history and privileges Western
knowledge production
Sabaratnam 13 (Meera, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge,
“Avatars of Eurocentrism in the critique of the liberal peace”
http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/44/3/259.full)
Although Eurocentrism has multiple incarnations, overall it can be described as the sensibility that Europe is historically, economically, culturally
and politically distinctive in ways that significantly determine the overall character of world politics. As a starting point, we
might regard
it as a conceptual and philosophical framework that informs the construction of knowledge about the
social world – a foundational epistemology of Western distinctiveness. In this sensibility, ‘Europe’ is a
cultural-geographic sphere (Bhambra, 2010: 5), which can be understood as the genealogical foundation of
‘the West’. In his piece ‘Eurocentrism and Its Avatars’, Immanuel Wallerstein (1997) argues that many critical literatures in world history
nonetheless reproduce tropes of Eurocentrism in their analyses. In this article I argue similarly, focusing on the critiques of the liberal peace in
IR and IPE3. Here I suggest these avatars can be grouped under three broad headings: culturalist, historical and epistemic. Some of
Eurocentrism’s culturalist avatars, as identified by Wallerstein (1997), are now relatively well recognized by scholars across various disciplines.
The most famous is probably Orientalism, which is
a framing of the East through negative and/or feminized
stereotypes of its culture, political character, social norms and economic agency. This framing casts it
as a space of tradition and opportunity to be governed and explored, or alternatively feared, by the
rational and enlightened West (Said, [1973] 2003). This is closely allied to the avatar of civilizational thinking that assigns to the West as a whole
a package of secular-rational, Judeo-Christian, liberal democratic tolerant social values, in contrast to other civilizations such as the ‘Indic’
(Wallerstein, 1997: 97–98). However, this culturalist avatar seems to have taken new forms since the apparent decline of public Orientalism. As
Balibar (1991) has suggested, there are important functional continuities between old and new frameworks based on ‘civilization’, ‘race’ and
‘cultural difference’ in reproducing an idea of Western distinctiveness. Although now rarely supremacist, this culturalist form of Eurocentrism is
generative: it posits the core ontological difference between the West and its others as deriving from their distinctive cultures or civilizations,
with major political issues emerging from the question of cultural difference and how to manage this. Eurocentrism is also manifested through
historical avatars. The first of these is the
assumption that Europe is the principal subject of world history, as
discussed by the Subaltern Studies research group, and especially Chakrabarty (2000). This is the tendency of historians
(Hobsbawm is offered as the exemplar) to see the emergence of capitalism and industrialization in the West as
the real driver of history, and non-Western societies as either ‘outside history’ or as lagging behind
Western historical development. A closely related historical avatar includes the notion of historical progress (Wallerstein, 1997:
96), as elaborated in much post-Hegelian theory, which understands human history not just as linear but as self-consciously improving the
human condition through the trying out of different political ideas. Again, these particular forms are understood as somewhat outmoded in
scholarship, although they seem to reappear in new guises. More
recent critiques, for example, point to the attribution to
the West of historical ‘hyper-agency’ in terms of world-historical development (Hobson, 2004, 2007, 2012),
even if few scholars maintain a strictly Hegelian story of historical progress. For Bhambra (2010), the emphasis is on the assumption of
‘endogeneity’ in the story of the rise of Europe –
the idea that European development was self-generating, driven
by war, competition, the Enlightenment and technological advances, and then diffused out to the rest
of the world via imperial expansion. This thus reinstates Europe as the implicit subject of world
history and historical sociology, and occludes the contemporaneous and necessary involvement of the wider world in this rise (see
also Barkawi and Laffey, 2006). Both old and new historical versions of Eurocentrism understand different parts
of the world as more and less ‘developed’, or more and less ‘modern’, indicating a strong connection
between geographic-cultural space and temporal/scalar positioning (see also Hindess, 2007; Hutchings, 2008b).
Finally, we can identify Eurocentrism’s epistemic avatar, which is the purported atemporal universalism of modern social scientific knowledge
(Wallerstein, 1997: 100). In this tendency, social
scientific modes of knowledge that emerged in Europe from the
19th century onwards are represented as supremely privileged in their understanding of social
phenomena above other modes of knowing, as demonstrated through their powers of abstraction, reasoning and objectivity.
This also establishes a hierarchy of knowers with the authority to speak about the world, which tracks their positions in relation to the Western
academy.
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Colonialism establishes the framework for Eurocentrism—obscures historical

identity to justify capitalistic relations of domination
Quijano 2K (Aníbal, professor of the Department of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York,
“Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America”)
Europe not only had control of the world market, but it was also able to impose its colonial dominance
As the center of global capitalism,
over all the regions and populations of the planet, incorporating them into its world-system and its specific
model of power. For such regions and populations, this model of power involved a process of historical
reidentification; from Europe such regions and populations were attributed new geocultural identities. In that way, after America
and Europe were established, Africa, Asia, and eventually Oceania followed suit. In the production of these new identities, the coloniality of the new model of power was, without a doubt, one
of the most active determinations. But the forms and levels of political and cultural development, and more specifically intellectual development, played a role of utmost importance in each
case. Without these factors, the category “Orient” would not have been elaborated as the only one with sufficient dignity to be the other to the “Occident,” although by definition inferior,
without some equivalent to “Indians” or “blacks” being coined.10 But this omission itself puts in the open the fact that those other factors also acted within the racist model of universal social
The incorporation of such diverse and heterogeneous cultural histories into a single world
classification of the world population.
dominated by Europe signified a cultural and intellectual intersubjective configuration equivalent to the articulation of all forms of
labor control around capital, a configuration that established world capitalism. In effect, all of the
experiences, histories, resources, and cultural products ended up in one global cultural order
revolving around European or Western hegemony. Europe’s hegemony over the new model of global power
concentrated all forms of the control of subjectivity, culture, and especially knowledge and the production of knowledge under its hegemony. During that
process, the colonizers exercised diverse operations that brought about the configuration of a new universe of intersubjective relations of domination between Europe and the Europeans and
first place, they expropriated the
the rest of the regions and peoples of the world, to whom new geocultural identities were being attributed in that process. In the
cultural discoveries of the colonized peoples most apt for the development of capitalism to the profit of the
European center. Second, they repressed as much as possible the colonized forms of knowledge production , the
models of the production of meaning, their symbolic universe, the model of expression and of objectification and subjectivity. As is well known, repression in
this field was most violent, profound, and long lasting among the Indians of Ibero-America, who were condemned
to be an illiterate peasant subculture stripped of their objectified intellectual legacy. Something equivalent happened
in Africa. Doubtless, the repression was much less intense in Asia, where an important part of the history of the intellectual written legacy has been preserved. And it was precisely such
Third, indifferent ways in each case, they forced the colonized to
epistemic suppression that gave origin to the category “Orient.”
learn the dominant culture in any way that would be useful to the reproduction of domination, whether in
the field of technology and material activity or subjectivity, especially Judeo-Christian religiosity. All of those turbulent processes involved a long period of the colonization of cognitive
The
perspectives, modes of producing and giving meaning, the results of material existence, the imaginary, the universe of intersubjective relations with the world: in short, the culture.11
success of Western Europe in becoming the center of the modern world-system, according to Wallerstein’s suitable
formulation, developed within the Europeans a trait common to all colonial dominators and imperialists, ethnocentrism. But in the case of Western Europe, that trait had
a peculiar formulation and justification: the racial classification of the world population after the colonization of America. The association of colonial
ethnocentrism and universal racial classification helps to explain why Europeans came to feel not
only superior to all the other peoples of the world, but, in particular, naturally superior . This historical instance is
expressed through a mental operation of fundamental importance for the entire model of global power, but above all with respect to the intersubjective relations that were hegemonic, and
: the Europeans generated a new temporal perspective of history and relocated
especially for its perspective on knowledge
the colonized population, along with their respective histories and cultures, in the past of a historical
trajectory whose culmination was Europe (Mignolo 1995; Blaut 1993; Lander 1997). Notably, however, they were not in the same
line of continuity as the Europeans, but in another, naturally different category. The colonized peoples
were inferior races and in that manner were the past vis-à-vis the Europeans. That perspective imagined modernity and rationality as exclusively
European product s and experiences. From this point of view, intersubjective and cultural relations between Western Europe and the rest of
the world were codified in a strong play of new categories: East-West, primitive- civilized, magic/mythic-scientific, irrational-rational,
traditional-modern —Europe and not Europe. Even so, the only category with the honor of being recognized as the other of Europe and the West was “Orient”—not the Indians of America and
not the blacks of Africa, who were simply “primitive.” For underneath that codification of relations between Europeans and non-Europeans, race is, without doubt, the basic category.12
This binary, dualist perspective on knowledge, particular to Eurocentrism, was imposed as globally hegemonic in
the same course as the expansion of European colonial dominance over the world.
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Impact – Dehumanization
Coloniality dehumanizes non-European subjects

270)OG
For Fanon, in the colonial context, ontological colonial difference or subontological¶ difference profoundly marks the day to day
reality. If the most¶ basic ontological question is ‘why are things rather than nothing’, the question¶ that emerges in this context and that opens up reflection on the coloniality of¶ Being is ‘Why go on?’ As Lewis Gordon
has put it, ‘why go on?’ is a¶ fundamental question in the existential philosophy of the African diaspora and¶ it illuminates the plight of the wretched of the earth .59 Why go on? is preceded ¶ only by one expression, which
becomes the first instance that revels the¶ coloniality of Being, that is, the cry .60 The cry, not a word but an interjection,¶ is a call of attention to one’s own existence. The cry is the pre-theoretical¶ expression of the question
Why go on? which for the most part drives¶ theoretical reflection in the peoples of the African diaspora. It is the cry that ¶ animates the birth of theory and critical thought. And the cry points to a¶ peculiar existential condition:
The damne´ or condemned is not a ‘being there’ but a non-being or rather, as Ralph Ellison¶ so eloquently elaborated, a sort
that of the condemned.
What is invisible about¶ the person of color is its very humanity, and this is in fact what the cry tries to¶ call attention to.
of an invisible entity.61
Invisibility and dehumanization are the primary expressions of¶ the coloniality of Being. The
coloniality of Being indicates those aspects that¶ produce exception from the order of Being; it is as it
were, the product of the¶ excess of Being that in order to maintain its integrity and inhibit the¶
interruption by what lies beyond Being produces its contrary, not nothing, but¶ a non-human or rather
an inhuman world. The coloniality of Being refers not¶ merely to the reduction of the particular to the generality of the concept or¶ any given horizon of meaning, but to the violation of the meaning of
human¶ alterity to the point where the alter-ego becomes a sub-alter. Such a reality,¶ typically approximated very closely in situations of war, is transformed into an¶ ordinary affair through the idea of race, which serves a crucial
The coloniality of Being is not therefore an inevitable moment¶ or natural outcome of the
role in the¶ naturalization of the non-ethics of war through the practices of colonialism and¶ (racial) slavery.
takes
dynamics of creation of meaning. Although it is¶ always present as a possibility, it shows itself forth when the preservation of ¶ Being (in any of its determinations: national ontologies, identitarian ontologies,¶ etc.)
primacy over listening to the cries of those whose humanity is being¶ denied. The coloniality of Being appears in historical projects and
ideas of¶ civilization which advance colonial projects of various kinds inspired or ¶ legitimized by the idea of race. The coloniality of Being is therefore coextensive ¶ with the production of the color-line in its different expressions
The
and¶ dimensions. It becomes concrete in the appearance of liminal subjects, which¶ mark, as it were, the limit of Being, that is, the point at which Being distorts¶ meaning and evidence to the point of dehumanization.
coloniality of Being¶ produces the ontological colonial difference, deploying a series of fundamental¶ existential characteristics and symbolic realities.
I have sketched out some. An¶ ample discussion will require another venue. What I would like to do here is¶ to show the relevance of the categories that have been introduced so far for the ¶ project of decolonization, which is,
ultimately, the positive dimension that¶ inspires this analysis. Like I did in this section, let me begin once more with ¶ what we have discovered as our radical point of departure: the damne´.
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Impact – Dehumanization
Colonialism necessitates the creation of a structure to control labor and
production—this system naturalizes subordination and domination
Quijano 2000 (Aníbal, professor of the Department of Sociology at Binghamton University, New
York, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America”)
In the historical process of the constitution of America,
all forms of control and exploitation of labor and production,
as well as the control of appropriation and distribution of products, revolved around the capital-salary
relation and the world market. These forms of labor control included slavery, serfdom, petty-commodity
production, reciprocity, and wages. In such an assemblage, each form of labor control was no mere extension
of its historical antecedents. All of these forms of labor were historically and sociologically new: in the
first place, because they were deliberately established and organized to produce commodities for the world
market; in the second place, because they did not merely exist simultaneously in the same space/time, but each one of them was
also articulated to capital and its market. Thus they configured a new global model of labor control, and
in turn a fundamental element of a new model of power to which they were historically structurally dependent. That is to say, the place and
function, and therefore the historical movement, of all
forms of labor as subordinated points of a totality belonged
to the new model of power in spite of their heterogeneous specific traits and their discontinuous relations with that totality. In the
third place, and as a consequence, each form of labor developed into new traits and historical-structural configurations. Insofar as that
structure of control of labor, resources, and products consisted of the joint articulation of all the respective
historically known forms, a global model of control of work was established for the first time in known
history. And while it was constituted around and in the service of capital, its configuration as a whole was established with a capitalist
character as well. Thus emerged a new, original, and singular structure of relations of production in the
historical experience of the world: world capitalism.
The logic of the colony perpetuates inferiority—posits indigenous populations

as standing reserve
The fact is that from the very beginning of the colonization of America, Europeans associated nonpaid or nonwaged labor with the dominated
races because they were “inferior” races. The vast genocide of the Indians in the first decades of
colonization was not caused principally by the violence of the conquest nor by the plagues the conquistadors brought, but took place
because so many American Indians were used as disposable manual labor and forced to work until death . The
elimination for this colonial practice did not end until the defeat of the encomenderos in the middle of the sixteenth century. The subsequent Iberian colonialism involved a new
politics of population reorganization, a reorganization of the Indians and their relations with the colonizers. But this did not advance American Indians as free and waged laborers. From
then on, they were assigned the status of unpaid serfs. The serfdom of the American Indians could not, however, be compared with feudal serfdom in Europe, since
it included neither the supposed protection of a feudal lord nor, necessarily, the possession of a piece
of land to cultivate instead of wages. Before independence, the Indian labor force of serfs reproduced itself in the communities, but more than one hundred years after independence, a
large part of the Indian serfs was still obliged to reproduce the labor force on its own. The other form of unwaged or, simply put, unpaid labor, slavery, was assigned exclusively to
the “black” population brought from Africa. The racial classification of the population and the early
association of the new racial identities of the colonized with the forms of control of unpaid, unwaged
labor developed among the Europeans the singular perception that paid labor was the whites’
privilege. The racial inferiority of the colonized implied that they were not worthy of wages. They
were naturally obliged to work for the profit of their owners. It is not difficult to fund, to this very day, this attitude spread out among the white property
owners of any place in the world. Furthermore, the lower wages “inferior races” receive in the present capitalist centers for the same work as done by whites cannot be explained as detached from the racist social classification of
the world’s population—in other words, as detached from the global capitalist coloniality of power.
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Impact – Disease
Coloniality forces indigenous peoples into economic poverty and disease

Warrior 11 (Zig-Zag, writer for Warrior Publications, Promoting Indigenous Warrior Culture, Fighting
Spirit, & Resistance Movement, “Colonization and Decolonization: A Manual for Indigenous Liberation in
the 21st Century” 2011)
A primary argument in favour of colonialism was that it brought the benefits of civilization to
Indigenous peoples,¶ greatly raising their standard of living. The genocidal practices of colonialism easily dismiss such
claims, and yet they¶ persist, based largely on an incorrect view that Native peoples barely managed to survive, scraping out a meager
existence¶ and victim to all sorts ofinjury, disease and death. In fact,¶ "Anthropologists have long recognized that undisturbed
tribal
peoples are often in excellent physical condition"¶ (Victims ofProgress, p. 144). Colonialism, far from raising the¶ living
standard ofIndigenous peoples, instead¶ plunges them into economic impoverishment,¶ disease, and rapidly
deteriorating health¶ conditions. Drastic changes in diet resulting¶ from limited access (or
destruction) of¶ traditional food sources, & dependence on¶ European food items, has caused
extensive¶ health problems for Indigenous peoples. After exposure to white flour, sugar,¶ milk, etc.,
Indigenous peoples began to suffer¶ rapid tooth decay and mouth diseases. After¶ generations of
dependence on European food¶ products, Indigenous and other colonized¶ peoples today suffer from
high rates ofdiabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart problems¶ Indigenous peoples also¶
suffer the highest rates ofdiseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, cancer, AIDS,.hepatitis, etc.
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Impact – Domination
Coloniality has made it impossible to be successful without dismantling colonial

and racial hierarchies
Grosfoguel 9 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley, "A decolonial approach to political-
economy: transmodernity, border thinking and global coloniality." Epistemologies of Transformation:
The Latin American Decolonial Option and its Ramifications; in: Kult 6 (2009): 10-38)
The pernicious influence of coloniality — in all of its expressions at different levels (global, national,
local), as well as, its Eurocentric knowledges — has been reflected in anti-systemic movements and in
utopian thinking around the world. Thus, the first task of a renewed leftist project is to confront the
eurocentric colonialities, not only of the right but also of the left. For example, many leftist projects,
underestimated the racial/ethnic hierarchies and reproduced White/Euro-centered domination over
non-European peoples within their organizations and, when in control, of the state structures. The
international left never radically problematized the racial/ethnic hierarchies built during the European
colonial expansion and still present within the world’s coloniality of power. No radical project can be
successful today without dismantling these colonial/racial hierarchies. The underestimation of the
problem of coloniality has contributed significantly to popular disillusionment with leftist projects.
Liberal or radical democracy cannot be fully accomplished if the colonial/racist dynamics treat a large
portion or, in some cases, the majority of the population, as second-class citizens.¶ The perspective
articulated here is not a defense of identity politics. Subaltern identities could serve as an epistemic
point of departure for a radical critique of Eurocentric paradigms and ways of thinking. However,
identity politics is not equivalent to epistemological otherness. The scope of identity politics is limited
and cannot achieve a radical transformation of the system and its colonial power matrix. Since all
modern identities are a construction of the coloniality of power within the modern/colonial world,
their defense is not as subversive as it might seem at first. ‘Black’, ‘Indian’, ‘African’, or national
identities such as ‘Colombian’, ‘Kenyan’, or ‘French’ are colonial constructions after all. Defending these
identities could serve some progressive purposes, depending on what is at stake in specific contexts.
For example, in the struggles against an imperialist invasion or in anti-racist struggles against white
supremacy these identities can serve to unify the oppressed people against a common enemy. But
identity politics only addresses the goals of a single group and demands equality within the system
rather than developing a radical anti-capitalist struggle against the system.
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Impact – Dualisms
Coloniality strengthens hegemonic knowledge production—epistemic
dominance constructs a violent hierarchy between the colonizer and the
colonized
Grosfoguel 8 (Ramón, Associate Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Ethnic Studies
Department, “DECOLONIZING POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES: Transmodernity,
border thinking, and global coloniality”)
In this paper, I propose that an epistemic perspective from the subaltern side of the colonial difference has a lot to contribute to this debate. It
can contribute to a critical perspective beyond the outlined dichotomies and to a redefinition of capitalism as a world−system. In October 1998,
a conference/dialogue took place at Duke University between the South Asian Subaltern Studies Group and the Latin American Subaltern
Studies Group.¶ The dialogue eventually resulted in the publication of several issues of the journal Nepantla. However, this conference was the
last time the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group met before their split. Among the many reasons and debates that produced this split,
there are two that I would like to stress. The members of the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group were primarily Latinamericanist scholars
in the USA. Despite their attempt at producing a radical and alternative knowledge, they reproduced the
epistemic schema of Area Studies in the United States. With a few exceptions, they produced studies about
the subaltern rather than studies with and from a subaltern perspective. Like the imperial
epistemology of Area Studies, theory was still located in the North while the subjects to be studied
are located in the South. This colonial epistemology was crucial to my dissatisfaction with the project. As a Latino in the United States,
I was dissatisfied with the epistemic consequences of the knowledge produced by this Latinamericanist group. They underestimated
in their work ethnic/racial perspectives coming from the region, while giving privilege predominantly
to western thinkers.¶ This is related to my second point : they gave epistemic privilege to what they called the "four horsemen of the
apocalypse" (Mallon 1994 ; Rodriguez 2001), that is, Foucault, Derrida, Gramsci and Guha. Among these four thinkers, three are Eurocentric
while two (Derrida and Foucault) form part of the poststructuralist/postmodern western canon. Only one, Rinajit Guha, is a conceptualization
of the world−system. The first part is an epistemic discussion about the implications of the epistemological critique of feminist and
subalternized racial/ethnic intellectuals to western epistemology. The second part is the implications of these critiques to the way we
conceptualize the global or world system. The third part is a discussion of global coloniality today. The fourth part is a critique of both
world−system analysis and postcolonial/cultural studies using coloniality of power as a response to the culture versus economy dilemma.
Finally, the fifth, sixth, seventh and last parts are a discussion of border thinking, transmodernity and socialization of power as decolonial
alternatives to the present world−system.¶ Epistemological critique¶ The first point to discuss is the contribution of racial/ethnic and feminist
subaltern perspectives to epistemological questions. The hegemonic Eurocentric paradigms that have informed western philosophy and
sciences in the "modern/colonial capitalist/patriarchal world−system" (Grosfoguel 2005 ; 2006b) for the last 500 hundred years assume a
universalistic, neutral, objective point of view. Chicana and black feminist scholars (Moraga and Anzaldua 1983 ; Collins 1990) as well as Third
World scholars inside and outside the United States (Dussel 1977 ; Mignolo 2000) reminded us that we
always speak from a
particular location within power structures. Nobody escapes the class, sexual, gender, spiritual,
linguistic, geographical, and racial hierarchies of the "modern/colonial capitalist/patriarchal
world−system". As feminist scholar Donna Haraways (1988) states, our knowledges are always situated. Black feminist
scholars called this perspective "afro−centric epistemology" (Collins 1990) (which is not equivalent to the afrocentrist perspective), while Latin
American philosopher of liberation Enrique Dussel called it "geopolitics of knowledge" (Dussel 1977) ; following Fanon (1967) and Anzaldua
(1987), I will use the term "body−politics of knowledge". This is not only a question about social values in knowledge production or the fact that
our knowledge is always partial. The main point here is the locus of enunciation, that is, the geo−political and
body−political location of the subject that speaks. In western philosophy and sciences the subject that speaks is
always hidden, concealed, erased from the analysis. The "ego−politics of knowledge" of western philosophy has always
privileged the myth of a non−situated "ego". Ethnic/racial/gender/sexual epistemic location and the subject that speaks are
always decoupled. By delinking ethnic/racial/gender/sexual epistemic location from the subject that speaks,
western philosophy and sciences are able to produce a myth about a truthful universal knowledge that covers up, that is,
conceals both the speaker as well as the geo−political and body−political epistemic location of the
structures of colonial power/knowledge from which the subject speaks. It is important here to
distinguish the "epistemic location" from the "social location". The fact that one is socially located in the oppressed
side of power relations does not automatically mean that he/she is epistemically thinking from a subaltern epistemic location. The success
of the modern/colonial world−system consists precisely in making subjects that are socially located on
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the oppressed side of the colonial difference think epistemically like the ones in dominant positions .
Subaltern epistemic perspectives are knowledge coming from below that produces a critical perspective of hegemonic knowledge in the power
relations involved. I am not claiming an epistemic populism where knowledge produced from below is automatically an epistemic subaltern
knowledge. What I am claiming is that all knowledges are epistemically located in the dominant or the subaltern side of the power relations and
that this is related to the geo− and body−politics of knowledge. The disembodied and unlocated neutrality and objectivity of the ego−politics of
knowledge is a western myth.¶ René Descartes, the founder of modern western philosophy, inaugurates a new moment in the history of
western thought. He replaces God, as the foundation of knowledge in the theo−politics of knowledge of the European Middle Ages, with
(western) man as the foundation of knowledge in European Modern times. All the attributes of God are now extrapolated to (western) man.
Universal truth beyond time and space, privilege access to the laws of the Universe, and the capacity to produce scientific knowledge and
theory is now placed in the mind of western man. The Cartesian "ego−cogito" ("I think, therefore I am") is the foundation of modern western
sciences. By producing a dualism between mind and body and between mind and nature, Descartes was able to claim non−situated, universal,
omniscient divine knowledge. This is what the Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro−Gomez called the "point zero" perspective of
Eurocentric philosophies (Castro−Gomez 2003). The "point zero" is the point of view that hides and conceals itself as being beyond a particular
point of view, that is, the point of view that represents itself as being without a point of view. It is this "god−eye view" that always hides its local
and particular perspective under an abstract universalism. Western philosophy privileges "ego politics of knowledge" over the "geopolitics of
knowledge" and the "body−politics of knowledge". Historically, this
has allowed western man (the gendered term is
intentionally used here) to represent his knowledge as the only one capable of achieving a universal
consciousness, and to dismiss non−Western knowledge as particularistic and, thus, unable to achieve
universality.¶ This epistemic strategy has been crucial for western global designs . By hiding the location of the
subject of enunciation, European/Euro−American colonial expansion and domination was able to construct a
hierarchy of superior and inferior knowledge and, thus, of superior and inferior people around the
world. We went from the 16th century characterization of "people without writing" to the 18th and 19th century
characterization of "people without history", to the 20th century characterization of "people without development" and more recently, to the
early 21st century of "people without democracy". We went from the 16th century "rights of people" (Sepulveda
versus de las Casas debate in the school of Salamanca in the mid−sixteenth century), to the 18th century "rights of man" (Enlightenment
philosophers), and to the late 20th century "human
rights". All of these are part of global designs articulated to
the simultaneous production and reproduction of an international division of labour into core/periphery that overlaps with
the global racial/ethnic hierarchy of Europeans/non−Europeans.¶ However, as Enrique Dussel (1994) has reminded us, the Cartesian "ego
cogito" ("I think, therefore I am") was preceded by 150 years (since the beginnings of the European colonial expansion in 1492) by the European
"ego conquistus" ("I conquer, therefore I am"). The social, economic, political and historical conditions of possibility for a subject to assume the
arrogance of becoming God−like and put himself as the foundation of all truthful knowledge was the imperial being, that is, the subjectivity of
those who are at the centre of the world because they have already conquered it. What are the decolonial implications of this epistemological
critique of our knowledge production and to our concept of world−system ?¶
122
Impact – Economic Disparity

The desire for semiperipheral nations to reach core-nation status spins the
perpetual cycle of reliance on colonialism, thus furthering the economic
disparity and obscuring answers to the problem
Santos 2 (Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics, University
of Coimbra. Winter 2002.“Between Prospero and Caliban: Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Inter-
identity” http://www.jstor.org/stable/3513784)
The third general hypothesis that has come to guide my research concerns these two last questions, and
particularly the analytical value of the theory of the world system under the current conditions of
globalization. I have dealt with this topic elsewhere (Santos, 2001). Here, I will limit myself to
enunciating the working hypothesis I then developed. I believe that we find ourselves in an unstable
phase characterized by the overlapping of two forms of hierarchization: one, more rigid, constitutes
the world system from its beginning as center, semi-periphery, and periphery; another, more flexible,
distinguishes between what in the world system is produced or defined as local and what is produced
or defined as global.' Whereas the former hierarchy continues to operate in relations among national
societies or economies, the second one occurs among domains of activities, practices, knowledges, and
narratives, be they economic, political or cultural. The overlapping of these two forms of hierarchy and
the reciprocal interferences they generate explain the paradoxical situation we are in: inequalities
inside the world system (and inside each society that comprises it) get worse, while the factors that
cause them and the actions that might eventually reduce them are increasingly difficult to identify .
Finally, the fourth general working hypothesis is that the Portuguese culture is a borderland culture. It
has no content. It does have form, however, and that form is the borderland zone. National cultures are
a creation of the nineteenth century, the historical product of a tension between universalism and
particularism as managed by the state. The state's role was twofold: on the one had, it established the
difference of the national culture as opposed to the outside; on the other, it promoted cultural
homogeneity inside the national territory. My working hypothesis is that in Portugal the state never
played any of these roles satisfactorily; as a consequence, the Portuguese culture always had a lot of
trouble distinguishing itself from other national cultures, or if you wish it always had great capacity not
to distinguish itself from other national cultures; it has, moreover, kept to this day a considerable
internal heterogeneity. (Santos, 1994: 132- 133).
123
Impact – Education
Homogenization of non-white peoples obscures the mutually constructive

relationship between Europe and the Americas and posits Europe at the head of
civilization, indicating the natural racial inferiority of the indigenous and robbing
them of their cultural identities – the aff’s adamant defense of their knowledge
production posits non-whites as always primitive and inferior
The historical process is, however, verydifferent. To start with, in¶ the moment that the Iberians conquered, named, and colonized America¶
(whose northern region, North America, would be colonized bythe British¶ a centurylater), theyfound a great number of different peoples, each
with¶ its own history, language, discoveries and cultural products, memory and¶ identity. The most developed and sophisticated of them were
the Aztecs,¶ Mayas, Chimus, Aymaras, Incas, Chibchas, and so on. Three hundred years¶ later, all of them
had become merged into a single identity: Indians. This¶ new identity was racial, colonial, and
negative. The same happened with¶ the peoples forcefullybrought from Africa as slaves: Ashantis,
Yorubas, Zulus, Congos, Bacongos, and others. In the span of three hundred years,¶ all of them were
Negroes or blacks.¶ This resultant from the history of colonial power had, in terms¶ of the colonial perception, two decisive implications.
The first is obvious:¶ peoples were dispossessed of their own and singular historical identities.¶ The second is
perhaps less obvious, but no less decisive: their new racial¶ identity, colonial and negative, involved the
plundering of their place in the¶ history of the cultural production of humanity. From then on, there
were¶ inferior races, capable onlyof producing inferior cultures. The new identity¶ also involved their
relocation in the historical time constituted with America¶ first and with Europe later: from then on
they were the past. In other words,¶ the model of power based on coloniality also involved a
cognitive model, a¶ new perspective of knowledge within which non-Europe was the past, and¶
because of that inferior, if not always primitive . At the other hand, America was the first modern and
global geocultural¶ identity. Europe was the second and was constituted as a consequence¶ of
America, not the inverse. The constitution of Europe as a new¶ historic entity/identity was made
possible, in the first place, through the¶ free labor of the American Indians, blacks, and mestizos, with
their advanced¶ technology in mining and agriculture, and with their products such¶ as gold, silver,
potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco (Viola and Margolis 1991).¶ It was on this foundation that a region was configured as the site of
control¶ of the Atlantic routes, which became in turn, and for this veryreason, the¶ decisive routes of the world market. This region did not
delayin emerging¶ as . . . Europe. So Europe
and America mutually produced themselves as¶ the historical and
the first two new geocultural identities of the modern¶ world.¶ However, the Europeans persuaded
themselves, from the middle¶ of the seventeenth century,but above all during the eighteenth century, that¶ in some way they had
autoproduced themselves as a civilization, at the margin¶ of history initiated with America,
culminating an independent line that¶ began with Greece as the onlyoriginal source. Furthermore, they concluded¶ that
they were naturally(i.e., racially) superior to the rest of the world , since¶ they had conquered
everyone and had imposed their dominance on them.
124
Impact – Environment/Economy
Western Eurocentric epistemology destroys the environment and causes

economic crises
Breidlid 13 (Anders, Professor, Master programme in Multicultural and International Education, Oslo
University College, “Education, Indigenous Knowledge, and Development in the Global South”, p. 23-
25)OG
Philipp Pattberg (2007) discusses the ideology of domination over nature¶ that is still with us today, how it is “|d]eeply rooted in our every-day
beliefs,¶ actions, reflections and hopes, it lies at the center of any attempt to transform¶ the world into a more loveable, friendlier, lighter and
safer place” (p. 7). By¶ discussing what he terms the enslavement of nature and the enslavement of¶ humans by other humans, he concludes
that this has led to a global state¶ which is not sustainable. Exploring its historical trajectory, the
ideology of¶ domination over
the natural environment took hold, according to Pattberg,¶ “in the context of . . . the decline of Christianity as a total
explanatory¶ structure for human existence, the scientific turn of Cartesianism and the¶ rise of capitalism to a self-replicating structure of
rational choice” (p. 8).¶ Lynn White (1974) suggests that the ecological crisis is due to the orthodox Christian legacy,
especially its Western branch, stating, “Christian-¶ ity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions (except,¶
perhaps Zorastrianism), not only established a dualism of man and nature¶ but also insisted that it is Cod’s will that man exploit nature for his
proper¶ ends” (p. 4). Moreover, White proposes that “(o]ur science and technology¶ have grown out of Christian attitudes towards man’s
relation to nature¶ which are almost universally held, not only by Christians and neo-Chris-¶ tians but also by those who fondly regard
themselves as post-Christians”¶ (p. 5). Interestingly, White suggests a return to unorthodox Christianity¶ spearheaded by St. Francis, an idea I
will return to later in this book.¶ Max Weber’s thesis, 7he Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism¶ (1905/2001), is based on the
assumption that there is a close relationship¶ between Protestantism and capitalism, that capitalism’s basis is (what was¶ interpreted as) the
Christian work ethic, particularly in Calvinism. The¶ idea is that domination over nature through hard work and frugality will¶ be rewarded by
God.¶ There is therefore an important epistemological dimension to this crisis.¶ As Kincheloe and Steinberg
(2008) put it, “Some indigenous educators and¶ philosophers put it succinctly: We want to use indigenous knowledge to¶ counter Western’s
science destruction of the Earth. Indigenous
knowledge¶ can facilitate the 21st century project because of its
tendency to focus on¶ relationships of human beings to both one another and to their eco-system”¶ (pp.
136-137).¶ The exclusion of alternative epistemo logies and the privileging of rational science have
meant the demise of ecological sustainability while the¶ epitomization of scientific truth and
rationality has excluded values that¶ transcend the so-called rationality dogma of the West. This denial
of epistcmological diversity and the privileging of European epistemic mono-culture is still hegemonic
and perceived as a sign of development and modernity.¶ Ideological Pathology¶ There is a naive belief among
modernization theoreticians that since ecological problems are a result of the economic activities of
modernization, further economic activities should cure these environmental problems. Due to the finiteness
of the earth’s resources, the vicious circle of repair-¶ ing the consequences of progress with further progress is not sustainable.¶ Ronald Wright
(2004) argues that the 20lh century was a period where¶ unlimited growth in terms of population, consumption, and technology¶ exploited the
natural systems in an unsustainable way. Wright calls these¶ activities of ecological unsustainability the very worst kind of “ideologi-¶ cal
pathology.”¶ While
colonialism and the capitalist world system have been beset with¶ territorial, political,
and economic conquest, Western science is based on¶ the same idea of conquest, that is, not
respecting the earth’s ecological¶ limits. Moreover, in line with worid-systems analysis, there is an ecologi-¶ cal unequal
exchange here, as the core’s exploitation and utilization of the¶ world’s resources is matched in the periphery with the burden of negative¶
ecological costs imposed by the core.¶ As has been discussed above, the
issue of Western science and knowledge¶
production is existentially important because the Eurocentric epistemology of knowing (mastering)
and dominating the world is, despite its mer-¶ its, dramatically problematic in a world where the
majority of the world’s population not only suffers from hunger and malnutrition, illiteracy, and lack
of work , but where the hegemonic epistemology upsets the relationship between man and nature as
125
it seeks to possess the earth in the same way as¶ a master exploits his slave.¶ The ecological challenges are
closely intertwined with the current economic challenges in the West, and it is difficult to ignore that the aggressive ideology of exploitation
and the maximizing of profits, which are so¶ central to European hegemonic epistemology, is detrimental to the efforts¶ to save the planet
from ecological disaster. Vivas (2011) is right when¶ contending that the
difference between the present economic crisis
and¶ those of the 1970s and 1929 is “its ecological aspect. Indeed, we cannot¶ analyze the global ecological crisis
separately from the crisis in which we¶ are immersed or the critique of the economic model that has led us into¶ it.” Even if we do not agree
that the crisis is due to capitalism’s inherent¶ contradictions, the
global economic crisis has long been there; the eco-¶
nomic crises in Greece, Italy, and Spain are miniscule compared to the¶ permanent crises in the South,
where millions go hungry to bed every day¶ and live on a dollar per day despite heavy interventions
from the aid com-¶ munities in the West/North.¶ Even though economic hegemony is shifting to Asia (China and India)¶ and
Latin America (Brazil), there is no reason to believe that the hegemonic¶ discourse of resource exploitation and profit maximization will change.
On¶ the contrary, China’s
economic growth is based on the same Eurocentric¶ discourse, and the ecological
challenges in China are, as a consequence,¶ enormous, not only for China, but for the world as a whole. Its emission of¶
greenhouse gases is the highest (in volume) in the world. There is a shortage¶ and pollution of water. Annual desertification of land amounts to
an area¶ of about 13000 sq km (the size of Connecticut), and economic growth and¶ rapid development mean “increasing urbanization,
consumerism, and pol-¶ lution’' (Council on Foreign Relations, 2011).¶ The failures of past climate summits in Copenhagen (December 2009),¶
Cancun (December 2010), and Durban (December 2011) show the inertia of the governments in wealthy countries. Actually, there is no global
leader-¶ ship to fend off the ecological crisis, simply because the leaders of wealthy¶ countries are entrenched in an economic system that
prioritizes non-sus-¶ tainable development. There seems to be no willingness or ability to find¶ a solution that requires a comprehensive social
and economic transforma-¶ tion, such as the necessity to decrease consumption levels in the North¶ (given that similar consumption levels
across the globe would require sev-¶ eral planets). Here there is no difference between Communist China (a capi-¶ talist in economic matters)
and the US. This is one important reason why¶ “the
critique of the epistemic foundations of Western academic
discourse¶ has triggered and nourished discussions on the possibilities of construction¶ of an
alternative to capitalism” (Santos et a!., 2008, p. xxxiv).¶ It was the universalist claims of Europe’s hegemonic
epistemology (as¶ discussed earlier in the chapter) that was employed to justify Europe’s “civi-¶ lizing mission,”
which is still hegemonic globally. As Griffiths and Knezevic¶ (2009) state:¶ This scientific universalism, the most
recent manifestation of European¶ universal ism, asserts objectivity across all phenomena and time . .
.¶ Such claims of universalism, or assertions of universal truths, function ¶ as meta-narratives that encapsulate the ideology of those groups
with¶ power in the world-system . . . (pp. 67-68).
126
Impact – Environment/Genocide
Western epistemology produces epistemic genocide and ecological devastation
University College, “Education, Indigenous Knowledge, and Development in the Global South”, p. 18)OG
The close relationship between Western epistemology—with its universalistic truth claims—modernity,
and colonialism resulted in hegemonic control¶ of epistemologies that did not have universalist pretensions. According to¶
the Orientalist discourse, the Western worldview and epistemic foundations¶ were rational, dynamic, civilized, scientific, and progressive.
Since the West’s¶ truth claims were indisputable, epistemologies with no universalistic truth¶ claims
were easily colonized, Orientalized, and rubbished. As Arturo Esco-¶ bar states, “the seeming triumph of Eurocentered
modernity can be seen as¶ the imposition of a global design by a particular local history, in such a way ¶
that it has dislocated other local histories and designs (2004, p. 217). The¶ perception of non-European epistemologies
and ontologies as inferior, less¶ evolved, and primitive suggested that they were obstacles to development¶ and modernity. Through
epistemological colonization the West imposed¶ its authority to authenticate or invalidate knowledge
systems other than its¶ own, which implied invalidation and resulted in epistemic genocide across¶
the globe. As Griffiths and Knezevic state, “Even societies that were widely¶ recognized for their social sophistication were deemed
incapable of progress¶ without the European universalism of modernity..(2009, p. 67).¶ The presumed superiority of Western
epistemology is not a phenomenon¶ of the past. It is mainstream thinking in the West today. Charles
Taylor,¶ for one, argues that Western superiority in weapon technology “commands¶ attention in a quite nontheoretical way” ( 1982, p. 104).
Employed against¶ both the Zulu and the Ashanti in the 19th century, the effective Gatling gun¶ helped the British to conquer these sub-
Saharan territories with their weap-¶ ons designed for mass killings. The advanced weapon technology embodied¶ in the Gatling gun was based
on what Taylor terms the superiority of Western epistemology. As stated by James Maffie: Taylor’s “might makes right”¶ argument “confounds
military subjugation with philosophical refutation”¶ (2009, p. 1).¶ Writing in the same vein as Taylor, Ernest Gellner states: “The cognitive¶ and
technological superiority of [the scientific-industrial] form of life is so¶ manifest, and so loaded with implications for the satisfaction of human
wants¶ and needs ... that it simply cannot be questioned (Gellner, 1973, 71-72).¶ The arguments of epistemological superiority articulated by
Taylor and¶ Gellner are unmistakably written within the tradition of the hegemonic knowledge monopoly tradition, which until recently has not
been seriously interrogated. Taylor openly admits that the so-called epistemic superiority¶ belongs to the legacy of colonialism and imperialism.
Other scholars, nota-¶ bly Zygmunt Bauman (1989), claim that the Holocaust should be seen as¶ deeply implicated with modernity, and its focus
on rationality. Following a¶ similar line of argument, Aime Cesaire (2000) noted, in his Discourse on¶ Colonialism, that the
Jewish
Holocaust was not unique phenomenon in European history, but rather represented a continuation of
the crimes committed by the colonial powers in the global South. With this legacy of human suffering
and misery, there is an urgent¶ need to question the epistemological assumptions of Western science
and¶ technology. The urgency of this query is also related to the contemporary ecological
degradation of the planet , where Western science is the major accomplice and culprit. Clearly global
warming, paradoxically evidenced¶ by the best Western scientists in the world, challenges the epistemological¶ and
scientific superiority claim of Taylor, implying that the same scientists¶ who work within the Western scientific framework question
some of its¶ major consequences. The price paid for the blessings of scientific “progress” has been high in terms
of ecological devastation and destruction .¶ Nevertheless, the epistemic penetration of Western hegemony has been so¶
successful that it seems difficult to perceive alternatives or supplements to¶ Western epistemic domination. In the next subsection the
universality and¶ truth claims of Western scientific research and epistemology are discussed.
127
Impact – Epistemic Racism
Western epistemology violently erases colonial populations and their

epistemologies—only rejection solves.
These mechanisms of epistemic racism perpetuate the inability of the South to name its cultural,
political and economic practices and knowledges and, in the end, to name itself (Santos, 1998). Here, it
is important to highlight that whereas the difficulties that the South has in naming itself are enormous,
the epistemic racism practised by the westernized intellectuals has also negative effects inside the
North: inasmuch the validity of Western knowledge is, in itself, uncriticisable, no effective critique
can ever be launched at it from within. This means, by default, that the criticism that Sune Auken
defends is, indeed, a criticism that does not challenge the system. The same people who defend the
critical value of Western knowledge construction then neutralize criticism a priori, delinking criticism
from the needs of transformation. And, if we follow the reasoning of Auken’s defence of the conser-
vative university, global apartheid at the same time, does not warrant criticism because there is
nothing structurally wrong with it. The idea of Western knowledge as an all-encompassing and
universally valid system of knowledge is an imaginary. As I have suggested above, this is far from an
obvious fact to the majority of the people in the Danish university. Hence, there is a need to bring the
particularity and parochial nature of Western knowledge to attention . This can be done in various
ways: by forcing this Eurocentric imaginary into encounters with other knowledges, by systematically
recording and addressing the instances of epistemic racism that are launched as arguments to
invalidate these knowledges, and by taking advantage of the few cases in which openness towards
these other knowledges is shown. This would imply that North-South collaboration is indeed an
indispensable weapon in this endeavour, as long as it is framed by the recognition of global apartheid
and of the need for working towards decolonization.
128
Impact – Exploitation
The racialized wage-labor disparity between whites and degrees of non-whites

today is a historical result of the coloniality of labor – the aff’s Eurocentrist
capitalism will work non-whites to death
Quijano 2k (Anibal, Professor of sociology at Binghamton University, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,”
The fact is that fromthe very beginning of the colonization of¶ America, Europeans associated nonpaid or
nonwaged labor with the dominated races because theywere “inferior” races. The vast genocide of
the¶ Indians in the first decades of colonization was not caused principallyby¶ the violence of the conquest nor bythe plagues the
conquistadors brought,¶ but took place because so many American Indians were used as disposable¶ manual labor
and forced to work until death. The elimination of this colonial practice did not end untilthe defeat
oftheencomenderosinthe middle of¶ the sixteenth century. The subsequent Iberian colonialism
involved a new¶ politics of population reorganization, a reorganization of the Indians and¶ their relations with the
colonizers. But this did not advance American Indians as free and waged laborers. From then on, they were assigned the
status¶ of unpaid serfs. The serfdom of the American Indians could not, however,¶ be compared with feudal serfdom in Europe,
since it included neither the¶ supposed protection of a feudal lord nor, necessarily, the possession of a¶
piece of land to cultivate instead of wages. Before independence, the Indian¶ labor force of serfs reproduced itself in the
communities, but more than¶ one hundred years after independence, a large part of the Indian serfs was¶ still obliged to reproduce the labor
force on its own.8¶ The other form of unwaged or, simplyput, unpaid labor, slavery, was assigned exclusively to¶ the
“black” population brought from Africa.¶ The racial classification of the population and the early association of the new racial
identities of the colonized with the forms of control¶ of unpaid, unwaged labor developed among the Europeans the singular¶ perception that
paid labor was the whites’ privilege. The racial inferiority¶ of the colonized implied that they were
not worthy of wages. They were¶ naturally obliged to work for the profit of their owners. It is not
difficult¶ to find, to this very day, this attitude spread out among the white property¶ owners of
anyplace in the world. Furthermore, the lower wages “inferior¶ races” receive in the present capitalist centers
for the same work as done by¶ whites cannot be explained as detached from the racist social classification¶ of the world’s
population—in other words, as detached from the global¶ capitalist coloniality of power.¶ The control of labor in the new model
of global power was constituted thus, articulating all historical forms of labor control around the¶ capitalist wage-labor relation. This
articulation was constitutively colonial,¶ based on first the assignment of all forms of unpaid labor to
colonial races¶ (originallyAmerican Indians, blacks, and, in a more complex way, mestizos) in America and, later on, to the remaining
colonized races in the rest¶ of the world, olives and yellows. Second, labor was controlled through the¶ assignment of salaried labor to the
colonizing whites.¶
Coloniality of labor control determined the geographic distribution of each one of the
integrated forms of labor control in global capitalism.¶ In other words, it determined the social
geographyof capitalism: capital, as¶ a social formation for control of wage labor, was the axis around
which all¶ remaining forms of labor control, resources, and products were articulated.¶ But, at the same
time, capital’s specific social configuration was geographically and socially concentrated in Europe and, above
all, among Europeans¶ in the whole world of capitalism. Through these measures, Europe and¶ the European constituted
themselves as the center of the capitalist world¶ economy.
129
Impact – Genocides
Notions of human rights and citizenship lead to endless genocides – The

Holocaust happened when Europe got the Hitlers it created– we must start by
decolonizing knowledge in order to decolonize the economic and authoritative
structures that make racism and genocide possible.
Mignolo 09(Walter D., Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University Dispensible and
Bare Lives. Coloniality and the Hidden Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity. HUMAN ARCHITECTURE:
JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE, VII, 2, SPRING 2009, 69-88. Duke University. )
Dispensable lives are instead the consequences of the racist foundation of economic capitalist practices:
cost reductions,¶ financial gains, accumulation to re-invest to¶ further accumulation, are economic
goals¶ that put human lives in second place. Racism is a necessary rhetoric in order to devaluate, and
justify, dispensable lives that are¶ portrayed (by hegemonic discourses) as¶ less valuable. Once again, the
bottom line¶ of racism is devaluation and not the color of¶ your skin. The color of your skin is just a¶ marker used to
devaluate. Thus, human¶ lives as commodities and the fact that slavery ¶ transforms human being into
commodities,¶ means that they did not just lose their rights¶ but they lost their humanity. At the
other¶ end, the concept of citizenship served a similar regulatory function for controlling population.
Thus, it is not only the loss of polity¶ itself that expels him (Man) from humanity, as¶ Arendt has it. Enslaved
Africans have been¶ not expelled but pulled out from their community. It is shortsighted, and self-serving,¶ for Arendt to say that “yet in the
light of recent events it is possible to say that even¶ slaves still belonged to some sort of human¶ community” (pp. 297), and to
place bare
life¶ and the Holocaust above dispensable lives,¶ human lives transformed into commodities. ¶ Thus, both
crimes against humanity—¶ dispensable and bare lives—are ingrained¶ in the very logic of coloniality.
Certain lives¶ become dispensable in racist rhetoric to justify economic control, chiefly exploitation¶ of
labor and appropriation of natural. Lives¶ are dispensable when expelled from humanity not because the loss of polity but
because¶ they are pulled out of their community (enslaved Africans yesterday, young women¶ and children today) to become commodities.
Lives become bare in racist rhetoric¶ that justifies national homogeneity and¶ ideal citizens. In the first case,
commodity is¶ preferable to humanity; in the second citizenship is preferable to humanity. Thus, we¶
have here epistemic racism at its best,¶ working toward controlling economy and¶ authority—two
pillars of the modern/colonial world which is also the world of imperial capitalism (i.e., the Ottomans could be¶
described as imperial but certainly not as¶ imperial capitalism) and Western Christian¶ monarchies and Western secular nationstates. ¶ This is
the moment to remember Aimée¶ Césaire’s view of the Holocaust. What¶ counted for Césaire was “the application of¶
colonialist procedures” to the “white man.”¶ “Colonialist procedures” had been invented and
implemented on people classi-¶ fied as inferior or out-cast—closer to¶ animals than to Man or
unbelievers, pagans, derailed by the Devil on uncivilized.¶ Five centuries after the colonial matrix of¶
power has been put in place and implemented in relation to non-Europeans, it¶ went back to Europe
like a boomerang. But¶ this time not so much in terms of economy¶ and the transformation of human lives into¶ commodities, but in
terms of the state and¶ the law. ¶ Dispensable lives and bare lives are¶ subsumed—in the language of de-
colonial¶ projects that I engage in here—as two dimensions of the coloniality of being. You¶ have to
have the power of decision and action to be able to extract people from their¶ community and sell
them as a piece of furniture and/or to expel them from your¶ community even if they were, like you,¶
German citizens but Jewish nationals instead of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche).¶ Both have in common to
be a consequence of epistemic imperial racism.¶ 8¶ In order to¶ carry on such projects, you have to be
able¶ to make human beings to feel that they are¶ not quite human like you, either because¶ they are a
commodity (or exploited like animals) or because they are made into illegal¶ or criminals that do not
deserve to be in the¶ polity of citizens. Briefly, common to both¶ the economic legacy of slavery and the
130
political/legal legacy of the Holocaust, is the¶ epistemic racism of the modern world: the¶ coloniality of
knowledge. The coloniality of¶ being is a consequence of the coloniality of¶ knowledge (see above).
Consequently, decolonial projects have to start from the decoloniality of knowledge and of being, in ¶ order
to de-colonize the economy and authority (e.g., political economy and political¶ theory).131131131131
131
Impact – Hell
Coloniality produces hell on earth – makes large-scale murder and rape normal

270)OG
Hellish existence in the colonial world carries with it both the racial and¶ the gendered aspects of the
naturalization of the non-ethics of war . Indeed, coloniality of Being primarily refers to the normalization of the
extraordinary events that take place in war . While in war there is murder and rape, in the hell of the¶ colonial world murder
and rape become day to day occurrences and menaces.¶ ‘Killability’ and ‘rapeability’ are inscribed into the
images of the colonial bodies. Lacking real authority, colonized men are permanently feminized. At¶ the same time,
men of color represent a constant threat and any amount of¶ authority, any visible trace of the phallus
is multiplied in a symbolic hysteria¶ that knows no limits.55 Mythical depiction of the black man’s penis is a case in¶ point. The Black man is depicted as an
aggressive sexual beast who desires to¶ rape women, particularly White. The Black woman, in turn, is seeing as¶ always already sexually available to the raping gaze of the White and as¶ fundamentally promiscuous. The Black
woman is seeing as a highly erotic being¶ whose primary function is fulfilling sexual desire and reproduction. To be ¶ sure, any amount of ‘penis’ in both represents a threat. But in its most familiar ¶ and typical forms the Black man
represents the act of rape ‘raping’ while¶ the Black woman is seeing as the most legitimate victim of rape ‘being ¶ raped’. Women deserve to be raped and to suffer the consequences in terms¶ of lack of protection from the
legal system, further sexual abuse, and lack of¶ financial assistance to sustain herself and her family just as black man deserve ¶ to be penalized for raping, even without committing such an act. Both ‘raping’¶ and ‘being raped’
are attached to Blackness as if they were part of the essence¶ of Black folk, which is seeing as a dispensable population. Black bodies are ¶ seeing as excessively violent and erotic, as well as the legitimate recipients of ¶ excessive
violence, erotic and otherwise. ‘Killability’ and ‘rapeability’ are part ¶ of their essence understood in a phenomenological way. The ‘essence’ of¶ Blackness in a colonial anti-black world is part of a larger context of meaning¶ in
which the non-ethics of war gradually becomes a constitutive part of an¶ alleged normal world. In its racial and colonial connotations and uses,¶ Blackness is an invention and a projection of a social body oriented by the¶ non-
ethics of war. The murderous and raping social body projects the features¶ that define it to sub-Others, in order to be able to legitimate the same behavior¶ that is allegedly descriptive of them. The same ideas that inspire
perverted acts in war, particularly slavery, murder and rape, are legitimized in modernity ¶ through the idea of race and gradually are seeing as normal to a great extent¶ thanks to the alleged obviousness and non-problematic
To be sure those who suffer the consequences of¶ such a system are primarily
character of Black¶ slavery and anti-Black racism.
those who appear as colored. In short, this system of symbolic representations,¶ the
Blacks and indigenous peoples, as well as all of¶
material conditions that in part produce it and continue to legitimate it,¶ and the existential dynamics
that occur therein, which are also at the same time¶ derivative and constitutive of such a context, are
part of a process that¶ naturalizes the non-ethics of war. The sub-ontological difference is the result
of¶ such naturalization. It is legitimized through the idea of race. In such a world,¶ ontology collapses
into a Manicheism, as Fanon suggested.56
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Impact – Identity Erasure
Colonial assimilation breeds hatred for native culture—destroys identity

In the association of various groups, there has been a gradual assimilation of cultural patterns. According to Reuter, this
assimilation of a foreign culture comes when both individuals fully participate in the common life.65Backward peoples-so-called-
after coming into contact with western civilization, tend to have a contempt for their native culture.
Instead of emulating, the natives imitate. In order to be acceptable to the ruling group they become
Euiropeanized. Since an advance in culture creates individualism and independence of thought, the natives have ultimately challenged the
dogma of racial superiority."6With the progress of civilization in backward lands, there has been a steady contempt for manual training. They
aim solely to be clerks, lawyers, preachers or physicians. Through the efforts of various organizations industrial and
agricultural education are now being appreciated. In French Equatorial Africa, there¶ have been established medical schools and the
government offers "fabulous" scholarships to encourage the students. On the contrary, the British seems to be afraid to educate its subjects for
fear of self-determination."7¶ It is impossible to cover the whole range of the results of colonial imperialism in this treatise. But its chief
features are its sociological aspects. With the advent of foreigners,
there have been a diffusion of cultures and a gradual
detribalization of the indigenous population. With this has come the urge to migrate to the coastal
towns where one is confronted with the various aspects of social pathology, noticeably, crime,
prostitution, liquor traffic and unemployment. Then there is the problem of judicial adjustment as a result of imperialism.
In the 1924 Report of the British Mandate of Cameroons, paragraph 215, it is stated that it is an administrative impossibility to substitute
Europeans for native chiefs. This has also caused the institution¶ of the "indirect rule" system and the Provincial Courts Ordinance in Nigeria.
This ordinance and its adjunct, the Criminal Code, have been severely criticized by native jurists in that they deny trial by jury and also the right
of a native criminal to be represented by a counsel, in certain specified localities.68
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Impact – Inferiority
Colonial organization of inferiority/superiority is legitimized by conceptions of

race, which then translated into phenotypical “color” classifications which
produced new identities of domination and subjugation that still persist today
The idea of race, in its modern meaning , does not have a known history¶ before the colonization of America.
Perhaps it originated in reference to¶ the phenotypic differences between conquerors and conquered.4¶ However,¶ what matters is that soon it was constructed to
refer to the supposed differential biological structures between those groups.¶ Social relations founded on the
category of race produced new¶ historical social identities in America—Indians, blacks, and mestizos—
¶ and redefined others. Terms such as Spanish and Portuguese, and much later¶ European, which until then
indicated only geographic origin or country¶ of origin, acquired from then on a racial connotation in
reference to the¶ new identities. Insofar as the social relations that were being configured¶ were
relations of domination, such identities were considered constitutive¶ of the hierarchies, places, and
corresponding social roles, and consequently¶ of the model of colonial domination that was being
imposed. In other¶ words, race and racial identity were established as instruments of basic¶ social classification.¶
As time went by, the colonizers codified the phenotypic trait of¶ the colonized as color, and they
assumed it as the emblematic characteristic¶ of racial category. That category was probably initially established in the¶ area of Anglo-
America. There so-called blacks were not only the most¶ important exploited group, since the principal part of the economy rested¶ on their labor; they were, above all, the most important
the idea of
colonized race, since¶ Indians were not part of that colonial society. Why the dominant group calls¶ itself “white” is a story related to racial classification.5¶ In America,
race was a way of granting legitimacy to the¶ relations of domination imposed by the conquest . After the
colonization of¶ America and the expansion of European colonialism to the rest of the world,¶ the subsequent constitution of Europe as a new id-
entity needed the elaboration of a Eurocentric perspective of knowledge, a theoretical perspective

on¶ the idea of race as a naturalization of colonial relations between Europeans and non-Europeans.
Historically, this meant a new way of legitimizing¶ the already old ideas and practices of relations of
superiority/inferiority¶ between dominant and dominated. From the sixteenth century on, this¶
principle has proven to be the most effective and long-lasting instrument of¶ universal social
domination, since the much older principle—gender or intersexual domination—was encroached upon by the inferior/superior racial¶ classifications. So the
conquered and dominated peoples were situated in a¶ natural position of inferiority and, as a result,
their phenotypic traits as well¶ as their cultural features were considered inferior.6¶ In this way, race
became¶ the fundamental criterion for the distribution of the world population into¶ ranks, places,
and roles in the new society’s structure of power.
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Impact – Laundry List
Colonial thought has a laundry list of impacts stemming from favoring Western
thinking over subaltern thinking
Grosfoguel 11 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley, “Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and
Paradigms of Political-Economy: Transmodernity,¶ Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality”,
[http://www.dialogoglobal.com/granada/documents/Grosfoguel-Decolonizing-Pol-Econ-and-
Postcolonial.pdf]
Without denying the importance of the endless accumulation of capital at a ¶ world scale and the existence of a particular class structure in
global capitalism,
I ¶ raise the following epistemic question: How would the world-system look like if we ¶
moved the locus of enunciation from the European man to an Indigenous women in ¶ the Americas, to,
say, Rigoberta Menchú in Guatemala or Domitila Barrios de ¶ Chungara in Bolivia? I do not pretend to speak for or represent the perspective of
¶ these indigenous women. What I attempt to do is to shift the location from which ¶ these paradigms are
thinking. The first implication of shifting our geopolitics of ¶ knowledge is that what arrived in the
Americas in the late fifteenth century was not ¶ only an economic system of capital and labor for the
production of commodities to be ¶ sold for a profit in the world market. This was a crucial part of, but
was not the sole ¶ element in, the entangled “package.” What arrived in the Americas was a broader ¶ and wider entangled power
structure that an economic reductionist perspective of ¶ the world-system is unable to account for. From the structural location of
an ¶ indigenous woman in the Americas, what arrived was a more complex world-system ¶ than what
political-economy paradigms and world-system analysis portrait. A
uropean/capitalist/military/Christian/patriarchal/white/heterosexual/male arrived in ¶ the Americas
and established simultaneously in time and space several entangled ¶ global hierarchies that for
purposes of clarity in this exposition I will list below as if ¶ they were separate from each other:¶ 1) a
particular global class formation where a diversity of forms of labor (slavery, ¶ semi-serfdom, wage labor, petty-
commodity production, etc.) are going to coexist and be organized by capital as a source of production of
surplus value ¶ through the selling of commodities for a profit in the world market;¶ 2) an international division of labor of
core and periphery where capital organized ¶ labor in the periphery around coerced and authoritarian
forms (Wallerstein ¶ 1974); ¶ 3) an inter-state system of politico-military organizations controlled by
European ¶ males and institutionalized in colonial administrations (Wallerstein 1979); ¶ 4) a global
racial/ethnic hierarchy that privileges European people over nonEuropean people (Quijano 1993; 2000); ¶ 5)
a global gender hierarchy that privileges males over females and European ¶ Judeo-Christian
patriarchy over other forms of gender relations (Spivak 1988; ¶ Enloe 1990); ¶ 6) a sexual hierarchy that
privileges heterosexuals over homosexuals and lesbians ¶ (it is important to remember that most indigenous peoples in
the Americas did ¶ not consider sexuality among males a pathological behavior and had no ¶ homophobic ideology); ¶ 7) a spiritual
hierarchy that privileges Christians over non-Christian/non-Western ¶ spiritualities institutionalized in
the globalization of the Christian (Catholic and ¶ later, Protestant) church; 8) an epistemic hierarchy that
privileges Western knowledge and cosmology over ¶ non-Western knowledge and cosmologies, and
institutionalized in the global ¶ university system (Mignolo 1995, 2000; Quijano 1991);¶ 9) a linguistic hierarchy
between European languages and non-European languages ¶ that privileges communication and
knowledge/theoretical production in the ¶ former and subalternize the latter as sole producers of
folklore or culture but not ¶ of knowledge/theory (Mignolo 2000);¶ 10) an aesthetic hierarchy of high art vs.
naïve or primitive art where the West is ¶ considered superior high art and the non-West is considered
as producers of ¶ inferior expressions of art institutionalized in Museums, Art Galleries and global ¶ art markets;¶ 11) a
pedagogical hierarchy where the Cartesian western forms of pedagogy are ¶ considered superior over
non-Westerm concepts and practices of pedagogy;¶ 12) a media/informational hierarchy where the
135
West has the control over the means ¶ of global media production and information technology while
the non-West do ¶ not have the means to make their points of view enter the global media ¶
networks;¶ 13) an age hierarchy where the Western conception of productive life (ages between ¶ 15 and 65
years old) making disposable people above 65 years old are ¶ considered superior over non-Western
forms of age classification, where the ¶ older the person, the more authority and respect he/she
receives from the ¶ community;¶ 14) an ecological hierarchy where the Western conceptions of
“nature” (as an object ¶ that is a means towards an end) with its destruction of life (human and nonhuman) is privileged
and considered superior over non-Western conceptions of ¶ the “ecology” such as Pachamama, Tawhid, or Tao
(ecology or cosmos as subject ¶ that is an end in itself), which considers in its rationality the reproduction of life; 15) a spatial hierarchy
that privileges the urban over the rural with the consequent ¶ destruction of rural communities,
peasants and agrarian production at the world scale.
136

Liberalism claims to both oppress and emancipate—this paradox promotes
analytical exclusion, bio-political control, and the creation of the Other
Sabaratnam ’13 (Meera, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge,
The critical debate on the liberal peace is haunted by four particular avatars of Eurocentrism, which extend from the categories above: a
methodological bypassing of target subjects in empirical research; the analytic bypassing of subjects in frameworks of governmentality; an
ontology of cultural Otherness via the ‘liberal’/‘local’ divide; and critical nostalgia for the liberal social contract, a liberal subject and European
social democracy. These
collectively constitute a ‘paradox of liberalism’ in which Western liberalism is seen
as a source of oppression but also implicitly understood as the only true source of emancipation. This
section and the next elaborate these issues in more depth, while the final section of the article outlines paths for ‘decolonizing’ the analytic
gaze in the critique of liberal peace developed from different traditions of critique. Methodological bypassing of target subjects in research
While this cannot be said to be the trend in much of the more recent research on the liberal peace, in the earlier work that set the research
agenda, as well as in later formulations, there
was a tendency to exclude or marginalize consideration of the
people targeted by its interventions from the analysis. This methodological exclusion manifested itself in different ways.
In a seemingly banal sense, it was often manifested in work that sought to focus principally on the conceptualization of the liberal peace rather
than its specific effects. Thus, some major works in the debate such as Richmond’s (2005) Transformation of Peace and Chandler’s (2010a)
International Statebuilding: The
Rise of Post-Liberal Governance did not represent or engage with the
activities or behaviour of particular peoples targeted by interventions, since these were not
considered relevant to the overall framing of this part of the research. Rather, such projects focused on making
sense of the genealogies, contradictions and trajectories of intellectual traditions associated with the ‘West’ as the key object of intellectual
concern. In the context of these deliberations, the
peoples targeted by intervention were implicitly irrelevant to the
conclusions that the research wanted to draw about the West’s relationship with post-conflict
environments. While this is a methodological ‘exclusion’, then, it does not on the surface appear a problematic one – rather, it seems a
natural artefact of a research design focused on Western ideology. Contributing to the theoretical framing, methodological exclusion of
targeted peoples also characterized some of the empirical work on particular interventions. This often focused very largely on the policies,
beliefs and practices of interveners. Exemplary of this were Chandler’s Faking Democracy After Dayton (2000) and Empire In Denial (2006),
which almost exclusively looked at the international administrative structures and their illiberal and hypocritical exercise of power. Where
Bosnians did appear, it was briefly and through a short explanation of their nationalist politics in the context of anti-corruption policies (see
Chandler, 2006: 154–157). This same methodological exclusion is, however, also manifested in other influential writings. For example, in the
cases covered in Richmond and Franks’ (2009) Liberal Peace Transitions, the focus is almost exclusively on the trajectory of the interventions.
References to Kosovans, Cambodians and Timorese people are relatively brief, generally about recalcitrant politicians and offered in service of a
critique that demonstrates the failure of the liberal peace to transform societies. Chesterman (2008) argues that the same applies to Zaum’s
(2007) treatment of target societies. Even in Duffield’s work, which has included substantial efforts to ground the global theoretical critique in
particular cases,
the overarching tendency is to focus on the interveners and their practices in those
environments rather than the peoples targeted by intervention. We see this particularly accentuated in the handling
of the Zambezia Road Feeder Project in Mozambique (Duffield, 2007: 82–110) and continuities in Western attitudes towards Afghanistan
(Duffield, 2007: 133–158). Again, there is a seemingly solid rationale for this – that this is the right methodological choice to make because
these interventions are themselves the object of inquiry. Yet, it is a fundamental of most philosophies of social science that methodological
choices reflect underlying ontological premises (Jackson, 2010). As noted, our ontological premises determine our basic understanding of what
the political is (Walker, 1993). In these cases, to look only at interveners, and to imply by design that this is an adequate account of the politics
of intervention, helps to reproduce, however unintentionally, the background assumption that that which is exterior to this does not matter for
an appreciation of the politics of intervention. The fact that no explicit methodological rationale is usually offered for this absence suggests
further that this is a matter of scholarly commonsense. Thus,
defining and framing inquiry in this way supports habits
of intellectual Eurocentrism by emphasizing ‘Western’ agency as the terrain of the political. What is under
question, then, is not whether the methods used were adequate to the research question, but why research questions about the politics of the
liberal peace have been continuously framed in this way. On our reading, this methodological habit precisely reproduces tenets of ‘old’
Eurocentrism here – the implied passivity, irrelevance or mysteriousness of the non-West – even as it tries to avoid them. It will be argued that,
in combination with other avatars of Eurocentrism, it has played an important role in the construction of the ‘paradox of liberalism’ within the
debate. Analytic bypassing of subjects through governmentality frameworks Allied to the methodological exclusion of peoples targeted by
interventions is a deeper analytic bypassing of such peoples as substantive political subjects, via critical accounts of global governance.
Specifically, the recent critical debate on the liberal peace has also been strongly influenced by the idea that it is a form of liberal
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governmentality (Dillon and Reid, 2000). This is the idea, derived from Foucault, that it is a productive technology of power
that seeks to regulate life through its freedom – through the production of self-governing liberal
subjects. This is understood to operate through a system of biopolitics (Duffield, 2005; Richmond, 2006), which
articulates sovereign power as shifting from a management of territories to a management of bodies .
This debate has been unfolding alongside the broader rise of Foucaultian analytics of the international, and particularly in analyses of war,
peace and global governance (Jabri, 2007; Joseph, 2010). This analytic framework, particularly as developed by Duffield (2001, 2007) in the two
books cited here, has been incredibly powerful as a critical imaginary for understanding the structure and practices of the development–
security nexus and the liberal peace. While the first of the two books details the emerging strategic complex of actors – humanitarian, military,
developmental – who intervene widely in the global South in new configurations, the second articulates these practices via a Foucaultian
reading of liberal power and the expanding frontier of Western governance. Duffield (2001: 31–34) offers his reading of liberal peace, through
Foucault, as a contrast to theses suggesting that interventions
are a ‘new imperialism’. Rather, liberal power is ‘based
on the regulation and management of economic, political and social processes’ (Duffield, 2001: 34). One of the
most important themes emerging from the later work (Duffield, 2005, 2007) is the unevenness of life-chances and developmental expectations
accorded to the liberal West and the rest of the world. For Duffield, this
is a continuation of colonial strategies of rule
(Duffield, 2005) and liberal racism (Duffield, 2007: 185–214) – we might also call it the production of ‘colonial difference’
in Mignolo’s terms. Duffield (2007: 10–11) roots this analysis in Harvey’s (2003) account of capitalism’s need to reproduce ‘surplus populations’
to avoid systemic crises. However, the central problem with Duffield’s analytic framework is its tendency to ignore the exteriority of power
through the discounting of Southern subjecthood. This turns on the way in which political power and political subjecthood are implicitly
understood to interact and produce consent: People in the South are no longer ordered what to do – they are now
expected to do it willingly themselves. Compared to imperial peace, power in this form, while just as real and disruptive, is more
nuanced, opaque and complex. Partnership and participation imply the mutual acceptance of shared normative standards and frameworks.
Degrees of agreement, or apparent agreement, within such normative frameworks establish lines of inclusion and
exclusion. (Duffield, 2001: 34) Here it is strongly implied that liberal governmentality operates in the international sphere in the
same way as it does within ‘advanced liberal societies’ (Joseph, 2010) – that is specifically through the productive power of liberal discourse to
produce self-regulating and self-governing subjects. If it is the case that the liberal peace consists of strategic complexes of
governance consisting of different actors (Duffield, 2001: 12), then the implication is that they are governing the global South through the
production of liberal subjectivity. Nonetheless, the way Duffield frames it here actually hedges the bet over Southern subjectivity while
simultaneously endorsing the overall framework. That is, he does not want to say outright that Southern political subjecthood is produced by
the liberal peace. Yet, this is the point of the ‘governmentality’ framework insofar as it has any analytic traction – that is, that it is a
specific modality of power that works through the production of volition rather than coercion or
loyalty. Throughout the work, then, we have a fairly strong narrative of the liberal peace and development–security network as a web or
network of Western liberal power, the logic of which works through its attempted production of liberal subjects. There are longstanding
debates as to whether a Foucaultian account of power is applicable at the global level (Joseph, 2010), adequate for understanding either the
development of governmental structures themselves or the nature and character of ‘resistance’. As Jabri (2007: 74–75) notes, postcolonial
critiques have argued that Foucault’s own focus on the European expression of power ignores the differentiated character of imperial power. In
particular, they have problematized Foucault’s ignoring of the specific historical angle or positionality that informs his account of power (Jabri,
2007: 74), and subsequently his account of resistance that is itself ideologically somewhat empty, as noted by Spivak (Jabri, 2007: 75). These
concerns can be applied to the use of his work in the liberal peace debate, and are specifically connected to the account of the subject that is
implicit in the governmentality framework. Chandler has made similar claims, arguing that there is an emptiness to Duffield’s call for a
‘solidarity of the governed’ as a response to governmentality (Chandler, 2009: 67), because it lacks a political subject as the basis for critical
theorizing (Chandler, 2010b: 153). Chandler is right to an extent: there is a lack of political subjecthood in Duffield’s account of intervention.
However, what he does not clearly specify is that the principal lack is of the subjecthood of those targeted by intervention, not those seen to be
enacting it. The latter actually have plenty of strategic agency, intentionality, ideology and purpose in this framework. In this sense, Duffield’s
account of intervention is not dissimilar to Chandler’s, in that they both focus on the agency and subjecthood of interveners, even if under the
analytic of governmentality this becomes more diffuse. Yet, they both exclude and avoid considerations of the exteriority of this power, and
particularly the peoples targeted by interventions as political subjects. The habit of methodological exclusion noted in the previous section
becomes then cognate with the analytic exclusions that underpin the framework of governmentality. Both exhibit avatars of Eurocentrism,
which emphasize the distinctiveness and importance of Western behaviour while occluding the space outside it. Ontologies of Otherness:
Liberal–local relations, ‘hybridity’, ‘resistance’ and the ‘everyday’ Sensitive to the problem of such occlusion, a
major strand of recent
literature has emphasized the need to rethink the relations between the ‘liberal’ and the ‘local’ in
intervention settings (Mac Ginty, 2011; Richmond, 2009, 2010, 2011), in what has been labelled a ‘fourth generation’ approach
(Richmond, 2011). This writing has taken a much more proactive approach to research with and about the peoples targeted by intervention,
aiming to correct the impression of smooth liberal transformation and the ‘romanticization’ of the local (Mac Ginty, 2011: 2–4). Yet, the paths it
has taken have, quite unwillingly, reinforced
a Eurocentric understanding of intervention, through the use of an
ontology of ‘Otherness’ to frame the issues. Prominent among these accounts is Richmond’s (2009, 2010, 2011) recent work
on ‘post-liberal peace’, which frames the key problems of intervention through an ontological distinction between the ‘liberal’ and the ‘local’. In
earlier writing, the liberal peace is elaborated as genealogically endogenous to Western traditions of thought, reflecting Enlightenment,
138
modern and post-Christian values (Richmond, 2005). In post-conflict settings, however, it is critiqued for exercising forms
of
hegemony that suppress pluralism, depoliticize peace, undermine the liberal social contract and
exercise a colonial gaze in its treatment of local ‘recipients’ of the liberal peace. In view of these various
aspects of failure, the liberal peace is characterized as ‘ethically bankrupt’ (Richmond, 2009: 558) and requiring re-evaluation. The ‘local’, on the
other hand, is a space characterized by ‘context, custom, tradition and difference in its everyday setting’ (Richmond, 2010: 669), which is
suppressed by liberal peace interventions. The very conception of the ‘post-liberal peace’ is thus about the ways in which two ontologically
distinct elements – the ‘liberal’ and the ‘local’ – are ‘rescued and reunited’ via forms of hybridity and empathy, in which ‘everyday local
agencies, rights, needs, custom and kinship are recognized as discursive “webs of meaning”’ (Richmond, 2010: 668). Mitchell (2011: 1628) has
recently argued that Richmond’s conception of the ‘local’ is not ‘a reference to parochial, spatially, culturally or politically bounded places’ but
‘the potentialities of local agents to contest, reshape or resist within a local “space”’. Richmond (2011: 13–14) himself has also been concerned
not to be understood as ‘essentializing’ the ‘local’, emphasizing that it contains a diversity of forms of political society. Indeed, in this more
recent work, a more complex conception of the ‘everyday’ as a space of action, thought and potential resistance is elaborated. Despite these
qualifications, however, there is much conflation, interchangeability and slippage between these conceptions of the ‘local’. Accordingly, the
ontology of Otherness, understood as cultural distinctiveness and alterity, continuously surfaces throughout the
narratives of liberal and post-liberal peace. Not only is the liberal peace closely linked to the intellectual trajectory of the
‘West’, but a conception of the ‘local’ as non-modern and non-Western often re-appears: This requires that local
academies and policymakers beyond the already liberal international community are enabled to develop theoretical approaches to
understanding their own predicaments and situations, without these being tainted by Western, liberal, and developed world orthodoxies and
interests. In other words, to gain an understanding of the ‘indigenous’ and everyday factors for the overall project of building peace, liberal or
otherwise, a via media needs to be developed between emergent local knowledge and the orthodoxy of international prescriptions and
assumptions about peace. (Richmond, 2009: 571, emphasis added) There is a clear emphasis here on the
need to engage with the
‘indigenous’ or ‘authentic’ traditions of non-Western life, which seems to reflect an underlying assumption of cultural
difference as the primary division between these two parties. This reproduces the division between the liberal,
rational, modern West and a culturally distinct space of the ‘local’. Indeed, the call for a post-liberal peace is often a call for peacebuilding to
reflect a more ‘culturally appropriate form of politics’ (Richmond, 2011: 102) that is more empathetic and emancipatory. This emphasis on
tradition and cultural norms as constitutive of the ‘local’ is carried through in recent research on interventions in Timor Leste and the Solomon
Islands. These focus largely on the reinvigoration of ‘customary’ houses and institutions as a form of ‘critical agency’ in distinction to liberal
institutions and the state (Richmond, 2011: 159–182). The point here is not simply that there is an account of alterity or cultural difference
within the politics of intervention, but that the liberal/local distinction appears to be the central ontological fulcrum upon which the rest of the
political and ethical problems sit (see also Chandler, 2010b: 153). Therefore, ‘local’ or ‘everyday’ ‘agency’ is seen to be best expressed to the
extent that it reclaims ‘the customary’ and is not ‘co-opted’ by the internationals. It is understood as enhanced where codes of ‘customary law’
become part of the new constitutional settlement. A similar division can be seen in Mac Ginty’s (2011) framework, which sees the hybridities in
peacebuilding as emerging at the intersection of the ‘international’ and ‘local’ agents and institutions. Again, this framework is built on an
ontological distinction between the two that repeatedly splits the ‘Western’/‘international’ from the ‘non-Western’/‘local’. Even though this is
well qualified, overall Mac Ginty (2011: 94) defends this distinction, arguing that if one were to abandon such potentially problematic labels
then this would lead to an abandonment of research altogether. This can quite straightforwardly be read as a defence of the basic ontology of
the project, which is an ontology of the distinction between the West and its Others, which meet through various forms of hybridization. While
Mac Ginty does not pursue the ethics of the post-liberal peace in the same way as Richmond, the underlying intellectual framework also uses
this distinction as the analytic pivot of the research. We earlier defined Eurocentrism as the belief in Western distinctiveness, and I have argued
that this is philosophically fundamental to this strand of the critical literature that grapples with the
relationship between the
‘liberal’ and the ‘local’. This strand has put substantial analytic weight on fundamental cultural differences
between these two entities, even while disavowing any essentialism and making some substantive conceptual efforts to move away
from this. Such difficulties are indicative of the deep hold that this particular avatar of Eurocentrism has on the critical imaginary. By contrast,
the point made by a wide variety of other ‘postcolonial’ writers has precisely been against such an ontology of the international, pointing
instead to the historically blurred, intertwined and mutually constituted character of global historical space and ‘culture’ (Bhabha, 2004;
Bhambra, 2010).
139

Coloniality means a world of absolute domination and total violence. Economic
engagement is just another tool of genocide unless we first address the brutality
of colonial relationships
Cesaire 55 (Aimé Césaire, politician from Martinique, 1955, Discourse on Colonialism, Discours sur le
colonialism)
I see clearly what colonization has destroyed: the wonderful Indian civilizations - ¶ and neither
Deterring nor Royal Dutch nor Standard Oil will ever console me for the ¶ Aztecs and the Incas. ¶ I see
clearly the civilizations; condemned to perish at a future date, into which it has ¶ introduced a
principle of ruin: the South Sea islands, Nigeria, Nyasaland. I see less clearly ¶ the contributions it has
made. ¶ Security? Culture? The rule of law? In the meantime, I look around and wherever ¶ there are
colonizers and colonized face to face, I see force, brutality, cruelty, sadism, ¶ conflict, and, in a parody
of education, the hasty manufacture of a few thousand ¶ subordinate functionaries, "boys," artisans,
office clerks, and interpreters necessary for the ¶ smooth operation of business. ¶ I spoke of contact.
¶ Between colonizer and colonized there is room only for forced labor, intimidation, ¶ pressure, the
police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, ¶ arrogance, self-complacency,
swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses. ¶ No human contact, but relations of domination and
submission which turn the ¶ colonizing man into a class-room monitor, an army sergeant, a prison
guard, a slave ¶ driver, and the indigenous man into an instrument of production. ¶ My turn to state an
equation: colonization = "thing-ification." ¶ I hear the storm. They talk to me about progress, about
"achievements," diseases ¶ cured, improved standards of living. ¶ I am talking about societies drained of
their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, ¶ institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions
smashed, magnificent artistic ¶ creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out. ¶ They
throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals, and railroad ¶ tracks. ¶ I am talking about
thousands of men sacrificed to the Congo-Ocean2¶ . I am talking ¶ about those who, as I write this, are
digging the harbor of Abidjan by hand. I am talking ¶ about millions of men torn from their gods, their
land, their habits, their life-from life, from ¶ the dance, from wisdom. ¶ 2¶ A railroad line connecting
Brazzaville with the port of Pointe-Noire. (Trans.)¶ - 6 - I am talking about millions of men in whom fear
has been cunningly instilled, who ¶ have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble,
kneel, despair, and behave ¶ like flunkeys. ¶ They dazzle me with the tonnage of cotton or cocoa that
has been exported, the ¶ acreage that has been planted with olive trees or grapevines. ¶ I am talking
about natural economies that have been disrupted - harmonious and ¶ viable economies adapted to
the indigenous population - about food crops destroyed, ¶ malnutrition permanently introduced,
agricultural development oriented solely toward the ¶ benefit of the metropolitan countries, about
the looting of products, the looting of raw ¶ materials.
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Indigenous peoples suffer high rates of drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide
due to coloniality’s enforcement of poverty and destruction of identity, leading
to violent death and imprisonment
Arising from the oppressive social conditions that colonialism creates (i.e., poverty, loss of identity,
feelings of¶ inferiority, etc.), Indigenous peoples suffer from high rates of alcoholism, drug addiction,
and suicide, in both rural and¶ urban communities. These are common methods oftemporarily escaping the
oppressive routines of day-to-day life, of¶ suppressing trauma or tension, or ending feelings ofdespair
and hopelessness (suicide).¶ High rates of violent death & imprisonment among Indigenous peoples are
both attributed to alcohol and drug¶ abuse.. In Saskatchewan, a study found that alcohol was involved in 45 % ofsuicides
among those 15-34 years ofage; 92 %¶ offatal motor vehicle accidents, over 38 % ofhomicides, and over halfthe deaths by fire and drowning
((First Nations in¶ Canada, p. 86).¶ Rates ofsuicide among Indigenous¶ peoples in Canada are estimated at 33 per¶ 100,000 population,
compared to the¶ national average of 13 per 100,000. Among¶ Indigenous youth 15-24 years of age the¶ rate is 114 per 100,000, compared to
26 per¶ 100,000 among the general population¶ (First Nations in Canada, p. 83 & 85).¶ According
to the Royal¶ Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples, a¶ multi-million dollar investigation into the¶ conditions ofIndigenous peoples in Canada,¶ "We
have concluded that suicide is¶ one of a group ofsymptoms ranging from¶ truancy & law breaking to alcohol and drug¶ part
interchangeable as expressions of the¶ burden ofloss, grief, and anger experienced by Aboriginal people in
Canadian society" (RCAP, 1995:90, quoted in First¶ Nations in Canada, p. 83).
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Impact – Nuclear War

The constructed threat of nuclear destruction is embedded in coloniality—they
polarize international systems along lines of peaceful colonizers and barbaric
threats, reducing enemies to “2nd class nations” and justifying oppression
Hecht 2003 [Gabrielle, Professor Department of History, University of Michigan, “Globalization Meets Frankenstein?¶ Reflections On
Terrorism, Nuclearity, And¶ Global Technopolitical Discourse” History and Technology, 2003 Vol. 19(1) pp. 1-8, accessed via Ebsco]
For those of us working in science and technology studies, the immediate media reaction to¶ September 11, 2001 provided countless
distressing examples of those deterministic, ahistorical ideologies about technological development we have sought to challenge. In¶
commenting on the bitter irony of passenger airliners becoming weapons, for example.¶ pundits asserted that the appropriation of
technologies for something other than their¶ intended purpose represented the new nature of violence in the 21st century. Most¶
descriptions of the technological dimensions of the attacks invoked polarities taken straight¶ from
colonial-evolutionist discourse: "play the system right, and Neolithic technology can be¶ leveraged to
bring on nuclear-like devastation," said one journalist in the New York Times,¶ presumably situating box-cutters in the Neolithic
era He continued: "it was not just planes¶ that were hijacked but technology, to be used jujitsu style against its inventors."' As if the¶ very
"founding fathers" of America (learning, it must be said, from the Indians they¶ displaced) hadn't used
British guns in new ways in order to defeat the redcoats As if¶ "technology" had fixed meanings, stable
uses. Meanwhile, US president George W, Bush¶ spluttered that the US would bomb Afghanistan "back into
the Stone Age." The cry of protest¶ from the left? "But Afghanistan already is in the Stone Age!"¶ In subsequent weeks,
the complexities of the technopolitical networks undergirding the¶ attacks became visible, and a few more sophisticated interpretations of the
tragedy emerged.¶ The attacks exploited weaknesses inherent in at least two complex technological systems (air¶ travel and skyscrapers) that
Americans themselves built. The attackers learned to fly in¶ American flight schools. They learned terrorism in camps that the US instituted
during the¶ Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan. (A few even pointed out that Afghanistan was actually in¶ the Rubble Age.) Pulling back for a
macro view, some left-wing commentators found the¶ roots of the crisis in the US "˜s insatiable thirst for oil and the techno-geopolitical
compromises¶ made to quench it. Others suggested that the vast gulf between the promises and realities of¶ "globalization" might provide
reasons for many around the world to resent the US and the¶ dominance of Western multinational corporations. A summary of these
interpretations might¶ be: globalization
meets Frankenstein and his monster, that venerable archetype of
unintended¶ sociotechnical consequences.¶ Such observations were not popular in the American media, however, and they did
not¶ supplant cruder perspectives on the role of modernity and technology's relation to society. ¶ "The genius of the terrorists was to turn the
artifacts of modernity into weapons against¶ modernity,"• said one writer just a few weeks before the US launched a new Afghan war. He¶
continued: "Odd and indeed disgusting as it is to find oneself writing that there is no¶ alternative to war I find myself nonetheless with nothing
else to suggest. Modernity.¶ newly vulnerable, is, for all its faults, infinitely preferable to fascism." As if modernity hadn't¶ always been fragile;
as if Hitler hadn't shown that modernity and fascism were eminently compatible.¶ As we know, these jumbled, false dichotomies
(such as modernity vs fascism) and the¶ historical ruptures they invoke are nothing new in public
discourse about technology. The¶ Cold War alone offers plenty of antecedents of what I call technopolitical rupture-talks*¶ namely, the
rhetorical invocation of technological inventions to declare the arrival of a new¶ era or a new division in the world.
Most notorious in the Cold War, of course, were repeated¶ political proclamations that nuclear weapons had
produced a new world order . (More on this¶ shortly.) Indeed, the Cold War itself figures as a significant trope for
our present fearless¶ leaders after September ll. In a fit of nostalgia for global Manichean struggle, Dick Cheney¶ explained that the
war against terrorism would resemble the Cold War, hinting darkly that-¶ just as in those good old days-much of the current struggle would be
invisible. And who¶
didn't flash to Reagan's "evil empire"• speech after Bush's puzzling pronouncement¶
concerning the "axis of evil" allegedly formed by Iran, Iraq, and North Korea? Colin Powell¶ took another tack, proclaiming the start
of a new era-the post-post-Cold War-thereby¶ suggesting the power of new alliances, and hinting at an ill-defined historical rupture. Clearly,
whatever degree of post-ness we now find ourselves in with respect to the Cold War.¶ the era looms large in our fantasies.¶ Whatleaders
and media pundits generally fail to note, however, are the implications of¶ Cold War infrastructure and
discourse for our current crisis. Although such ahistoricism may¶ not be surprising, its consequences become ever more severe as the US
simultaneously¶ reviews its own posture on the use of nuclear weapons and uses the potential nuclearity of¶ "rogue states" to justify military
action. In the remainder of this paper, I will consider some¶ of the Cold War antecedents for the technopolitical rupture-talk of the early 21st
century.¶ Since the onset of the Cold War, both
the politics and the scholarship of the "nuclear age"¶ has been all
about rupture and dichotomy. The nuclear world has been portrayed as a¶ polarized one, split into nuclear
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and non-nuclear states, nuclear and conventional¶ technologies, nuclear and non-nuclear dangers, pro- and anti-
nuclear politics. What it means¶ to call something a "nuclear weapon" has seemed self-evident. Those weapons in tum have¶ served as
the basis for "nuclear diplomacy," which has also appeared to constitute a clearly¶ defined set of practices. And so on. The
dichotomies have appeared clear-cut, and they in tum¶ have appeared to signal a profound historical
rupture -especially in the mouths of Western¶ political leaders, for whom "The Bomb" seemed to replace imperialism
as the foundation for¶ global power. Here the alleged rupture of nuclearity met the fundamental dichotomy posited¶ by l9th and
20th century European imperialism: the opposition of "civilized" to "primitive"•¶ Premised on a correspondence between industrialization and
human evolution, this dichotomy legitimated colonial practices and states, For former imperial states (especially ¶ France and Britain), the
rupture of nuclearity could palliate the rupture threatened by the¶ prospect of docolonization.¶ Such
assertions of rupture and the polarities they invoked masked a more complex¶ reality – an obvious point,
perhaps, but nonetheless worth unpacking. The history of uranium¶ mining, for example, shows that colonial practices and
structures were appropriated---not¶ overthrown – by the nuclear age, and proved central to its technopolitical success.
Hiroshima¶ uranium came from the Belgian Congo. After the war, Britain's colonial ties to uranium-¶
supplying regions in Africa and Australia helped maintain nuclear relations with the US¶ South Africa`s eagerness to place its vast uranium
reserves at the disposal of the West led the¶ US and Britain to gloss over the emerging apartheid regime." France
could pursue an¶ independent nuclear program because it had access to uranium not just on metropolitan soil.¶ but also in
its African colonies. Internal colonialism figured too: in the U.S. the richest¶ uranium regions proved to be on
Native American lands on the Colorado Plateau, while¶ Australians found much of their uranium on Aboriginal lands in the
Northern Territory. I¶ could continue to enumerate examples: the Soviet Union mined uranium in East Germany¶ and Czechoslovakia; South
Africa mined uranium in (present-day) Namibia: Canada on¶ native lands, India on tribal lands. And on and on. And the same for nuclear testing,
as the¶ US tested its weapons on the Marshall Islands. France in Algeria and Polynesia, and Britain¶ on Aboriginal lands.¶ Nuclear
rupture-talk masked such local, regional, and national complexities while¶ repeatedly invoking
colonialism, decolonization. or post-coloniality in order to produce a¶ vision of the world in which
particular kinds of nuclear tcchnopolitics served as the limit¶ arbiter of global status and power. This process
operated in several ways. Let me offer a few¶ rough sketches.¶ Perhaps most obviously, nuclearity appeared to provide
imperial states with a geopolitical¶ solution to the loss of status threatened by decolonization. With
growing challenges to the¶ legitimacy of colonial rule after World War II, Britain and France increasingly saw nuclear¶ weapons as a means of
retaining some measure of geopolitical power and glory. But
it wasn`t¶ just that atom bombs could replace colonial
states as an instrument of global power. Atom¶ bombs would also prevent these imperial states from
themselves becoming reduced to the¶ status of colonized subjects. Consider this remark by Churchill's chief scientific
advisor.¶ Lord Cherwell, in l951: "lf we have to rely entirely on the United States army for this vital ¶ weapon, we
shall sink to the rank of a second-class nation, only permitted to supply auxiliary¶ troops, like the native levies who were
allowed small arms but no artillery."" And listen to¶ Fiench parliamentary deputy (and future prime minister) Felix Gaillard, also in 1951:
"those¶ nations which [do] not follow a clear path of atomic development [will] be, 25 years hence.¶ as backward relative to the nuclear nations
of that time as the primitive peoples of Africa¶ [are] to the industrialized nations of today." ¶ These are but two examples of a rich discourse,
which functioned by dialectically mapping¶ two sets of bimodal geopolitical subject positions onto each other. Nuclear = (former) colonizer.
Non -nuclear = colonized. Over the course of the Cold War this bimodal¶ positioning shifted in complex ways,
particularly as the language of colonialism mutated into¶ the language of "development" and the category
of "Third World" became a staple of¶ international politics." Thus, for example, international discourse on non-proliferation
made¶ it particularly inappropriate-morally, technologically, politically - for a "Third World"¶ nation to
go nuclear.
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Impact – Nuclear War
America’s obsession with constantly expropriating resources leads to nuclear

war
That's very hard to predict. For one thing it maylead to nuclear war and there won't be anything else to talk
about. If you set up an international confrontation, the world may blow up. American planners have repeatedly
been willing to threaten that. For them it's considered a small danger. The idea that the world may
blow up is a relatively insignificant consideration as compared with the importance of preventing a
small country from using its resources for its own population. That's the way planning works. But it's
highly unpredictable - they're playing with stakes that are just too high.
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Impact – Racism
Colonialism establishes a framework of racism to justify cultural intervention
exclusively for domination and subjugation
Miguel 9 (Vincius Valentin Raduan, holds a degree in Legal Sciences Faculty of Humanities and a
professor at the Federal University of Rondônia, “Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Latin America”
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/colonialism-and-underdevelopment-in-latin-america/)
“Colonialism not only deprives a society of its freedom and its wealth, but of its very character, leaving its people intellectually
and morally disoriented” (Franz Fanon, 1966). Introduction This essay is going to assess colonialism and the class structure inherited
as a main determinant of current development in Latin American countries. First of all, we must highlight statistics published by the World
Bank: 1.4billion people in developing countries are living under the extreme poverty. These countries are, in
the majority, former
colonies from different cycles of expansion of the major imperialist countries. Certainly, the
processes driven by and the legacies of colonialism are multiple and cannot be understood if reduced
to only the economic dimension. However, for the purpose of this paper, the effects of economic colonization will be stressed. The
economic heritages of colonization are the consequences of the process of conquering, controlling and possessing the specified regions. I also
avoid a discussion of the entire 20th century in order to focus on how the colonial occupation shaped various countries. This definition of
colonialism is imprecise and broad. In an effort to be more precise, I understand it as an external/foreign exploitation
assured through political control and dominance which led to a situation of dependency on the
colonial power by the exploited economy. However, there are other extra-economic implications of colonialism: it is
necessarily a violent conquest and violently maintained system for the over-exploration of the
conquered people. It is an inhuman system in itself, destroying any attempt at real development of
the colony. Economically, it confiscates and reserves productive lands for the use of the colonizer. At a
psychological level, it de-humanizes the colonized, forcefully imposing a foreign culture. It is a system
sustained by a racist ideology where cultural space is developed exclusively for relations of
domination . This allows for suppression and subjugation of the colonized. Our main question is to analyze how
the low level of economic performance in colonized countries is a reflex of social structures generated by colonialism. Thus, the first question
which should be addressed is: Why do colonial powers established colonies? Secondly, how did they do it? Therefore, it will be possible to
comprehend the current impacts and consequences of their practices. Historical context and genealogy of the colonialism The recent
colonies (17th to 19th centuries) were established as part of the expansion of the European capitalistic
production following the Industrial Revolution. European colonial powers aimed to incorporate territories which could
provide raw materials and low-cost workforce, and in the process de-structuring and unmaking solid pre-capitalistic social formations. Hence,
the main goal was not the transference of the metropolitan population to populate the colony, expanding their agriculture as practiced by the
Roman (and earlier) Empire(s). The economies of the colonies were designed to serve as source of inexpensive
labor and natural resources, and never planned to spark internal development. This situation led to monopolistic trade-relations in
benefit of the economies of the colonial powers. To ensure these monopolistic privileges, the colonial powers
forcibly shaped the social and economical dynamics of the colonies . In this sense, the colonized countries were
forced to develop non-technologically intensive monocultures (ironically celebrated as “specialization”), selling unprofitably their entire
production for the dominant countries. This same agro-export oriented dynamics outlined the land-owning structure, based in large properties
under the (political and economical) control of non-modernizing oligarchies. The role of these oligarchies is of fundamental importance. The
local elites were major actors on political-economical scenario. Their agency cannot be ignored and their internal activity defined, organized
and settled the relations of exploitation which took place in the colonies. One of the most prominent Latin American economists, Celso
Furtado, effectively explained the patterns of colonialism. According to him, the foreign country worked in interrelation with the ruling classes
in the region, using authoritarian means to exclude large segments of the people from participating in political and economic control of their
communities and countries with the intention of decreasing the cost of labor (when it not reduced drastically through the use of enslaved
traditional populations). To sum up, Furtado states: 1. The
existence of vast non-utilized areas permitted new
extensive occupations of land instead of establishing a modern and intensive agriculture; 2. The profits accumulated by the local
elites were wasted in the consumption of superfluous and luxurious goods for pure ostentation, rather than saving and investing in productive
sectors of the national and nascent economy; 3. As
consequence of the agrarian structure which extremely
centralized power and wealth, a harsh situation of inequality, poverty and all sorts of privation for the
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majority of the society resulted. This excluded a major part of the population from the basic means of
subsistence. All these points, maintained a vicious cycle of lower productivity in colonized regions and the flow of wealth to the dominant
economies. The fate of the lest developed countries were determined in this dialectical relation where internal factors (the role of the
dominant classes based in a semi-feudal order) interacted with external causes (the colonial power and its thirsty for resources and labor
force). In this historic trap colonized regions were lately incorporated in the world-market as a result of the dissolution of the direct control of
metropolitan capital over the colonies and had to be accommodated according to the needs of the previous. The (historical and contemporary)
massive poverty in those specified regions saw its genealogy in the original privation of access to land
and housing and currently also determines the economic performance of those countries where large
majorities of the working classes are unable to consume the products made in a society scarred by
inequality. Strict laws and other measures of social control were also established in the colonized
countries . Even the manufacture of minimal technological products such as nails were forbidden, artificially increasing the dependence of
the colonies. This is an important element of the colonial system, and it cannot be understood if its inherent contradictions are ignored: the
development of the colonial country comes at the expense of the underdevelopment of the
colonized . The markets and actual economies must be looked as historically constituted. In this sense,
production in the colony was determined by the colonial power’s demands. The establishment of a monopolistic relation between the colonial
power and the colony not only asphyxiated the nascent industrialization, but also strangled the benefits of competition. This historical
process left the former colonies economically subordinated and disabled. Though it is important to bear in mind
that the identity of the colonial power (and the type of the colonization) can be a different variable. For instance, the legacy in terms of cultural,
institutional and legal heritage of the colonial power can create slight differences. In the table below, a list of the GDP of former colonies (in
South America; data in American dollars) is contrasted with their Gini coefficients, or the statistical measure of inequality. [A low Gini number
indicates a more equal distribution of wealth. By comparison, the US has a Gini coefficient of about .40, while many social democratic European
countries are in the .20s. – Ed.] Historically, this sample was subjected to a similar kind of colonization. In other words, the
pattern of
colonization was to establish centers for supplying agricultural and non-industrialized products and
minerals, such as gold and silver for the colonial powers. Generally speaking , Latin America has shown economic growth, although the
social structure imposed colonialism has been perpetuated. The region is extremely unequal, with one of the worst
income distributions of the world . The explanation for this is that the initial degree of inequality, initiated with the long
process of fragmentation of local pre-capitalist and autonomous societies, followed by the enslavement of traditional indigenous
populations, the transference of African slaves to the continent and, finally, the hyper-exploitation of the free (or recently
liberated) working class is still affecting the actual development. The legacy of the colonial times - the concentration
of power, wealth and land - led to a stratified society with an extreme inequality. The discrimination and oppression
present in those hierarchical societies are the main inheritance of the former colonies and are a
persistent tragedy, being part of the unsolved questions of the recent past.
Racism is a construct of colonialism used to legitimize social conquest—relations

of domination translate into phenotypic inferiority
What is termed globalization is the culmination of a process that began with the constitution of America and colonial/modern Eurocentered
capitalism as a new global power. One of the fundamental axes of this model of power is the social classification
of the world’s population around the idea of race, a mental construction that expresses the basic
experience of colonial domination and pervades the more important dimensions of global power,
including its specific rationality: Eurocentrism. The racial axis has a colonial origin and character, but it has proven to be
more durable and stable than the colonialism in whose matrix it was established. Therefore, the model of power that is globally
hegemonic today presupposes an element of coloniality. In what follows, my primary aim is too pen up some of the
theoretically necessary questions about the implications of coloniality of power regarding the history of Latin America.1 America and the New
Model of Global Power America was constituted as the first space/time of a new model of power of global vocation, and both in this way
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and by it became
the first identity of modernity. Two historical processes associated in the production of that space/time
converged and established the two fundamental axes of the new model of power. One
was the codification of the differences
between conquerors and conquered in the idea of “race,” a supposedly different biological structure
that placed some in a natural situation of inferiority to the others. The conquistadors assumed this idea as the
constitutive, founding element of the relations of domination that the conquest imposed. On this basis, the population of America, and later
the world, was classified within the new model of power. The other process was the constitution of a new structure of
control of labor and its resources and products. This new structure was an articulation of all historically known previous structures of control of
labor, slavery, serfdom, small independent commodity production and reciprocity, together around and upon the basis of capital and the world
market.3 Race: A Mental Category of Modernity The idea of race, in its modern meaning, does not have a known
history before the colonization of America. Perhaps it originated in reference to the phenotypic differences between
conquerors and conquered.4 However, what matters is that soon it was constructed to refer to the supposed
differential biological structures between those groups. Social relations founded on the category of
race produced new historical social identities in America—Indians, blacks, and mestizos— and
redefined others. Terms such as Spanish and Portuguese, and much later European, which until then indicated
only geographic origin or country of origin, acquired from then on a racial connotation in reference to the new
identities. Insofar as the social relations that were being configured were relations of domination , such
identities were considered constitutive of the hierarchies, places, and corresponding social roles, and consequently of
the model of colonial domination that was being imposed. In other words, race and racial identity were
established as instruments of basic social classification. As time went by, the colonizers codified the
phenotypic trait of the colonized as color, and they assumed it as the emblematic characteristic of racial category. That category was
probably initially established in the area of Anglo-America. There so-called blacks were not only the most important exploited group, since
the principal part of the economy rested on their labor; they were, above all, the most important colonized race, since Indians
were not part of that colonial society. Why the dominant group calls itself “white” is a story related to racial classification.5 In America, the
idea of race was a way of granting legitimacy to the relations of domination imposed by the conquest.
After the colonization of America and the expansion of European colonialism to the rest of the world, the subsequent constitution of Europe as
a new identity needed the elaboration of a Eurocentric perspective of knowledge, a theoretical perspective on the idea of race as a
naturalization of colonial relations between Europeans 535 Quijano . Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America and non-
Europeans. Historically, this meant a new way of legitimizing the already old ideas and practices of relations of
superiority/inferiority between dominant and dominated. From the sixteenth century on, this principle has proven to be
the most effective and long-lasting instrument of universal social domination, since the much older principle—gender or intersexual
domination—was encroached upon by the inferior/superior racial classifications. So the
conquered and dominated peoples
were situated in a natural position of inferiority and, as a result, their phenotypic traits as well as their
cultural features were considered inferior.6 In this way, race became the fundamental criterion for the
distribution of the world population into ranks, places, and roles in the new society’s structure of power.
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Impact – Serial Policy Failure

The ethic of coloniality makes serial policy failure and error replication
inevitable –it biases research and skews claims of development
Since the abolition of slavery, this principle of colonial humanitarianism has been making an advance, but the
imperial powers must
now realize that Europeans (and American imperialists for that matter) are not the racial superiors of any
other race, and unless this bugaboo of race superiority is renounced, there can be no sincere progress or
inter-racial and international peace and good will.28 Dr. George Dorsey of the University of Chicago, recently criticized this
idea of race superiority and inferiority, when in his famous treatise he said that too many abstract formulae about humanity and too little
common sense for solving concrete social problems make human association and fellowship increasingly tense; "But," he states, "the 'racial
purity' and 'racial inferiority' behind such books as McDougall's Is America Safe for Democracy? Chamberlain's Foundations of Nineteenth
Century Civilization; Grant's The Passing of the Great Race; Wiggam's The New Decalogue of Science; Gould's America a Family Matter; and
East's Mankind at the Crossroads, are pure bunk and simple. If the United States wish to restrict immigration to 'Nordics' or to this or that
political group why not say so and be done with it? To bolster up racial prejudice or a Nordic or a Puritan complex by false and
misleading inferences drawn from 'intelligence tests' or from pseudo-biology and ethnology is to
throw away science and fall back on the mentality of primitive savagery. Evolution produced a human
brain, our only remarkable inheritance. Nothing else counts. Body is simply brain's servant . Treat the body
right, of course; no brain can function well without good service. But why worry more about the looks, color, and clothes
of the servant than the service it performs? "2 Weyl holds that the social goal of democracy is advancement
of the people through a democratization of advantages and opportunities of life.30 Even Edmund Burke, the
fore-sighted statesman of England, warned the British regarding its policy under the complex of race superiority in the colonies thus: "Let the
colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government; they will cling and grapple to you; and no force under
heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood, that your government may be one thing, and your
privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual relation; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened, and everything
hastens to decay and dissolution ....” Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must
still preserve the unity of the Empire."'" Thus the dual mandate principle entails more than trusteeship, it entails social progress and social
progress entails a liberality of attitude and equal opportunities so that these adolescents will reap the benefit of a
realistic and not a fictitious mandates principle. This is a challenge to international morality and particularly the League of Nations.
Regard the affirmative’s claims of growth and development with skepticism—

the act of benign foreign intervention has been empirically denied
There is an important question which students of colonial diplomacy have always evaded. The nature of the question is rather problematic. It is
narrowed down to the fact that when once a principle is put into practice it becomes almost suicidal to follow a
course that would be for the greatest good of the greatest number, without regard to selfish interests.
If tutelage of these adolescents implies education till they are fledged and mature to take over the reins of government,
then by all principles of justice and equity, there should be no unnecessary argument as to the right of a ward to
claim his hard-earned fruits of victory. However, Lord Bryce views this question with avid pessimism
when he concluded that the diffusion of education among backward races, such as the Filipinos or the
African tribes will not necessarily qualify them for self-government.32 According to Foerster in Mes Combates, cited
by Oldham, "It is just in hours of crisis, that strength of character, the sense of honor and the sincerity of our belief in moral forces have the
opportunity of proving themselves."33 And when
colonial powers are faced with such problems as independence,
or a radical change in political status, force is resorted to, as the supreme ideal . This use of force, says Lord
Bryce, makes a colonial power to reel like a drunkard; his authority intoxicates him insomuch that "the dazzling splendor of his aim blinds him in
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the wrongfulness of the means I whereby he flagrantly desecrates the sacred trust of civilization.34 In the preface to a publication on Africa,
Lord Olivier charged that European governments of African dependencies were inherently "full of cruelty"
because the white man will always draw a color line which causes resentment and ultimate inter-
racial conflict.35¶ Sir G. C. Lewis in his book, suggests that every dominant power should not attempt by coercive means to repress
political determinism the dependencies, but rather should grant them independence as soon as self-determination has been made.36The
fallacy of this argument is the fact that "self-determination" has been loosely interpreted as to mean a vague ideal, so far as native races are
concerned. The
struggle for independence successively waged by Ireland, Egypt, India, the Philippine
Islands, China, Korea, and Haiti, demonstrates that once a colony docilely accepts foreign domination,
that becomes its eternal heritage, until it is able to muster arms and employ force to overthrow the
dominating power. This is the only verdict of history .37In 1792, Premier William Pitt visualized the day when native
Africans would become fledged to rule themselves.38But the noble lord fails to realize that responsibility of trusteeship is not fully discharged
in securing justice to the natives; if the natives will eventually become a dominant factor in the administration of their own native-land, and if
their colonial rulers are really honest and sincere, their material and moral advancement must be fostered by positive measures, constructive
educational policies, promotion of health, and political tutelage, by actual appointment to the higher divisions of the various bureaus of the civil
service of these colonies. So far, the little government of Gold Coast in West Africa has taken the initiative to establish a million dollar college
for the training of natives and also the appointment of qualified Africans to the higher positions of the Gold Coast Civil Service. Nigeria, Gambia
and other British colonies still believe that unless you restrict the education of the native, the white man will have to face another "Black Peril"
in Africa.39According to John H. Harris, "trusteeship means that the government is to be in the interests of the governed; it means that when
the ward has attained to manhood the trusteeship will be surrendered; it means that it
is the prime duty of the trustee so to
foster the growth of the ward that upon reaching the state of manhood the capacity to manage his
own affairs will not be denied or questioned."40 Lord Durham followed the great orator Charles Fox, by adding that "the only
method of retaining distant colonies with advantage was to enable them to govern themselves.4'41 Buell, realizing the almost unsolvable
difficulties of colonial administration has said that the habit of one¶ nation colonizing another nation that is weaker eventually forms a curse to
the mother country.42
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Impact – Structural Violence

Coloniality results in a permanent hell on earth where the colonized gains its
identity through the non-stop confrontation with death. Rape, murder, and
genocide characterize the lived experience of the racialized subject
Maldonado-Torres 2007 [Nelson, Professor of Comparative Literature at Rutgers, PhD in Religious Studies “ON THE
COLONIALITY OF BEING¶ Contributions to the development of a¶ Concept” 2007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548]
Ideas of war, conquest, and genocide here bring up another fundamental¶ aspect of coloniality.28 The
question about whether the indigenous peoples of¶ the Americas had soul or not was framed around
the question of just war. In¶ the debates that took place in Valladolid in the sixteenth century Sepu´lveda¶ argued against Las Casas that the Spanish had the obligation to engage in a just¶ war
against subjects who, in their inferiority, would not adopt by themselves¶ the superior Christian religion and culture.29 Once more, just like it happens¶ in respect to the
question about the humanity of the so called Amerindians, the¶ outcome of the discussion is not as
important as the question itself. The¶ ‘discovery’ and conquest of the Americas was no less than an
ontological event¶ with many implications, the most dramatic of which were established by the¶ attitudes and questions that emerged in the context. By the time when the¶
question about engaging in a just war against the Amerindians was answered ¶ the conquerors had already established a particular way of relating to the¶ peoples that they encountered. And the way in which they pursued such¶
Columbus’s¶ redefinition of the purpose of

relations did not correspond to the ethical standards that were followed in¶ their countries of origin. Indeed, as Sylvia Wynter argues,
land as being one for us, whereby for us meant for us who belong to the realm of Man vis-a`-vis those
outside the human¶ oecumene, already introduces the exceptional character that ethics is going to¶
take in the New World.30 As we know, such exceptional situation gradually¶ lost its exceptionality and became
normative in the modern world. But before¶ it gained such a widespread acceptance and became constitutive of a new¶ reigning episteme, the exceptionality
was shown in the way in which¶ colonizers behaved in relation to the indigenous peoples and black
slaves.¶ And this behavior coincided more with the kind of actions shown at war, than¶ with the ethics
that regulated live with other European Christians.¶ When the conquerors came to the Americas they
did not follow the code¶ of ethics that regulated behavior among subjects of the crown in their¶
kingdom.31 Their actions were regulated by the ethics or rather the non-ethics¶ of war. One cannot forget that while
early Christians criticized slavery in the¶ Roman Empire, later Christians considered that vanquished enemies in war ¶ could legitimately be enslaved.32 Indeed, in the Ancient world and the Middle¶ Ages it was for the most part
What happens in the Americas is a¶ transformation and

legitimate to enslaved some people, particularly¶ prisoners of war and the vanquished.
naturalization of the non-ethics of war, which represented a¶ sort of exception to the ethics that
regulate normal conduct in Christian¶ countries, to a more stable and long-standing reality
ofdamnation. Damnation,¶ life in hell, refers here to modern forms of colonialism which constitute a¶
reality characterized by the naturalization of war by means of the naturalization¶ of slavery, now
justified in relation to the very physical and ontological¶ constitution of people by virtue of ‘race’
and not to their faith or belief .33¶ That human beings become slaves when they are vanquished in a
war translates¶ in the Americas to the suspicion that the conquered people, and then nonEuropean
peoples in general, are constitutively inferior and that therefore they¶ should assume a position of
slavery and serfdom. Sepu´lveda draws on Aristotle¶ to justify this position, but he was more than anything translating into¶ categories ideas that were already becoming common sense. Later the idea
was¶ going to be solidified in respect to the slavery of people from Africa and¶ become stable until today under the tragic reality of different forms of racism. ¶ Coloniality , I am suggesting here, can be
understood as a radicalization and¶ naturalization of the non-ethics of war . This non-ethics included
the practices¶ of eliminating and slaving certain subjects e.g., indigenous and black as ¶ part of the
enterprise of colonization. The hyperbolic expression of coloniality¶ includes genocide, which is the paroxysm of the ego
cogito a world in which¶ the ego cogito exists alone. War, however, is not only about killing or¶ enslaving. War includes a particular
treatment of sexuality and of feminity:¶ rape . Coloniality is an order of things that put people of color
under the¶ murderous and rapist sight of a vigilant ego. And the primary targets of rape¶ are women.
150
But men of color are also seeing through these lenses. Men of¶ color are feminized and become for
the ego conquiro fundamentally penetrable subjects.34 I will expand more on the several dimensions of murder and rape¶ when I elaborate the existential
aspect of the analytics of the coloniality of¶ Being. The point that I want to make here is that racialization works through¶ gender and sex and that the
ego conquiro is constitutively a phallic ego as¶ well.35 Enrique Dussel, who submits the thesis of the phallic character of the¶ ego cogito, also makes links, albeit
indirectly, with the reality of war.¶ And thus, in the beginning of modernity, before Descartes discovered...a terrifying anthropological dualism in Europe, the Spanish¶ conquistadors arrived in America. The phallic
conception of the¶ European-medieval world is now added to the forms of submission of¶ the
vanquished Indians. ‘Males’, Bartolome´ de las Casas writes, are¶ reduced through ‘the hardest, most horrible, and
harshest serfdom’; but¶ this only occurs with those who have remained alive, because many of¶ them have died; however, ‘in
war typically they only leave alive young¶ men (mozos) and women.¶ 36¶ Joshua Goldstein complements this account by depicting conquest as an¶
extension of the rape and exploitation of women in wartime.37 He argues that¶ to understand conquest one needs to examine: (1) male sexuality as a cause of¶ aggression; (2) the feminization of enemies as symbolic domination,
and (3)¶ dependence on exploiting women’s labor. My argument is that these three¶ things come together in the idea of race that began to
emerge in the conquest¶ and colonization of the Americas. Misanthropic skepticism posits its targets
as¶ racialized and sexualized subjects. Once vanquished, they are said to be¶ inherently servants and
their bodies come to form part of an economy of¶ sexual abuse, exploitation, and control. The ethics of
the ego conquiro ceased to¶ be only a special code of behavior for periods of war and becomes in the¶
Americas and gradually the modern world by virtue of misanthropic ¶ skepticism, the idea of race,
and the coloniality of power, a standard of¶ conduct that reflects the way things are a way of things whose naturalization¶ reaches its climax
with the use of natural science to validate racism in the¶ nineteenth century. The way things supposedly are emerge from the idea of¶
how a world is conceived to be in conditions of war and the code of behavior¶ that is part of it. What happens in modernity is that such a view of the world¶ and code of
conduct is transformed through the idea of race and becomes¶ naturalized. Thus, the treatment of
vanquished peoples in conditions of war is¶ perceived as legitimate long after war is over . Later on, it won’t be their¶
aggression or opposition, but their ‘race’ which justifies continued serfdom, ¶ slavery, and rape. This represents a break with the European medieval¶
tradition and its ethical codes. With the initial exploitation of Africa and the¶ colonization of the Americas in the fifteenth century, the emerging modernity ¶ comes to be
shaped by a paradigm of war.38¶ Building on the work of Dussel, Gordon, Quijano, and Wynter I articulated¶ in this section what I see as three contributions to the understanding of¶
coloniality and race: (1) the understanding of race as misanthropic skepticism,¶ (2) the interrelation of race and gender, and (3) the understanding of race and¶ gender conceptions in modernity as the result of the naturalization of
The lived experience of racialized people is deeply touched by the¶ encounter with
the ethics¶ of war.
misanthropic skepticism and by the constant encounter with¶ violence and death . The language that
they use has also already being shaped by¶ understanding of the world as a battle field in which they
are permanently¶ vanquished. Now that we have an idea about the basic conditions of life in the¶ colonial side of the modern world or in the dark side of the color-line we can try¶ to find a
while we have explored to some

more precise philosophical articulation of these experiences and thus to¶ lay out the fundamentals for a discourse about the coloniality of being. But,¶
extent the meaning of the idea of coloniality,¶ we haven’t done the same with the idea of ‘being’. We shall do
that next.¶ What is being?¶ As I made clear at the outset, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology informs the¶ conception of Being that I want to elaborate here. His work, particularly his¶ 1927 magnus opus, Being and Time is not
I do not
the point of departure to think about¶ the coloniality of Being but it is, at least when spelled out in the context of the ¶ phenomenological tradition and its heretic expressions, an inescapable¶ reference point.
think that Heidegger’s conception of ontology and¶ the primacy that he gives to the question of being
necessarily provide the best¶ basis for the understanding of coloniality or decolonization, but his
analyses of¶ being-in-the-world serve as a starting point to understanding some key¶ elements of
existential thought, a tradition that has made important insights¶ into the lived experience of
colonized and racialized peoples.39 Returning to¶ Heidegger can provide new clues about how to articulate a discourse on the¶ colonial aspects of world making and lived experience.¶
Heidegger’s ontology is characterized by the idea that Being is not a being,¶ an entity, or a thing, but the Being of beings, that is, something like the general¶ horizon of understanding for all beings.40 He refers to the distinction
between¶ Being and beings as the ontological difference.¶ 41 According to Heidegger,¶ Western philosophy, particularly Western metaphysics, is characterized by the¶ forgetfulness of Being and by a denial of the ontological
difference. Western¶ metaphysics has equally betrayed the understanding of Being by conceiving ¶ Being in terms of the godhead or divinity. He calls this tendency ontotheology, which is for him what fundamental ontology needs
to overcome.42¶ In addition to arguing for the crucial importance of the ontological ¶ difference, Heidegger makes the point that the answer to the question of the meaning of Being necessitates a new radical point of departure.
God cannot¶ stand as the beginning of ontology anymore. Things as such are of not much¶ help either, since their meaning is partly independent of them, and surely they ¶ do not grasp their own meaning. In fact there is only one
being for whom the¶ question of Being is significant: the human being. Since Heidegger’s aim is to ¶ begin philosophy anew, he does not want to use Man or any known concept¶ to refer to human beings. They all carry the trace
of metaphysics and of¶ epistemologically-centered philosophy, which would vitiate his efforts to¶ escape from them. The concept that he uses to refer to human beings-quabeings for whom their own being is in question is
Dasein. Dasein literally¶ means ‘being there’. Thus, Dasein is simply the being who is there. For¶ Heidegger, fundamental ontology needs to elucidate the meaning of ‘being ¶ there’ and through that, articulate ideas about Being
itself.¶ Heidegger’s first reflection about Dasein is that it ek-sist, which means that it¶ is projected to the future.43But Dasein is also ‘thrown there’. Dasein ek-sist in a¶ context which is defined by a history and where there are
laws and established¶ conceptions about social interaction, subjectivity, the world, and so on. Now,¶ through the analysis of Dasein, Heidegger discovers that for the most time its¶ subjectivity takes the shape of a collective
anonymous figure: the One or the¶ They. The They could be compared to what Nietzsche referred to as the herd or ¶ the mass of people.44Once Heidegger has elaborated his view of the They the rest¶ of part I of Being and Time
not those defined ¶ by the They. Heidegger’s response is that

takes on the question of how can Dasein relate¶ authentically to itself by projecting its ownmost possibilities
authenticity can only be achieved by¶ resoluteness, and that resoluteness can only emerge in an
encounter with the¶ possibility which is inescapably one’s own, that is, death. In death one is fully ¶
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irreplaceable: no one can die for one, or one for another. Death is a singular¶ individualizing factor.
The anticipation of the death and the accompanying¶ anxiety allow the subject to detach herself from
the They, to determine her¶ ownmost possibilities, and to resolutely define her own project of ek-
sistence.45¶ While the anticipation of death provides the means for the achievement of¶ authenticity at an individual level, a Fuhrer or leader became for Heidegger the¶ means to achieve authenticity at a collective
level. Resoluteness at a collective¶ level could only emerge by virtue of a leader. From here that Heidegger came ¶ to praise Hitler’s role in Germany and became an enthusiastic participant in the ¶ Nazi administration. War in some
The
way provided a way to connect these two¶ ideas: the wars of the volk (people) in the name of their leader provide the¶ context for a confrontation with death, and thus, to individual authenticity. ¶
possibility of dying for the country in a war becomes a means for ¶ individual and collective
authenticity.46 This picture, to be sure, seems to¶ reflect more the point of view of the victor in war, than that of the vanquished.¶ But it could be said that the vanquished can
also achieve authenticity through¶ the confrontation with death in war. Anybody can. Yet, the missing factor here is the following: if the
previous account of coloniality in relation to the nonethics of war is plausible then it must be admitted that the encounter with¶ death is no extra-ordinary affair,
but a constitutive feature of the reality of¶ colonized and racialized subjects . The colonized is thus not
ordinary Dasein,¶ and the encounter with the possibility of death does not have the same impact ¶ or
results than for someone whose mode of alienation is that of¶ depersonalization by the One or They.
Racialized subjects are constituted in¶ different ways than those that form selves, others, and peoples.
Death is not so¶ much an individualizing factor as a constitituve feature of their reality . It is the¶
encounter with daily forms of death , not the They, which afflicts them . The¶ encounter with death always
comes too late, as it were, since death is already¶ beside them. For this reason, decolonization, deracialization, and des-generaccioń (in sum,
decoloniality) emerge not through an encounter with one’s¶ own mortality, but from a desire to evade
death, one’s own but even more¶ fundamentally that of others. In short, while a vanquished people in war could¶ achieve authenticity, for subjects who are not considered to be part of ‘the¶ people’ the situation is
different. For some subjects modernity changed the¶ way of achieving authenticity: they already live with
death and are not even¶ ‘people’. What Heidegger forgot is that in modernity Being has a colonial side,¶ and that this
has far-reaching consequences. The colonial aspect of Being, that¶ is, its tendency to submit everything to the light of understanding and¶ signification, reaches an extreme pathological
point in war and its naturalization through the idea of race in modernity. The colonial side of Being sustains ¶ the color-line. Heidegger, however, looses from view the
particular¶ predicament of subjects in the darker side of this line and the significance of ¶ their lived experience for theorization of Being and the pathologies of¶ modernity. Ironically, Heidegger recognizes the
existence of what he calls¶ ‘primitive Dasein’, but in no way he connected it with colonized Dasein.47¶ Instead, he took European Man as his model of Dasein, and
thus the colonized¶ appeared as a ‘primitive’. He forgot that if the concept of Man is a problem, is¶ not only
because it is metaphysical, but also because it does away with the idea¶ that, in modernity, what one
finds is not a single model of human being, but¶ relations of power that create a world with masters
and slaves. He needed to¶ break with the idea of Europe and the European as models, in order to uncover ¶ the complex dynamics of Dasein in the modern period both of European and¶ colonized Dasein, to
which we will refer here as the damne´. But we are already¶ in the territory of discourse on the coloniality of being.
152
Impact – Value To Life

Colonialism obliterates indigenous culture and society, causing a loss of identity
and feeding cycles of internalized violence
Individualism, Identity and¶ Inferiority Complex¶ With the breakdown of Indigenous¶ society, nations & families also become¶
broken & fragmented. European values of¶ individualism & self-interest (essentially¶ capitalist)
increasingly replace traditional¶ Indigenous values of community &¶ collectivity. In fact, the entire
fabric of¶ Indigenous culture & society is tom apart:¶ "Colonial domination, because it is¶ total and tends to over-simplify,
very "soon¶ manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the¶ cultural life of a conquered people. This¶ cultural obliteration is made
possible by the¶ negation of national reality [loss of¶ sovereignty], by new legal relations¶ introduced by the occupying power [i.e.,
the Indian Act], by the banishment of the natives and their customs to outlying¶ districts by colonial society [reservations], by expropriation
[theft], and by the
systematic enslaving ofmen & women."¶ (Frantz Fanon, Wretched ofthe Earth, p. 236).¶ Alongside the
breakdown of family & community is the loss of culture. When confronted with systematic¶ assimilation into European culture, the
result is
a loss of identity & feelings of inferiority:¶ "Every effort is made to bring the colonized person to
admit the inferiority' of his culture which has been¶ transformed into instinctive patterns
of"behavior, to recognize the unreality of his 'nation', and, in the last extreme, 'the¶ confused and
imperfect character ofhis own biological structure."¶ (Frantz Fanon, Wretched ofthe Earth, p. 236).¶ Internalized Violence¶
As a result of the physical and psychological affects of colonialism, patterns of internalized violence
and crime are¶ established. The colonized tend to attack and victimize their own. These attacks range from
violent assaults and murder, to¶ petty theft and vandalism. These patterns are common among colonized peoples (i.e., a leading cause of death
among¶ young black males in the US are you~g black males).¶ One reason the colonized prey on one another is that ofproximity; one's family &
community are right there, while¶ the oppressor lives in another world.
The physical realities of colonialism, the
establishment of reserves and urban ghettos,¶ along with an apartheid system, separates the
colonized and the settler communities.¶ More than the physical proximity of one's own people, however, is the psychological
impact of colonization. Not¶ only is the settler community physically distant, it is also foreign and
threatening. It is well guarded. The penalties for¶ violating the settler's person or property are more
severe than for violating one's own. Many forms of internalized violence arise from European colonial society itself. Widespread
sexual abuse among¶ Indigenous peoples in Canada and the US, for example, was first introduced through the Residential School system .¶
Children who experienced abuse by school staff (priests & nuns) returned to their communities and
began abusing their¶ own family members, resulting in intergenerational patterns of abuse that
continue to this day.
153
Impact – Violence
Colonialism promotes structural inequality and oppression towards natives—
the ballot is key to endorse participatory politics
The Economic and Wage Commission reported brutality to native laborers by white managers in the form
of severe floggings in South Africa.59There have been discriminatory practices against natives in many
instances. For example, natives cannot bear or secure arms in South Africa without¶ a special license, whereas the whites
could do so, according to the Defense Act of 1912. In West Africa, inhabitants of the British, French and Portuguese colonies are not
allowed to bear arms or to be found with any in their possession. It is a felonious crime over there, but the
white man could possess as many pistols or rifles as his pocket will allow. Hertzog followed his policy of Repressionism by
passing the historic Color Bar Legislation and the Pass Laws, which make it obligatory for natives to carry identification cards.60 In the French
colonies, a special body of rules applicable to natives alone, exist, and it is called the indigenat. In Korea, Japanese
colonists
employed drastic flogging against Koreans and made the penal code especially severe toward these
natives.6' In Nigeria, the British adopted a policy of segregation by not allowing natives to live within a
specified radius in the Ikoyi and Apapa reservations where the white officials lived.62In South Africa, the native finds
that after receiving an industrial education, his skill is worthless for he is prohibited by law from
skilled labor and agriculture.63¶ These problems are yet to be solved. Force will not settle these issues. Sympathetic attitude alone
will not alleviate these deplorable conditions. There is only one solution, and it is not a palliative at that, and that is the, realistic interpretation
and the practice of the policy of trusteeship. Unless
the natives are allowed to participate in the government of
their own lands, on a sound basis of democracy, that is the application of the doctrine of natural, civil,
political, social and economic rights and equalities, in the administration of their country, by a
system which will not only educate them to use the ballot , but also make it possible for them to participate in the higher
political offices which are now restricted to foreigners, the future forecasts an inter-racial war, which might be worse
than Armaggedon."
154
Impact – Violence
United States colonialism escalates to military violence

McClintock 92 (Anne, Simone de Beauvoir Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at
UW-Madison, The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term "Post-Colonialism", Duke University Press)
Most importantly, orienting theory around the temporal axis colonial/postcolonial makes it easier not to see, and therefore harder to theo- ¶
rize, the continuities in international imbalances in imperial power. Since ¶ the 1940's, the United State's imperialism-
without-colonies has taken a ¶ number of distinct forms (military, political, economic and cultural), ¶ some
concealed, some half-concealed. The power of US finance capital ¶ and huge multi-nationals to direct
the flows of capital, commodities, ¶ armaments and media information around the world can have an
impact ¶ as massive as any colonial regime. It is precisely the greater subtlety, ¶ innovation and variety of these forms of
imperialism that makes the ¶ historical rupture implied by the term "post-colonial" especially unwar- ¶ ranted. ¶ "Post-colonial" Latin
America has been invaded by the United States ¶ over a hundred times this century alone. Each time,
the US has acted to ¶ install a dictatorship,rop up a puppet regime, or wreck a democracy. In ¶ the
1940's, when the climate for gunboat diplomacy chilled, United ¶ States' relations with Latin America
were warmed by an economic impe- ¶ rial policy euphemistically dubbed "Good Neighborliness,"
primarily de- ¶ signed to make Latin America a safer backyard for the US' virile ¶ agribusiness. The
giant cold-storage ships of the United Fruit Company ¶ circled the world, taking bananas from poor
agrarian countries dominated ¶ by monocultures and the marines to the tables of affluent US house- ¶
wives.' And while Latin America hand-picked bananas for the United ¶ States, the United States hand-
picked dictators for Latin America. In ¶ Chile, Allende's elected, socialist government was overthrown by a US- ¶ sponsored
military coup. In Africa, more covert operations such as the ¶ CIA assassination of Patrice Lumumba in Zaire, had consequences as ¶ far-
reaching. ¶ In the cold war climate of the 1980's,
the US, still hampered by the ¶ Vietnam syndrome, fostered the
more covert military policy of "low ¶ intensity" conflicts (in El Salvador and the Philippines), spawning death ¶
squads and proxy armies (Unita in Angola, and the Contras in Nicaragua) and training and aiding totalitarian military regimes in anti-
democratic, ¶ "counter-insurgency" tactics (El Salvador, Honduras, South Africa, Is- ¶ rael, and so forth). In Nicaragua in February 1990 the "vote
of fear" of ¶ continuing, covert war with the US brought down the Sandinistas. ¶ The
recent fits of thuggery by the US in
Libya, Grenada and Panama, ¶ and most calamitously in Iraq, have every characteristic of a renewed ¶
military imperialism, and a renewed determination to revamp military ¶ hegemony in a world in which
it is rapidly losing economic hegemony. ¶ The attacks on Libya, Grenada and Panama (where victory was assured) ¶ were
practice runs for the new imperialism, testing both the USSR's will ¶ to protest, and the US public's willingness to throw off the Vietnam ¶
syndrome, permitting thereby a more blatant era of intervening in Third ¶ World affairs. At the same time, having helped stoke the first Gulf
War, ¶ the US had no intention of letting a new boy on the block assert colonial ¶ dominance in the region.
155
Root Cause – Binaries
Coloniality promotes the European/non-European dichotomy—root causes all

other binaries
Grosfoguel 8 (Ramón, Associate Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Ethnic Studies
Department, “DECOLONIZING POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES: Transmodernity,
border thinking, and global coloniality”)
Coloniality of power as the power matrix of the modern/colonial world¶ Globalization studies, political−economy paradigms and
world−system analysis, with only a few exceptions, have not derived the epistemological and theoretical implications of the epistemic critique
coming from subaltern locations in the colonial divide and expressed in academia through ethnic studies and women’s studies. They
continue to produce knowledge from the perspective of western man’s "point zero" divine view. This
has led to important problems in the way we conceptualize global capitalism and the "world−system".
These concepts are in need of decolonization, which can only be achieved with a decolonial
epistemology that overtly assumes a decolonial geopolitics and body−politics of knowledge as points of departure for a radical critique.
The following examples can illustrate this point.¶ If we analyze European colonial expansion from a Eurocentric
point of view, what we get is a picture in which the origins of the so−called capitalist world−system is primarily produced by inter−imperial
competition among European empires. The primary motive for this expansion was to find shorter routes to the
East, which led accidentally to the so−called discovery and, eventual, colonization of the Americas by
Spain. From this point of view, the capitalist world−system would be primarily an economic system that
determines the behaviour of the major social actors by the economic logic of making profits as manifested
in the extraction of surplus value and the ceaseless accumulation of capital at a world−scale. Moreover, the concept of capitalism
implied in this perspective privileges economic relations over other social relations . Accordingly, the
transformation in the relations of production produces a new class structure typical of capitalism as opposed to other social systems and other
forms of domination. Class
analysis and economic structural transformations are privileged over other
power relations. Without denying the importance of the endless accumulation of capital at a world scale and the existence of a particular
class structure in global capitalism, I raise the following epistemic question : What would the world−system looks like if we moved the locus of
enunciation from the European man to an Indigenous women in the Americas, to, say Rigoberta Menchu in Guatemala or to Domitila in Bolivia
? I do not pretend to speak for or represent the perspective of these indigenous women. What I attempt to do is to shift the location from
which these paradigms are thinking. The first implication of shifting our geopolitics of knowledge is the recognition that what arrived in the
Americas in the late 15th century was not only an economic system of capital and labour for the production of commodities to be sold for a
profit in the world market. This was a crucial part of, but was not the sole element in, the entangled "package." What
arrived in the
Americas was a broader and wider entangled power structure that an economic reductionist
perspective of the world−system is unable to account for. From the structural location of an indigenous woman in the
Americas, what arrived was a more complex world−system than what political−economy paradigms and
world−system analysis portray. A European/capitalist/military/christian/patriarchal/white/heterosexual/male arrived in the
Americas and established simultaneously in time and space several entangled global hierarchies that for purposes of clarity in this
exposition I will list below as if they were separate from each other :¶ 1) a particular global class formation where a
diversity of forms of labour (slavery, semi− serfdom, wage labour, petty−commodity production, etc.)
were to co−exist and be organized by capital as a source of production of surplus value through the selling of commodities for
a profit in the world market ; 2) an international division of labour of core and periphery where capital organized labour at the periphery
around coerced and authoritarian forms (Wallerstein 1974 ; 3) ; 3) an inter−state system of politico−military organizations controlled by
European males and institutionalized in colonial administrations (Wallerstein 1979) ; 4) a
global racial/ethnic hierarchy that
privileged European people over non−European people (Quijano 1993 ; 2000) ; 5) a global gender hierarchy
that privileged males over females and European patriarchy over other forms of gender relations (Spivak
1988 ; Enloe 1990) ; 6) a sexual hierarchy that privileged heterosexuals over homosexuals and lesbians (it is
important to remember that most indigenous peoples in the Americas did not consider sexuality among
males a pathological behaviour and had no homophobic ideology) ; 7) a spiritual hierarchy that privileged Christians over
156
non−Christian/non−Western spiritualities institutionalized in the globalization of the Christian (Catholic

and later Protestant) Church ; 8) an epistemic hierarchy that privileged western knowledge and cosmology over
non− Western knowledge and cosmologies, and institutionalized in the global university system (Mignolo
1995, 2000 ; Quijano 1991). 9) a linguistic hierarchy between European languages and non−European
languages that privileged communication and knowledge/theoretical production in the former and
subalternized the latter as sole producers of folklore or culture but not of knowledge/theory (Mignolo
2000).¶ It not accidental that the conceptualization of the world−system, from decolonial perspectives of the South, will question its traditional
conceptualizations produced by thinkers from the North. Following Peruvian Sociologist Aníbal Quijano (1991 ; 1998 ; 2000), we could
conceptualize the present world−system as a historical− structural heterogeneous totality with a specific power matrix, which he calls a
"colonial power matrix" ("patrón de poder colonial"). This matrix affects all dimensions of social existence
such as sexuality, authority, subjectivity and labour (Quijano 2000). The 16th century initiated a new global colonial power
matrix that by the late 19th century came to cover the whole planet. Taking a step further from Quijano, I conceptualize the coloniality of
power as an entanglement or, to use US Third World feminist concept, intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989 ; Fregoso 2003) of multiple and
heterogeneous global hierarchies ("heterarchies") of sexual, political, epistemic, economic, spiritual, linguistic and racial forms of domination
and exploitation. Here, the racial/ethnic hierarchy of the European/non−European divide transversally reconfigures
all the other global power structures. What is new in the "coloniality of power" perspective is how the idea of race and racism
becomes the organizing principle that structures all of the multiple hierarchies of the world−system (Quijano 1993). For example, the different
forms of labour that are articulated to capitalist accumulation at a world−scale are assigned according to this racial hierarchy ; coercive (or
cheap) labour is done by non−European people on the periphery and "free wage labour" at the core.¶
157
Root Cause – Capitalism
Capitalism and the commodification of the labor force emerged and gained
global domination as a result of racial colonialism, and they mutually reinforce
each other
First, the theoryof historyas a linear sequence of universallyvalid events¶ needs to be reopened in relation to America as a major question in
the¶ social-scientific debate. More so when such a concept of historyis applied¶ to labor and the control of labor conceptualized as modes of
production in¶ the sequence precapitalism-capitalism. From the Eurocentric point of view,¶ reciprocity,
slavery, serfdom, and
independent commodity production are¶ all perceived as a historical sequence prior to commodification of the labor¶ force.
They are pre capital. And they are considered not only different, but¶ radicallyin compatible with capital. The fact is, however, that in America¶
they did not
emerge in a linear historical sequence; none of them was a¶ mere extension of the old
precapitalist form, nor were they incompatible¶ with capital.¶ Slavery, in America, was deliberately established
and organized¶ as a commodity in order to produce goods for the world market and to¶ serve the
purposes and needs of capitalism. Likewise, the serfdom imposed¶ on Indians, including the
redefinition of the institutions of reciprocity, was¶ organized in order to serve the same ends: to
produce merchandise for the¶ global market. Independent commodity production was established
and¶ expanded for the same purposes. This means that all the forms of labor¶ and control of labor
were not only simultaneously performed in America,¶ but they were also articulated around the axis
of capital and the global¶ market. Consequently, all of these forms of labor were part of a new model¶ of
organization and labor control. Together these forms of labor configured¶ a new economic system:
capitalism.¶ Capital, as a social relation based on the commodification of the¶ labor force, was probablyb orn in some moment around the
eleventh or¶ twelfth centuryin some place in the southern regions of the Iberian and/or¶ Italian peninsulas and, for known reasons, in the
Islamic world.20 Capital
is¶ thus much older than America. But before the emergence of America, it was¶
nowhere structurally articulated with all the other forms of organization¶ and control of the labor
force and labor, nor was it predominant over any¶ of them . Only with America could capital
consolidate and obtain global¶ predominance, becoming precisely the axis around which all forms of
labor were articulated to satisfy the ends of the world market, configuring a¶ new pattern of global
control on labor, its resources, and products: world¶ capitalism. Therefore, capitalism as a system of
relations of production,¶ that is, as the heterogeneous linking of all forms of control on labor and its¶
products under the dominance of capital, was constituted in history only¶ with the emergence of
America. Beginning with that historical moment,¶ capital has always existed, and continues to exist to
this day, as the central¶ axis of capitalism. Never has capitalism been predominant in some other¶
way, on a global and worldwide scale, and in all probability it would not¶ have been able to develop
otherwise.
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Root Cause – Capitalism
In Latin America, capitalism has historically been both used to justify and
justified by colonial conceptions of race that legitimize slavery and colonial
domination – prefer our historical analysis
In the historical process of the constitution of America, all forms of control¶ and exploitation of labor
and production, as well as the control of appropriation and distribution of products, revolved around
the capital-salary¶ relation and the world market. These forms of labor control included slavery,
serfdom, petty-commodity production, reciprocity, and wages. In such¶ an assemblage, each form of labor control
was no mere extension of its¶ historical antecedents. All of these forms of labor were historically and¶ sociologically
new: in the first place, because they were deliberately established and organized to produce
commodities for the world market; in¶ the second place, because they did not merely exist
simultaneously in the¶ same space/time, but each one of them was also articulated to capital and its¶
market . Thus they configured a new global model of labor control, and in¶ turn a fundamental
element of a new model of power to which they were¶ historically structurally dependent. That is to say,
the place and function,¶ and therefore the historical movement, of all forms of labor as subordinated¶
points of a totality belonged to the new model of power, in spite of their¶ heterogeneous specific
traits and their discontinuous relations with that totality. In the third place, and as a consequence, each form of
labor developed¶ into new traits and historical-structural configurations.¶ Insofar as that structure of control of
labor, resources, and products¶ consisted of the joint articulation of all the respective historicallyknown¶ forms, a global model of
control of work was established for the first time¶ in known history. And while it was constituted around and in the
service¶ of capital, its configuration as a whole was established with a capitalist¶ character as well. Thus
emerged a new, original, and singular structure of relations of production in the historical experience
of the world: world¶ capitalism.¶ Coloniality of Power and Global Capitalism¶ The new historical identities produced
around the foundation of the idea of¶ race in the new global structure of the control of labor were associated
with¶ social roles and geohistorical places. In this way, both race and the division¶ of labor remained
structurally linked and mutually reinforcing , in spite of¶ the fact that neither of them were necessarily dependent on the
a systematic racial division of labor was imposed. In¶ the Hispanic region,
other in¶ order to exist or change.¶ In this way,
the Crown of Castilla decided earlyon to end the enslavement of the Indians in order to prevent their total extermination. They¶ were
instead confined to serfdom. For those that lived in communities, the¶ ancient practice of reciprocity—the exchange of labor
force and labor without a market—was allowed as a wayof reproducing its labor force as serfs.¶ In some
cases, the Indian nobility, a reduced minority, was exempted from¶ serfdom and received special treatment owing to their roles as
intermediaries with the dominant race. They were also permitted to participate¶ in some of the activities of the non noble Spanish.
However, blacks were¶ reduced to slavery. As the dominant race, Spanish and Portuguese whites¶ could
receive wages, be independent merchants, independent artisans, or¶ independent farmers—in short, independent producers of
commodities.¶ Nevertheless, only nobles could participate in the high-to-midrange positions in the military and civil colonial
administration. Beginning in the eighteenth century, in Hispanic America an extensive and important social stratum of mestizos
(born of Spanish men and¶ Indian women) began to participate in the same offices and activities as¶
non noble Iberians. To a lesser extent, and above all in activities of service¶ or those that required a specialized
talent (music, for example), the more¶ “whitened” among the mestizos of black women and Spanish or
Portuguese¶ had an opportunity to work. But theywere late in legitimizing their new¶ roles, since
their mothers were slaves. This racist distribution of labor in¶ the interior of colonial/modern capitalism was maintained throughout
159
the¶ colonial period.¶ In

the course of the worldwide expansion of colonial domination¶ on the part of the
same dominant race (or, from the eighteenth century¶ onward, Europeans), the same criteria of social classification
were imposed on all of the world population . As a result, new historical and social identities were
produced: yellows and olives were added to whites, Indians,¶ blacks, and mestizos. The racist distribution of new social
identities was¶ combined, as had been done so successfullyin Anglo-America, with a racist¶ distribution of labor and
the forms of exploitation of colonial capitalism.¶ This was, above all, through a quasi-exclusive association of whiteness
with¶ wages and, of course, with the high-order positions in the colonial administration. Thus each form of labor control was associated with a
particular¶ race. Consequently, the control of a specific form of labor could be, at the¶ same time, the control
of a specific group of dominated people. A new technology of domination/exploitation, in this case
race/labor, was articulated¶ in such a way that the two elements appeared naturally associated. Until¶
now, this strategy has been exceptionally successful.
160
Root Cause—Neolib
Faith in neoliberalism occurs as the concept of Man becomes the ideal form of the
human
Maldonado-Torres 2008 [Nelson. “Against War : Views from the Underside of Modernity”¶ Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press,
2008. p 215-217¶ http://site.ebrary.com/lib/utexas/Doc?id=10217191&ppg=52]
Many are the subtle and varied forms in which the need to achieve selfrecognition in a context without God has found expression. God may be
dead, but it is clear that imperial Man and the imperiality of power are still rising by virtue of new and varied acts of projection.60 Imperial
Man found new ways to sustain his position as lord and to achieve what only God seemed able to offer,
recognition as master. I already mentioned abstract notions of humanity or man as projections of Imperial Man in his effort to erase
the significance and constitutive power of relations of lordship and bondage. Along with the concept of Man, ideas of
nation, race, and the system or market have also come to fill the space left by God.61 It is not incidental that
general skepticism of God, along with ideas about the “death of God,” emerged precisely when Europe came to be more consistently formed by
As biologically defined ideas of race and secular conceptions of the
nation-states in the nineteenth century.62
nation provided new coordinates for self-identification, God became more and more dispensable in
the process of recognition. And, in fact, once nation-states are formed imperialism finds more effective ways to legitimize itself than
religion. The nation and the race become central for the identity of Imperial Man as Man, and for the idea of superiority. Then eugenics,
phrenology, and the social sciences take the place of religious ideals and creeds in the legitimization of empire.63 The divinization of the system
Ideologies such as
and the theological dimensions of the market also help to sustain relations of slavery in a world without God.64
conservatism and neoliberalism, with their respective beliefs in the preservation of the system or the
sustained increase of the market, offer justification to sacrificial modes of relations that assure the
position of the master as the one and only lord.65 To the “egolatrous” projection of Imperial Man to abstract man, the
idolatrous relation with the system or market is added as another form of sustaining power and
recognition after the “death of God.” In the contemporary world, economy becomes the new theology. The
logic of the market likewise becomes a new form of theodicy.66 It is from here that the life and hunger
of millions sustain an inhuman system unconditionally defended by imperial humanity.
161
Root Cause – Gender
Gender is a construction of colonization—

A central consequence of what I called here the coloniality of gender and which elsewhere I have
proposed as the modern/ colonial gender system" is that gender is a modern colonial imposition. The
modern/ colonial gender system is not only hierarchical but also racially differentiated, and the racial
differentiation denies humanity and thus gender to the colonized. I have clarified that gender has
been thought of and treated as a civilized human trait, not extended to all. Irene Silverblatt," Carolyn
Dean,” Maria Esther Pozo,” Pamela Calla,” Sylvia Marcos," Paula Gunn Allen,” Filipe Guaman Poma de
Ayala," Filomena Mi- randa,” and Oyeronke Oyewumi, among others, enable me to affirm that gender is
a colonial imposition , not just as it imposes itself on life in relation that was lived in tune with
cosmologies incompatible with the modern logic of dichotomies but also that such inhabitations
animated the self among-others in resistance from and at the extreme tension of the colonial
difference. The long process of subjectification of the colonized toward adoption/ internalization of
the men/ women dichotomy as a normative construction of the social , a mark of civilization,
citizenship, membership in civil society was and is constantly renewed. It is met in the flesh over and
over by oppositional responses grounded in a long history of in-the-flesh oppositional responses in a
constant resistant movement. It is lived in alternative, resistant socialities at the colonial difference. It
is movement toward coalition that impels us to know each other as selves that are thick, in relation, in
alternative socialities, and grounded in tense, creative inhabitations of the colonial difference.
I am investigating historically and in contemporary living, concrete, lived, resistances to the coloniality of
gender that issue from this tension. In particular, I want to mark the need to keep a multiple reading of
the resistant self in relation. This is a consequence of the colonial imposition of gender. We see the
gender dichotomy operating normatively in the construction of the social and in the processes of
subjectification. But we need to bracket the gender distinction to understand resistance and the
sources of resistance rather than read it into the very fabric that constitutes the self in relation
resisting. Only then can we appreciate the different logic that organizes the social in the resistant
response. Thus the multiple perception and inhabitation, the fracture of the locus, and the double or
multiple consciousness are constituted, in part, by this logical difference. The fractured locus includes
the hierarchical dichotomy that constitutes the subjectification of the colonized. But the locus is
fractured by the resistant presence, the active subjectivity of the colonized against the colonial
invasion of self in community from the inhabitation of that self. We see here the mirroring ofthe
multiplicity of the Woman of Color in Women of Color feminisms.
162
Alternatives
163
Alt Solvency – Borders

The fractured, nepantilistic languages produced by the border are necessary—
borderlands thinking represents the interweaving of minority voices into
colonial thought
Saldivar 12, Jose, Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Chicano
Scholar of the Year from the Modern Language Association, Trans-Americanity: Subaltern Modernities,
Global Coloniality, and the Cultures of Greater Mexico, Duke University Press Durham and London,
2012)
Does Anzaldúa’s Chicana paradigm of the U.S.-Mexican borderlands share in expressing diaspora
culture’s dystopic– utopian tensions? Are both bad news and good news built into the text? Can
Anzaldúa’s re-codification of the utopian otherwise as nepantilism help us better ground or grapple with
the tensions and ambivalences that Clifford theorizes in his reading of Gilroy’s work? What are we to
make of Anzaldúa’s deportation stories, of her invocation of the U.S.Mexican War of 1846– 48, of the
post– Jim Crow ethno-racial hierarchies in South Texas, of the international division of labor with
undocumented women at the center of the maquiladoras, and of her dramatic swerve to nepantilism
and new mestiza consciousness in Borderlands/La Frontera? Border thinking, for Anzaldúa, is a site of
crisscrossed experience, language, and identity. Mignolo’s de-colonial reading of Anzaldúa is especially
helpful in this context. She draws, Mignolo (2000b, 237) insists, ‘‘a different map: that of reverse
migration, the migration from colonial territories relabeled the Third World (after 1945), toward the
First.’’ This reverse U.S. Latino/a migratoriness, in Mignolo’s view, helps explain Anzaldúa’s powerful
‘‘languaging practices,’’ which ‘‘fracture the colonial language’’ (Mignolo 2000b, 237). If
Borderlands/La Frontera thematizes not the hegemonic Hegelian– Emersonian universalism of
Turner’s Frontier Thesis but the epistemic diversal reason of the multiple broken tongues of Greater
Mexico’s local nepantilism, ‘‘such fractures,’’ Mignolo (2000b, 237) argues, ‘‘occur due to the
languaging practices of two displaced linguistic communities’’ in Anzaldúa’s work: ‘‘Nahuatl, displaced
by the Spanish expansion and Spanish displaced by the increasing hegemony of the colonial languages of
the modern period (English, German, and French).’’ This fracturing and braiding of colonial and
postcolonial languages explain why Borderlands/La Frontera has the power to elicit such critical
emphasis from Mignolo, one of the most innovative critics of de-colonial literatures of the Américas.
Reading Anzaldúa as a Chicana feminist philosopher of fractured and braided languages is precisely what
I address later as one of the major issues in Borderlands/ La Frontera and, indeed, for U.S. Latino/a
studies in particular and for the future of minority studies in general. Rather than a unified subject
representing a folk border culture in any holistic sense, we meet in Anzaldúa’s Chicana neologism
autohistoriateoría, ∞∞ a braided, mestiza consciousness, and a feminist writer fundamentally caught
between various hegemonic colonial and postcolonial languages and subaltern dialects and
vernacular expressions . Her lament that ‘‘wild tongues’’ such as her own ‘‘can not be tamed’’ for ‘‘they
can only be cut out’’ (Anzaldúa 1987, 76) might as well be addressed to her complex postcolonial
audience of radical women and (feminist) men of color. Throughout Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa
expresses regret that even her bilingual mother in Hargill has been partially complicit in valuing the
English language of the hegemonic: ‘‘I want you to speak English. Pa’ hallar buen trabajo tienes que
saber hablar el inglés bien. Que vale toda tu educación si todavía hablas inglés con un ‘accent,’ my
mother would say, mortified that I spoke English like a Mexican. At Pan American University, I, and all
Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents’’
(Anzaldúa 1987, 54– 55).
164
Alt Solvency – Diversality
Acknowledging identity politics promotes epistemic diversality—the alt rejects

modernity in order to open up new structures
Saldivar 12 (Jose, Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Chicano
2012)
If our identities are real and affective, they do come from somewhere. Any post-contemporary account
of subjectification (e.g., Butˇ ler, Laclau, and Ziˇ zek 2000) and any post-postivist realist account of
identity (Mohanty, Moya, and Hames-García), I believe, would have to grapple with the ‘‘colonial
difference’’ that Quijano and Wallerstein, among others, outline for us. Perhaps to get back to Alcoff ’s
concluding riffs on the realist view of identity, that is why it might not be so dizzying for some to view
identities as something we might be better off without. Michel Foucault (1982, 212), for instance,
noted that the point is ‘‘not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are.’’ But here, too, I would
stress that Foucault, especially in The History of Sexuality, tends to erase the crafty details of the
colonial difference in his analysis of biopower. On the whole, however, I am largely in strong
agreement with Alcoff ’s point about the political power of our identities. In our informational culture
and society, our identities, Manuel Castells (2003, 361) insists, are crucial and important because ‘‘they
build interests, values, and projects, around experience, and refuse to dissolve by establishing a
specific connection between nature, history, geography, and culture.’’ Identities, Castells concludes (in
Marxist realist fashion), ‘‘anchor power in some areas of the social structure, and build their resistance
or their offensives in the informational struggle about the cultural codes constructing behavior and,
thus, new institutions.’’ It is this new subject or identity project of the informational mode of
production, I believe, that many ‘‘straight’’ Marxists have refused to grapple with in their engagement
with the power of identity politics.¶ This issue of global ‘‘coloniality,’’ then, leads to another hesitation I
have with the rich Reclaiming Identity project of Mohanty, Moya, and Hames-Garcia, and Alcoff. In his
Local Histories/Global Designs (2000), Walter Mignolo draws on the social-science work of Quijano and
Wallerstein to criticize various recent desires for universalist theories among both neoliberals and neo-
Marxists. Mignolo (2000b) argues that, parallel to the ethno-racialized classification of the Américas
and the world (the embalming of identities), the colonial project in the Américas also classified
languages and knowledge. The epistemology of the European Renaissance therefore was assumed to
be the natural perspective from which knowledge could be described and suppressed . This same
process, Mignolo suggests, was resituated after the Enlightenment, when the concept of reason opened
up a new description, and reason became associated with northern Europe and indirectly with
whiteness (Hegel and Kant). What are we to make of Mohanty’s and Moya’s use of an apparently
idealist Kantian ‘‘universalism’’ in their post-positivist realist project? Should a realist view of identity
not severely criticize the abstract hegemonic universalisms in Kant and the Enlightenment? Is it
possible to imagine an ‘‘epistemic diversality or pluriversality,’’ as Mignolo (drawing on the work of
Édouard Glissant), suggests in his work on Zapatismo? For Mignolo (2002c, 264– 65), diversality is not
‘‘the rejection of universal claims, but the rejection of universality understood as an abstract
universal grounded in a monologic .’’ Further, he writes, a ‘‘universal principle grounded on the idea
of the di-versal is not a contradiction in terms but rather a displacement of conceptual structures.’’ As
165
an alternative to the Kantian universalism in Moya’s and HamesGarcía’s post-positivist realist project,
I propose that Gloria Anzaldúa’s, Victor Martínez’s, and Arundhati Roy’s imaginative works belong to a
‘‘diversalist’’ cross-genealogical field that I term (after Quijano) the coloniality of border and diaspora
power: ‘‘coloniality’’ because of the many structural and ethno-racial similarities about identity
formations binding them to a colonizing past, but ‘‘border and diaspora power’’ because there are
certainly many discontinuities —the outernational dimension of represented space— to dictate the
cognitive metaphor of the ‘‘world-system’’ text, which, as I have been suggesting, recalls the world
political economy of Wallerstein and Quijano.
166
Alt Solvency – Humanities
The alternative is to prove the humanities are key to make democracy and
education effective by forming closer relationships with groups that focus on
dehumanization and actively seeking to make the public aware
Maldonado-Torres ’12 (Nelson Maldonado-Torres. PhD, Religious Studies with a Certificate for
Outstanding Work in Africana Studies, Brown University BA, Philosophy, University of Puerto Rico.
Rutgers University “The Crisis of the University in the Context of Neoapartheid: A View from Ethnic
Studies” Winter 2012. HUMAN ARCHITECTURE: JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE)
Based on the previous considerations, I submit that in order to respond to the current crisis the humanities have to insist not only
on how important they are for a robust democracy and for the formation of an educated citizenry, but also
to: a) take stock of how they have been complicit with neoliberalism (in terms of over-professionalization, etc.) as
well as with different forms of dehumanization, segregation, and apartheid; b) enter in a closer relationship
with interdisciplinary formations that focus on the critical examination of race, gender and other markers of
dehumanization and consider the possibility that a formation like “ethnic studies” could actually become
a matrix for the transformation of the humanities through engagement with questions and issues that have typically
remained excluded from it, as Johnella Butler (2001) aptly describes. I conceive of “ethnic studies” as a name for a particular expression of a
project that precedes the formation of “ethnic studies” in the academy and that has gone with different names in different places and spaces.
These different projects can be seen as part of an unfinished project of decolonization after the end of formal desegregation in the academy.
What we find today, though, are multiple attempts to intensify the colonization of knowledge and the segregation of peoples in society. One
only has to compare census projections on the one hand, which anticipate that people of color, and possibly Lati- na/os alone, will become
majority in the country sometime in the 21st century, and the dismal reports of, for instance, Latina/os having “the lowest rate of high-school
completion and the lowest level of educational attainment of any minority group” or Black students having “the lowest college-persistence
rate of any racial group” (see Schmidt 2010). In face of this, one could argue that neither the humanities nor the social sciences should aim to
remain “neutral.” But this only means that they have to take sides with the emancipatory and decolonial forms of knowledge production
today, and being willing to change in the process; c) consider entering into a different relation with social movements, and develop
methods that simultaneously legitimize those movements and provide new lenses for work in the
humanities, the social sciences, and the university at large (e.g., Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ theorization of the World
Social Fo- rum and his proposal for changes in existing research universities and the creation of a Popular Uni- versity for Social Movements—
Santos 2003 and 2010); d) seek
to empower the population that is expected to become the majority in the US by engaging
the problems that they face and that are common to other long-standing populations in the country who have always been
considered to be outside the norm. The humanities have more chance of saving what is most important about them by showing their relevance
in critical analysis and by pursuing the most constructive lines of inquiry that I have indicated above, than by rehearsing the
typical arguments about its constructive role in educating the citizen-subject, etc.—lines of argument that do not take sufficiently into
consideration the extent to which the problem that we face is neoapartheid, and not just economic neoliberalism.
Challenging currently questionable epistemology is the only way to solve—gives

subaltern a voice
Maldonado-Torres ’12 (Nelson Maldonado-Torres. PhD, Religious Studies with a Certificate for
Outstanding Work in Africana Studies, Brown University BA, Philosophy, University of Puerto Rico.
Rutgers University “The Crisis of the University in the Context of Neoapartheid: A View from Ethnic
Studies” Winter 2012. HUMAN ARCHITECTURE: JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE)
It is instructive that the first piece in Horowitz’s “Indoctrination” series is dedicated to the University of
Colorado at Boul- der and that it begins by making reference to its Ethnic Studies Department’s former
chairperson Ward Churchill (Horowitz 2006b). Ethnic Studies, to be sure, is typically first in line when it
comes to conservative attacks, even as it has sometimes been forced to survive only in the form of
primarily social scientific studies about race and ethnicity, or as a companion to area studies, which are
167
arguably reductionist conceptions of the field. I would argue, instead, that what we have come to call
Ethnic Stud- ies is one of the most important interventions in academic settings and that it challenges
the division of knowledge based on the primacy of explanation and understanding and the European
and U.S. Amer- ican oriented humanities and sciences. That is, Ethnic Studies is yet another example
of an intellectual and scholarly space that challenges the humanities and aims to make humanities’
work simultaneously more rigorous and relevant. To be sure, those committed with the liberal arts
curriculum and division of knowledge tend to see Ethnic Studies as: either an undesirable field whose
relation to social movements make it suspect; as an unso- phisticated scholarly space that is haunted
and fundamentally limited by feelings of nostalgia, cultural nationalism, or ethnic essentialism; or, at
best, as a temporary space to be either maintained at a minimum, phased out, or folded into discipline-
based departments and the standard divisions between the humanities, the social sciences, and other
areas. The difference between the two realities is to some extent captured in a piece by Stanley Fish
entitled “The Crisis of the Humanities Officially Arrives” (2010), when compared with Roberto
Rodri ́guez’s column “Arizona: This is What Apartheid Looks Like” (2010). The first article addresses the
proposed elimination of French, Italian, Classics, Russian, and theatre programs from the State
University of New York at Albany and calls for political action in defense of the liberal arts. The second
focuses on laws SB 1070 and HB 2281, and calls attention to a social reality of apartheid that affects
bodies as well as knowledges and cultures. The issues are quite different: the crisis of the liberal arts vis-
à -vis the near-criminalization of certain forms of knowledge with HB 2281. And, yet, one must reflect on
how these two realities relate to each other. While Ethnic Stud- ies disturb and challenge the existing
division of knowledge and conceptions of the humanities in the university, they appear even more as
a threat to other forms of hegemony out of the university. There is no better evidence of this today
than the passing of state law HB 2281 in Arizona, which bans Raza Studies from Arizona’s public schools
classrooms. This law is a companion to another piece of legislation, SB 1070, which allows police to
interrogate suspects about their citizen status on the basis of “reasonsable suspicion.” While humanists
complain about the lack of recognition of the value of their fields, and their evaluation according to
metrics that belong to the corporate sector and that seek efficiency rather than understanding, Raza and
Ethnic Studies scholars face not only the menace of neoliberalism, but also persecution and illegality.
That is, while the humanities are facing the pressure of neoliberalism, Ethnic Studies is facing the pres-
sure of both neo-liberalism and neoapartheid in a context where the people and their memories,
knowledges, questions, and perspectives are rendered illegal. From the perspective of a number of
humanists, the relation is clear and prioritizes the crisis of the humanities even as it shows concerns for
apartheid: one must demonstrate how the humanities are important for the education of ethno-
racialized populations, particularly those that are growing demographically. The argument claims
that these populations deserve the humanities, and that the humanities deserve support from the
state in compensation for their function of enlightening the population. The implicit view here is that
it is better for the state and for ethno-racialized populations to value and support the humanities, since
they can pay a role in better prepare people for life in the nation and, doing this, they help reduce the
apparent need for apartheid. This argument, though, is not much different from liberal views that
propose unidirectional assimilation in response to the more conservative ones that tend to justify
apartheid. But unidirectional assimilation and its demor- alizing and marginalizing effects are precisely
what Raza Studies classes in Arizona high schools are combating. If youth of color and other sectors
who have been crucial to the creation of Ethnic Studies and related units in the university thought that
investment in the humanities was what would have best responded to their needs, they would have
sought direct support for them. Rather, they found a situation where “Arts and Sciences” have been
understood for the most part as “White Arts and Sciences,” and where the divisions of knowledge
within the university, and between knowledge and praxis, are not up to the task of responding to their
questions and their concerns. Prioritizing the defense of the humanities in a context of rising
168
apartheid and the near-criminalization of academic spaces focused on reflecting on people of
color’s ideas, questions, and concerns is another form of erasure and sub-alternization. A better
response to the challenges of the time would be for the humanities to take more seriously the ques-
tions and critical insights from decolonial and emancipatory epistemological formations, such as
Ethnic Studies , Raza Studies and other projects, and thereby seek to respond to the questions of value
and relevance that they face today, even if this means fundamental changes in the humanities
themselves. But crises often strengthen the urge for self-preservation, which can lead to ignoring other
realities even if those realities are far more dangerous. If responding to the challenge posed by
neoliberalism is difficult, it is even more difficult for the humanities to increase their scope and
challenge that very limited understanding of the crisis that we face, while seeking to strengthen their
ties with the multi- and transdisciplinary epistemological projects that are most closely related to those
who are the objects of neoapartheid.
169
Alt Solvency – Movements Now

Latin American groups are epistemically breaking out now—ideas threatening
basic Western rationality are impossible for the state to control
Mignolo 5, (Walter, (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, The Idea of
Latin Americ, BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, 2005)
¶ Today, “Latin” America (as an idea) occupies an ambiguous position¶ in the imaginary of the
modern/colonial world. It serves as an¶ imaginary that is defended, from different loci of enunciation,
by¶ state officers, journalists, and intellectuals who see themselves as¶ “Latin Americans,” meaning, for them, a distinctive
identification in¶ the Western triangulation of Western and Southern Europe and the¶ US. For dissenting Creoles,
Mestizos/as, and immigrants of European¶ descent, the “idea” of Latin America is believed to provide a unified¶ front to confront the growing
military, economic, and technological¶ invasion coming from the US. The problemis that, at the same time,¶ Black and
Indigenous communities are fighting for the same cause¶ (particularly the growing Indigenous forces around the
struggle¶ against Free Trade of the Americas); but they are not doing it in¶ the name of “Latin” America, since “Latin”
Americans have also been their exploiters. Indigenous groups struggle in the same area¶ under the name of Abya-Yala, and
Blacks look for other, less territorial¶ identifications, like the clear memory of slavery and their¶ construction as “less than human” by
Europeans, Creoles, and immigrants¶ alike. Shifting the geography and the biography of reason is¶ a dangerous move
for the hegemonic order of things ; it means the¶ co-existence of the “subjective understanding,” again
in Wynter’s¶ words, of social and economic organization, which is not good for¶ those anchored in hegemonic
ways of life. Political insurrections¶ could be totally or partially controlled by a powerful army. Ideas¶ that
threaten the rationality of military interventions, justified crime,¶ and the paradigm of newness
(spreading democracy, freedom,¶ markets) are more difficult to control. They can be slowed down,¶ but not killed. In the “world order”
submitted by Samuel Huntington, opposing¶ civilizations teeter on the brink of a “clash” and “Latin” America¶ has
been generating, as of late, much of what can be slowed down¶ but not stopped. What Huntington doesn’t see,
or doesn’t want to¶ see, is that the “challenge” is not just that of the Hispanic crowd¶ invading the Anglo yard. Likewise, in the case of Islam,
the challenge¶ is not just from terrorism that threatens “American” lives. The
real¶ challenge is that, beyond the Hispanic
crowd and terrorist bombs,¶ there are Muslims and Latinos/as changing the geo-politics of¶ knowledge. You can
justify the killing of terrorists, but it is more¶ difficult to justify or enact the paralysis of the thinking of Latino/a¶ and Islamic thinkers, working
toward a paradigm of co-existence¶ and shifting the geo-graphies of knowledge and of social organization.¶ Huntington’s
conception
of Latin America, and his inference¶ about Hispanics, is unabashedly based on an ontological idea of¶
“Latin” America and of “Hispanics.” He writes: Latin America, however, has a distinct identity which differentiates
it from the West. [Remember Deloria?] Although an¶ offspring of European civilization, Latin America
has evolved¶ along a very different path from Europe and North America.¶ It has had a corporatist,
authoritarian culture, which Europe¶ had to a much lesser degree and North America not at all¶ [sic!].
Europe and North America both felt the effects of the Reformation and have combined Catholic and
Protestant cultures.¶ Historically, although this may be changing, Latin America¶ has been only Catholic.
Latin American civilization incorporates¶ indigenous cultures, which did not exist in Europe, [and]
were¶ effectively wiped out in North America . . . Latin America could¶ be considered either a sub-
civilization within Western civilization¶ or a separate civilization closely affiliated with the West¶ and
divided as to whether it belongs in the West. For an analysis¶ focused on the international political
implications of civilizations,¶ including the relations between Latin America, on the one hand, and¶
North America and Europe, on the other, the latter is the more appropriate¶ and useful designation.33
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Alt Solvency – Narratives
Our polyphonic interpretation of art at the border is key—they create an

epistemological grounding as a counter-hegemony to colonial thought
2012)
This section is a study of the interplay between the performative, border epistemologies of two
Chicano/a imaginative writers and the changing discourses of American vernacular literatures and
cultures. Gloria Anzaldúa’s and Victor Martínez’s writings about U.S. Latino/a life explore, among other
things, the linguistic intermixture of ethnic and mainstream languages (English, Spanish, and Spanglish)
to illustrate the changing languages of America. What vernacular varieties of English or Spanish will
dominate in twenty-first-century America? Which lingua rustica will the some 30 million U.S. Latinos/as
(with more than 10 million in California) hegemonize in their testimonios, novels, essays, and poetry?
What new literary genres, produced by Chicanos/as, will emerge in American literature? If the ‘‘dialect
novel’’ was all the rage in late-nineteenth-century vernacular America (Mark Twain, George W. Cable,
Abraham Cahan, W. E. B. Du Bois), Ω is there a borderlands English or Spanglish already under way in
U.S. Latino/a-dominant California, Arizona, Florida, Texas, Illinois, and New York? On another level, I
want to investigate the enabling condition of some recent Chicano/a narrative and poetry and the
various ways in which they seek to create an epistemological ground on which versions of the world
may be produced. As many U.S. Latino/a writers themselves suggest, to read is to question and to
understand the (bilingual) texture and the rhetorical resources of language. If Anzaldúa sees the
aesthetic structure of knowledge as a form of nepantilism, Martínez sees minority writing as a form of
the California borderlands of subaltern studies informing mass youth U.S. Latino/a culture. ∞≠ To begin,
I juxtapose Anzaldúa’s key concept of U.S.-Mexican border nepantilism against the U.S. historian
Frederick Jackson Turner’s well-known nineteenth-century idea of the frontier. I do so to emphasize that
while Turner and Anzaldúa may share some affinities of narrative and subaltern conventions and self-
locations in the United States— each writer locates stories in a tradition of border historiography—
their contrasts, I think, run far deeper, for Turner’s paradigms of the ‘‘frontier’’ and Anzaldúa’s frontera
are not equivalent.
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Alternative – Basic (AT: Prag)
The alternative is to decolonize this educational space – immediate political

action is irrelevant and destructive
Maldonado-Torres 11 (Nelson, Professor in Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers,

Thinking through the Decolonial Turn: Post-continental Interventions in Theory, Philosophy, and
Critique—An Introduction, TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-
Hispanic World, 1(2), 2011)
Not only the concern with identity has produced problematic expressions in Ethnic Studies; the same occurs with the imperative of liberation . The
problem emerges when liberation is translated as a claim for immediate political action, a kind of
political immediatism that becomes antipathetic to theoretical reflection. When the two combine,
that is, the worst aspects of the claim for identity and those of the search for liberation, then we have
a form of what Lewis Gordon calls epistemological closure .13 When this happens, the particular contribution of
Ethnic Studies scholarship to the project of decolonization tends to be neglected, not only by the academy itself, but by Ethnic
Studies programs. Beyond the dialectic between identity and liberation, and the expressions of its most problematic features, Ethnic and Women's Studies posit the
imperative of epistemic decolonization and the construction of new categories, critical discourses, and sciences .
What I am suggesting, and
what intellectuals seeking to advance the discourse of decolonization make clear, is that beyond the
dialectics of identity and liberation, recognition and distribution, we have to add the imperative of
epistemic decolonization, and in fact, of a consistent decolonization of human reality.14 For that one
must build new concepts and being willing to revise critically all received theories and ideas. This is
part of the “stuff” of the decolonial turn, and here resides the fundamental contribution of Ethnic
Studies: Ethnic Studies is not merely a province in the Enlightened or Corporate University; it is,
rather, a decolonial force in philosophy, theory, and critique that asks for and anticipates an-other
kind of intellectual space. This special issue reaffirms the true vocation of Ethnic Studies (which has remained alive in the work of many), and which
finds expression in the decolonial turn.
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Alternative – Border Thinking
We must engage in a process of delinking ourselves from Eurocentric

epistemology through a combination of critical border thinking and challenging
the epistemology of the West through denaturalizing the concepts and fields of
knowledge grounded in and surrounding the epistemology of coloniality
Panotto 11 , Nicolas Panotto, theologian and currently serves as Group Managing Director for
Multidisciplinary Studies on Religion and Public Advocac, “Walter Mignolo: Epistemic disobedience.
Rhetoric of modernity, logic of coloniality and decolonial grammar (Buenos Aires 2010), July 27, 2011
[http://postcolonialnetworks.com/2011/07/27/walter-mignolo-epistemic-disobedience-rhetoric-of-
modernity-logic-of-coloniality-and-decolonial-grammar/]
This book summarizes the main aspects of the “Research Project on Modernity/ Coloniality” and the central
theorical proposals of the famous Argentine decolonization theorist, Walter Mignolo. The main thrust
of this work is explained thus: “if knowledge is an instrument of imperial colonization, one of the
urgent tasks ahead is the decolonization of knowledge.”¶ First, the book attempts to broaden the
definition of colonialism. This concept refers to a complex matrix in which various spheres intertwine
(economy, authority, nature, gender and sexuality, subjectivity and knowledge) and is based on three
main foundations: knowledge (epistemology), understanding or comprehention (hermeneutics) and the ability to feel (aesthesis). On
the other hand, there also exists a relationship between colonialism and modern rationality, where the latter is undestood as a construction of
a Totality that overrides any difference or possibility of constructing other totalities. Although there
is a critique of these notions
from postmodern writers (postcolonialism being the wellspring in this field of study), it is circumscribed to European
history and the history of European ideas. Thus, this critique is incapable of reaching deep into the
colonial paradigm and imagination. This is why a decolonial project is ultimately necessary in order to
make possible a programmatic analysis of delinking categories (Aníbal Quijano) of colonial knowledge.¶ The
book also takes some of the contributions from the philosopher Erique Dussel as a proposal of decolonization of knowledge, as exemplified by
the differentiation he makes between emancipation (as liberal framework that serves to the pretensions of the bourgeoisie) and liberation (as a
broader category that seeks ways of leaving the european emancipatory project). But decolonization, for Mignolo, goes further
than liberation: it involves both the colonizers and the colonized (using the ideas of Franz Fanon), by including
emancipation/liberation on a same level within its framework. But because emancipation is a modern
project linked to European liberal bourgeoisie, it is better to think in terms of
liberation/decolonization, which includes in itself the rational concept of emancipation.¶ Mignolo
proposes a delinking strategy, which involves denaturalizing the concepts and fields of knowledge
within coloniality. This does not mean “ignoring or denying what cannot be denied”, but rather using
imperial strategies for decolonial purposes. Delinking also implies disbelieving that imperial reasoning
can itself create a liberating reason (i.e. proposals of decolonization from a marxist enterprise, which do not involve a radical
delinking but rather a radical emancipation; the reason being marxism offers a different “content” but not a different “logic”). Postmodern
thought attempts to be a liberating discourse, but still maintains a European framework that is far
from creating a delinked colonial logic. In this sense, Mignolo argues that while modernity is not strictly a
European phenomenon, its rhetoric -as Dussel argues- is formed by European philosophers, academics and
politicians. Hence, modernity involves colonization of time and space, defining a border in realtion to a
self-determining Other and it’s own European identity.¶ The project of decolonization proposes a
displacement of the theo- and ego- hegemonic logic of empire into a geo-political and a body-logic of
knowledge. This project arises from a de-clasification and de-identification of imperially denied subjects, as a de-colonial policy
and epistemology that affects both the political and economic control of neoliberalism and capitalism,
173
each frameworks of the imperialist project. The decolonization process begins when these same
agents or subjects, who inhabit the denied languages and identities of the Empire, become aware of
the effects of coloniality on being, body and knowledge. This process does not imply a call to an external
element/actor/project but a movement towards an exteriority which make visible the difference in the space of experience and the horizon of
expectations registered in the colonial space. Is this a proposal of cultural relativism? No. What
Mignolo suggests is a
questioning of the posture taken from divisive borders. In other words, the borders that both unite and
separate modernity/coloniality.¶ Henceis the main proposal of the book: border thinking. This epistemology evokes
the pluri-versity and di-versity of the dynamics between the spaces of experience and horizons of
expectations found within the larger arena of coloniality/modernity. Border thinking implies that
decolonization will not come from the conflicts over the imperial difference but from the spaces of
experience and horizons of expectations generated by the colonial difference. Decolonial critical
thinking connects the pluri-versity of experiences enclosed within the colonial framework with the
delinking uni-versal project that is in constant tension within imperial horizons. It builds a proposal that goes
beyond the implementation of a model constructed within modern categories (right, center, left) and onto reflecting on the subversive spaces
The concept of
inscribed among the actions of colonized agents through the fissures and cracks of the imperial system.¶
decolonization offered in Mignolo’s work is a major contribution towards creating a theoretical
framework outside the standards of modern Western philosophy. What must also be recognized, however, is that
this theoretical proposal and its development is still influenced by those same theories and epistemologies that it intends to criticize. It could be
said that the book itself is a decolonization proposal in how it subversively re-orients traditional theoretical frameworks into a deep questioning
of themselves.
174
Alternative – Counter-Histories
Opening up new historical readings of coloniality is key—new localized readings
of modern history allow more cohesive interpretations of world-systems
Lander 00, Edgardo, Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas,
Eurocentrism and Colonialism in Latin American Social Thought, Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 1,
Issue 3, 2000 by Duke University Press, 2000)
These perspectives do not fully explore the immense potentialities¶ of the recognition of the crisis of modernity. Radically different
ways of¶ thinking about the world are possible if we assume this historical period to be the crisis of the
hegemonic pretensions of Western civilization. Different¶ consequences would arise from an
interpretation that recognizes that this is¶ not the end of history,but the end of the phantasmagorical
universal history¶ imagined by Hegel. The implications for non-Western societies and for¶ subaltern and excluded
subjects around the world would be quite different¶ if colonialism,imperialism,racism,and sexism were thought of
not as¶ regretful by-products of modern Europe,but as part of the conditions that¶ made the modernWest possible. We
could assume a different perspective¶ on the so-called crisis of the subject if we were to conclude that the extermination¶ of
natives,transatlantic slavery,and the subordination and exclusion¶ of the other were nothing more than the other face,the necessary mirror¶ of
the self,the indispensable contrasting condition for the construction of¶ modern identities. This
is the way modern history is
read today,from different parts¶ of the world,in very heterogeneous ways by subaltern
studies,postcolonial¶ theories (Guha and Spivak 1988; Chatterjee 1993; Prakash 1995),and diverse¶ African contributions (Mudimbe
1988; Eze 1997). These perspectives¶ go beyond Eurocentric interpretations of the crisis of modernity. Other¶
spaces are explored,other voices are heard,as well as other histories and¶ subjects that had no room
in the universalizing Western project. These¶ theoretical tendencies share with postmodern theories
some preoccupations¶ and methodological emphasis,such as the critique of determinism¶ and
economism. They partake in the centrality assigned to the study of¶ cultural and symbolic processes as well as the analysis of discourses
and representations.¶ In the same fashion,some authors considered to be founders of¶ postmodernism—particularly Foucault—have had a
significant theoretical¶ influence on these perspectives,which could be generally called “postcolonial.”¶ This is the case,for example,of one of
the seminal works of this¶ approach,Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979). These debates create possibilities for new intellectual
strategies to¶ address the challenges posed by the crisis of modernity for Latin American¶ critical
theory. In view of the fact that “we are at a point in our work¶ where we can no longer ignore empires and the imperial context of our¶
studies” (Said 1993,6),it is absolutely necessary to question whether postmodern¶ theories offer an
adequate perspective from which to transgress¶ the colonial limits of modern social thought. Some of the
main issues of¶ postcolonial perspectives have been formulated and taken anew at different¶ times in the history of Latin American social
thought of the late-nineteenth¶ and twentieth centuries (Martí 1987; Mariátegui 1979; Fals-Borda 1970; Fernández Retamar 1976). There have
been extraordinary developments¶ associated with the revitalization of the struggles of indigenous peoples¶ in recent decades.5
Nonetheless,these issues paradoxically have been of¶ relatively marginal concern in the academic
world,outside anthropology¶ and some areas of the humanities.Western social sciences,“which must be¶ applied creatively to the
study of the realities of Latin America,” are still¶ assumed to be “the best of universal thought.” Due to both institutional and¶
communicational difficulties,as well as to the prevailing universalist orientations¶ (intellectual colonialism?
subordinate cosmopolitanism?),6 today¶ the Latin American academy has only limited communication with the
vigorous¶ intellectual production to be found in Southeast Asia,some regions¶ of Africa,and in the
work of academics of these regions working in Europe¶ or the United States. The most effective
bridges between these intellectual¶ traditions are being offered today by Latin Americans who work in
North¶ American universities (Escobar 1995; Mignolo 1996a,1996b; Coronil 1996,¶ 1997).¶ However,at the margins of mainstream
Latin American social¶ science,there is a vigorous and original intellectual debate that has been¶ able to
articulate and enrich previous Latin American indictments of the¶ universalistic claims of occidental
knowledge with contemporary insights in the critique of Eurocentrism and colonialism. This production deals¶ with such
basic issues as the critique of the universalist claims of European¶ local history (Dussel 1994,2000; Quijano
2000); the origins and basic features¶ of modernity (Dussel 1994,2000; Quijano 1990,2000; Coronil 2000;¶ Escobar 2000); the colonial nature of
the modern world-system (Coronil¶ 2000; Quijano 1997,1999,2000; Dussel 2000); the historical conditions of¶ the emergence of colonial-
175
Eurocentric conceptions of history and society¶ in the metropolitan centers of the modern world-system (Mignolo 1995,¶ 2000; Lander
1997b,2000a); the schism between abstract,formal scientific¶ knowledge and local forms of knowledge
(Escobar 2000; Mignolo 2000);¶ the possibilities
and potentials of alternative,subaltern forms of knowledge¶
(Escobar 2000; Mignolo 2000); and the critique of universal reason in an age¶ of globalization (Dussel 1998; Castro-Gómez
1997,1998).
176
Alternative – Decolonial Aesthetics
Decolonial aesthetics utilizes art and ecpression to dismantle modernity,

epistemic coloniality, and state multiculturalism
Maldonado-Torres et al 11 (Nelson, Professor Comparative Literature at Rutgers, “THE

ARGUMENT (AS MANIFESTO FOR DECOLONIAL AESTHETICS”, https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/the-
argument-as-manifesto-for-decolonial-aesthetics)OG
Decolonial aesthetics, in particular, and decoloniality in general have joined the liberation of sensing and
sensibilities trapped by modernity and its darker side: coloniality. Decoloniality endorses interculturality,
(which has been conceptualized by organized communities) and delinks from multiculturalism (which
has been conceptualized and implemented by the State). Muticulturalism promotes identity politics, while interculturality promotes
transnational identities-in-politics. Multiculturalism is managed by the State and some affiliated NGO’s, whereas interculturality is enacted by the communities in the process of delinking from
the imaginary of the State and of multiculturalism. Interculturality promotes the re-creation of identities that were either denied or acknowledged first but in the end were silenced by the
Interculturality is the celebration by border dwellers of being
discourse of modernity, postmodernity and now altermodernity.
together in and beyond the border. Decolonial transmodern aesthetics is intercultural, inter-epistemic, inter-political, inter-
aesthetical and inter-spiritual but always from perspectives of the global south and the former-Eastern Europe.¶ Massive migration from the former
Eastern Europe and the global south to former-Western Europe (today European Union) and to the United States have transformed the subjects of coloniality into active agents of decolonial
delinking. “We are here because you were there” is the reversal of the rhetoric of modernity; transnational identities-in-politics are a consequence of this reversal, it challenges the self-
proclaimed imperial right to name and create (constructed and artificial) identities by means either of silencing or trivialization.¶ The embodied daily life experience in decolonial processes
within the matrix of modernity defeats the solitude and the search for order that permeates the fears of postmodern and altermodern industrial societies. Decoloniality and
decolonial aesthetics are instrumental in confronting a world overflowed with commodities and
‘information’ that invade the living space of ‘consumers’ and confine their creative and imaginative
potential.¶ Within different genealogies of re-existence ‘artists’ have been questioning the role and the name that have been assigned to them. They are aware of the
confinement that Euro-centered concepts of arts and aesthetics have imposed on them. They have engaged in transnational identities-in-politics, revamping identities that have been
have removed the veil
discredited in modern systems of classification and their invention of racial, sexual, national, linguistic, religious and economic hierarchies. They
from the hidden histories of colonialism and have rearticulated these narratives in some spaces of
modernity such as the white cube and its affiliated branches. They are dwelling in the borders, sensing in the borders,
doing in the borders, they have been the propellers of decolonial transmodern thinking and aesthetics.
Decolonial transmodernities and aesthetics have been delinking from all talks and beliefs of universalism, new or old, and in doing so have been
promoting a pluriversalism that rejects all claims to a truth without quotation marks. In this regard, decolonial transmodernity has endorsed identities-in-politics and challenged identity
Creative practitioners, activist and thinkers continue to nourish the
politics and the self-proclaimed universality of altermodernity.¶
global flow of decoloniality towards a transmodern and pluriversal world. They confront and traverse
the divide of the colonial and imperial difference invented and controlled by modernity, dismantling
it, and working towards “living in harmony and in plenitude” in a variety of languages and decolonial histories. The worlds emerging with decolonial and
transmodern political societies have art and aesthetics as a fundamental source.
177
Alternative – Decolonial Love
Alt: The alternative is a decolonial love that functions as a poetic mode of

expression which ruptures our world to create another. This world is
inaccessible to speech or academic criticism, and creates endless possibilities for
revolution.
Sandoval and Davis 10 [Chela Sandoval, associate professor of Chicana studies, and Angela Davis,
political activist, Methodology of the Oppressed Theory Out of Bounds vol. 18]
Differential consciousness is linked to whatever is not expressible through words. It is¶ accessed through
poetic modes of expression: gestures, music, images, sounds, words¶ that plummet or rise through
signification to find some void — some no-place — to¶ claim their due. This mode of consciousness both
inspires and depends on differential social movement and the methodology of the oppressed and its
differential technologies, yet it functions outside speech, outside academic criticism , in spite of all¶ attempts to pursue
and identify its place and origin. In seeking to describe it, Barthes¶ wrote toward the end of his life that this mode of differential consciousness
“can¶ only be reached” by human thought through an unconformable and “intractable”¶ passage — not through any “synthesizing term” — but
rather through another kind¶ of “eccentric,” and “extraordinary term.”¶ 1¶ This book has demonstrated that this¶ “eccentric” passage toward
“differential consciousness” is designed in a multiplicity¶ of forms, from revolt to religious experience, from rasquache¶ 2¶ to punk, from
technical¶ achievements like the methodology of the oppressed, to Saussure’s sign reading alone;¶ it is a conduit brought about by any system
of signification capable of evoking and¶ puncturing through to another site, to that of differential consciousness. ¶ According to the Barthes of
Incidents, The Pleasure of the Text, or¶ A Lover’s Discourse,¶ 3¶ that term, puncture, passage, or conduit can be provided by the¶ process of
“falling in love.” Third world writers such as Guevara, Fanon, Anzaldúa,¶ Emma Pérez, Trinh Minh-ha, or Cherríe Moraga, to name only a few,
similarly¶ understand love as a “breaking” through whatever controls in order to find “understanding
and community”: it is described as “hope” and “faith” in the potential¶ goodness of some promised land; it is defined
as Anzaldúa’s coatlicue state, which is a¶ “rupturing” in one’s everyday world that permits crossing over to
another; or as a¶ specific moment of shock, what Emma Pérez envisions as the trauma of desire, of¶ erotic despair.¶ 4¶ These writers who
theorize social change understand “ love” as a¶ hermeneutic, as a set of practices and procedures that can transit all citizen-
subjects,¶ regardless of social class, toward a differential mode of consciousness and its
accompanying technologies of method and social movement. ¶ Toward the end of his life, Barthes was able to provide
written¶ descriptions of the passionate, artful, and even unspoken elements of this mode of¶ consciousness, using the example of love.
Centering his discussion on language itself,¶ Barthes points out that what we often detect in the shadow of our lover’s speech is¶ that which is
“unreal,” which is to say, meaning when it is unruly, willful, anarchic¶ (90). The
language of lovers can puncture through the
everyday narratives that tie¶ us to social time and space, to the descriptions, recitals, and plots that
dull and order our senses insofar as such social narratives are tied to the law. The act of¶ falling in love can
thus function as a “punctum,” that which breaks through social¶ narratives to permit a bleeding, meanings unanchored
and moving away from their¶ traditional moorings — in what, Barthes writes, brings about a “gentle hemorrhage”¶ of being (12). That is why,
for Barthes, this form of romantic love, combined with¶ risk and courage, can make anything possible. In A Lover’s Discourse Barthes extends¶
his definitions of the “third,”¶ 5¶ “zero” (19), and “obtuse” (222) meanings — all terms¶ that reach toward the same differential place of
possibility without which no other¶ meaning can find its own life. It is love that can
access and guide our theoretical and¶
political “movidas” — revolutionary maneuvers toward decolonized being. Indeed,¶ Barthes thinks that access
to the spectrum from which consciousness-in-resistance¶ emanates might best materialize in a
moment of “hypnosis ,” like that which occurs¶ when one is first overwhelmed or engulfed by love (11).
178
Alternative – Decolonization
Decolonization and liberation require a ceaseless struggle to uncover the subjugated histories of Latin
America violently erased by the affirmative—vote negative to use our historical investigation as a
resource for a future imagined otherwise free from domination.
Diaz and Mendieta 2011 (Ada and Eduardo, was professor emerita of ethics and theology at Drew
University in Madison, New Jersey. As a Hispanic theologian, she was an innovator of Hispanic theology
in general and specifically of "mujerista theology". She was founder and co-director of the Hispanic
Institute of Theology at Drew University; Professor and Department Chair in Philosophy at Stony Brook,
Decolonizing Epistemologies, p. 5)
The essays in this book are at the intersection of two axes: liberation epistemology and decolonizing epistemology. Liberation
epistemology, born from the struggles of oppressed peoples all over the world, emerged originally in Latin
America, the roots of Latinas/os living in the United States. The centrality of comunidades de base -base communities-in this movement and
the insistence on the richness of popular religion that is fed by Amerindian, African, and European beliefs clearly indicate that the
experiences and understandings of grassroots people are the source and locus of liberating Latina/ o
subjugated knowledge. The decolonizing axis, a more recently developed one, emerged as a
response/reaction to the way that over the last half a century most theories have synergistically
conspired to exclude the non-West, the non-Male, the non-White, and the non-European, which means the
rivile · of European Anglo-¶ decolonizing axis points to how a group of Latina/o scholars has challenged the way Latinas / os have been
written off the epistemic geopolitical maps produced by the West-Europe and now the United States.¶
Latinas/os are not postcolonial subjects the way that Indians or South¶ Africans are postcolonial subjects. Nor are we imperial subjects, in the¶
way one can say that the Spaniards, the French, and the British are impe-¶ r:ial subject;§. Latina/
o political and cultural
identities have been forged in¶ the cauldron of struggles to resist postimperialism (after Spain, Portugal,¶
England, France) and neoimperialism (U.S.). Latinas/os are not national¶ subjects of one given nation, for we occupy at the same time
different¶ national imaginaries and have plural allegiances; nor are we postnationals, for most of us are U.S. citizens, and our Latina/o identities
are forged..¶ in and are part of the United States. All
of these forces, political vectors, spaces of belonging, sites of
dispossession, claimed interstices, erased memories, and hushed stories have been theorized under a
group of terms that aim to reorient the way we approach knowledge production. At the center of this
new epistemic matrix is an understanding of our "coloniality/neocoloniality," which we live in the street~ of
New York, Miami, Chicago, an:d San Francisco and in the agricultural fields of Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and California. We are the
children of a West, a Europe, and a United States, whose lies about themselves refuse and negate our
histories. To survive and flourish we have to decolonize ourselves . Our confrontation with the
"coloniality of power," to use Anibal Quijano's generative expression, requires a relentless and ceaseless struggle to
value our past as our peoples experienced it and not as the West has written it. Our past is part of our
present, as it continues to frame what becomes actuality from a horizon of possibilities. Our
decolonizing enterprise to free subjugated knowledges is a creative process that works at uncovering
how to determine, from our own Latina/o perspectives, horizons of possibility and knowability. Both
axes - liberation and decolonization – focus their knowing gaze on the ignored histories of Latinas/os;¶
they also embody archaeologies and genealogies that deliberately explore "sites of exception,
fracture, dehumanization, and liminality" (Nelson Maldonado-Torres).
179
Alternative – Decolonization of Knowledge
Current modes of knowledge production – economic, historic, and philosophical – are

flawed reflections of the desires of the Eurocentric center. We must decolonize
knowledge by starting from the historical truths and perspectives of the region.
¶ Recognition of ‘otherness’ brings us to understanding that global¶ ¶ inclusion should not eliminate the
particularities of every local reality¶ ¶ 180180180180180(Clegg et al., 1999; Radhakishnan, 1994). Even if globalization seems to¶ ¶ mean the elimination of differences, there is
evidence everywhere that¶ ¶ indicates that these differences remain and multiply (e.g. Appadurai,¶ ¶ 1990). Therefore, it is necessary to analyse organizational
problems in¶ ¶ Latin America from its exteriority; that is, to see ourselves as colonized¶ ¶ nations
searching for our own identity by means of re-cognition of our¶ ¶ local forms of organization and
management, and by recovering cognitive¶ ¶ forms so deeply rooted in our countries.¶ ¶ Third, no matter
how difficult it might be, Latin America, as well as¶ ¶ other regions of the world that have endured
colonization, must provincialize Europe (and consequently the United States). This must be done¶ ¶ in
order to come to terms with the fact that the world is both Anglo-EuroCentric Modernity and
Otherness (Dussel and Ibarra-Colado, 2006),¶ ¶ which recognizes the importance of geopolitical space in the construction
of our identities and our different forms of being. This concerns not¶ ¶ only economic and social
differences; it is related above all to epistemic¶ ¶ differences. Hence, what is under dispute is our
capacity for intellectual¶ ¶ autonomy and our capacity for seeing with our own eyes and thinking in¶ ¶
our own languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Nahuatl, Aimara, Zapotec,¶ ¶ Quechua or Mapuche), even though sometimes we must write in
English.¶ ¶ As Dussel points out: ‘To be born in the North Pole or in Chiapas is not¶ ¶ the same thing as
to be born in New York City’ (Dussel, 2003: 2).¶ ¶ When we consider the problems of our countries through the
eyes of¶ ¶ the Centre, what we are doing is accepting unreflectively the problems¶ ¶ of the Centre in its
effort to submit and dominate the region. Thus, we see¶ ¶ the Centre’s constant effort to impose on us
its idea of modernization as¶ ¶ the only available option, but just as with any sort of loan, the interest¶ ¶
rates have always been enormous. This useless dependency on the¶ ¶ knowledge of the Centre (useless because
the problems modernization set¶ ¶ out to resolve are still with us, and aggravated) emphasizes the urgency of¶ ¶ moving from translation and
imitation to original creation as emancipated creation. Only then will we be able to break our silence
and start a¶ ¶ real transformation.¶ ¶ A different organizational knowledge is needed, constructed from
the¶ ¶ perspective of ‘otherness’. It must be original insofar as it relates to its¶ ¶ origins and is not the
result of translation, imitation or falsification. It¶ ¶ must analyse the organizational realities of Latin
America from the¶ ¶ standpoint of the specific history of its economic and political formation¶ ¶ and
from its vast cultural heritage. These realities function under modes¶ ¶ of rationality that differ
significantly from the instrumental mode of the¶ ¶ Centre. These are, in short, the orienting ideas of this meditation, which¶ ¶ I develop in following three
sections: The first one establishes the main¶ ¶ characteristic of the development of Organization Studies in
Latin¶ ¶ America as its tendency towards falsification and imitation of the knowledge generated in the
Centre. The second section recognizes the role 180180180180played by the term ‘organization’ as an
artifice that facilitates the comparison of different realities through their structural variables, but also¶
¶ the inability of this term to recognize any reality that escapes instrumental rationality and the logic
of the market. It also articulates the¶ ¶ increasing importance of such concepts in the context of neo-
180
liberalism.¶ ¶ The third section concludes by renewing the urgency of appreciating the¶ ¶ organizational
problems of Latin America from the outside by proposing¶ ¶ a preliminary research agenda built from
original approaches that¶ ¶ recognize otherness.181
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Alternative—Death of American Man

The alternative is the DEATH OF THE AMERICAN MAN – this is an epistemological and
semiotic struggle which deflates the enthno-class of Man
Maldonado Torres 2005 [Nelson, professor at Rutgers, “Decolonization and the New Identitarian Logics after September 11,” Radical
Philosophy Review 8, n. 1 (2005): 35-67]
Inspired by these Fanonian insights l have articulated elsewhere the idea of a weak utopian project as bringing about the Death of European
Man.67 I think that the peculiar intricacies between "estadounidense" patriotism, Eurocentrism, the propensity to war, and the continued
Today, after the post- 1989
subordination of the theoretical contributions of peoples from the south call for a reformulation of this idea.68
we shall call more directly simply for the Death of American Man.6 By
and post-September 11 patriotism
American Man I mean a concept or figure, a particular way of being-in-the-world, the very subject of
an episteme that gives continuity to an imperial order of things under the rubrics of liberty and the
idea of a Manifest Destiny that needs to be accomplished. American Man and its predecessor and still companion
European Man are unified under an even more abstract concept, Imperial Man. Imperial gestures and types of behavior are certainly not
unique to Europe or "America." A radical critique and denunciation of Latin American Man, and of ethno-class
continental Man in general, is what 1 aim at in my critique. "Man," here, refers to an ideal of
humanity, and not to concrete human beings. It is that ideal which must die in order for the human to
be born. ¶ It should be clear that what I call for and defend here is epistemological and semiotic struggle, which
takes the form of critical analysis and the invention and shar-ing of ideas that allow humans to preserve their humanity. A subversive act
is that which helps us to deflate imperial and continental concepts of Man, such as referring to "Americans" in a
way that designates their own particular provinciality rather than by a concept through which they appropriate the whole extent of the so-
called "New World." Popular culture in the u_s. has picked up on many Spanish words and phrases (such as "Ay Caramba,.. "Hasta Ia vista,
baby," and several others), but "" has failed to adopt the central one (perhaps because Latin@s have not insisted on it enough):
"estadounidense." "Estadounidense"
is one of the most important words that U.S. Americans learn from
Spanish. It could be considered one of the most precious gifts (not an imperial but a decolonial one )
from Spanish and Hispanic culture to the Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture that Huntington reifies and s e e k s to protect. As I have argued
elsewhere, unfortunately, reception of gifts and hospitality are two fundamental modes of humanity that those who occupy and assume the
position of Master most resist. Indeed, the reception or resistance of decolonizing gifts provides a measure of the
presence of coloniality.¶ Before being a challenge, Latin@s in this country have been colonized and racialized
subjects as well as collaborators in different forms of racialization. Many Latin@s, especially conservative ones,
desire the American and Americano Dream- most often they desire it until they realize that it turns
into a nightmare, both for others and for themselves. While the culturalist-nationalist response to the Americana Dream consists in
taking away the possibility of dreaming this dream in Spanish, a decolonial response rather abandons the very idea of
the American or Americana Dream and offers as a gift the possibility for the Anglo-Saxon U . S .
American to dream the "estadounidense" dream-a dream that does not have anything to do about
speaking one language or another, but about learning from others basic ideas about how to conceive
of oneself, in this case, to see oneself as a nation-in-relation rather than as a continental being.71
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Alternative – Differend
The alternative is to affirm Latin America as a differend –an impossibility in

terms of lineages, ordered progress, or a historical line of development. To
affirm the series of discontinuities, the life, bodies, and vital existences which
cannot be subsumed within rationalism
(2012) 229–250 | DOI: 10.1163/156916412X651210]
Quijano’s analysis brings forth the dark or underside of modernity through a historical materialist analysis that at the same time leaves no another possibility for
thought than the construction of another intersubjectivity and reality founded on an analogous rational, historical moment of progress. As I said above, there does
not seem to be possible an outside for a thought liberated from Western Modern instrumental rationalism. However, this point goes beyond Quijano’s own
intentions in his analysis. This is because in
recognizing the coloniality of power and knowledge as that which is a
constitutive element of Western modernity, Quijano exposes neither an outside nor an inside but
modernity in its movement. In light of the racist and temporal prejudice that characterizes Western
modernity, the question is not how and whether the other will speak or be heard. The crucial point is
not even that oppression, exclusion, and violence are definitive elements of modernity. These are aspects that
without doubt situate it in its distinct occurrences. The issue is that Quijano’s analysis puts into question the very elements that sustain his critique: historical
materialism, critique, and rationalism in its ever unfolding dialectic of theories about how and when the other is excluded, and how the negative may be recovered
in a positive sense. In short, the exposure of the prejudice that organizes existence in terms of the coloniality of power and knowledge exposes Western modernity
to its self-deconstructing movement by showing the undoing of the dialectical promise of an unfolding of reason and its ever-servile negativity. The very
existence of the excluded and oppressed is not just that, negativity, but those lives, lineages,
practices, languages, and expression discarded by modernity expose ways of being not created by
Western rationalism and not available for systematic calculation, manipulation, transformation, or
even rationalist critical “salvation.” Latin America is the difference that cannot be subsumed, and that
at the same time, marks the impossibility of the project of modernity. To say it in other words, Latin America as
well as the very history of colonialism, as they become apparent through Quijano’s analysis, are the explicit configurations of
the inoperative aspect of the Western Modern project. Neither outside nor inside modernity, in a
movement that will slip from reason, progress, and history, the Americas will continue to undo
modernity. These inoperative movements will play out modernity’s hopes and unreason since the inception of the land and peoples of the new world into
history, and this even before the movement becomes a narrative of Modern belated and failed progress under the impossibly ambiguous name “America.”38 Thus,
Western modernity does not determine the Americas, but the Americas mark the impossibility of the
accomplishment of rationalism and modernity as articulations of humanity and freedom. This occurs with the ever-failing
attempts of modernity to give rational and theoretical form to human freedom, a failure that becomes explicit once one takes seriously the inseparability of the
coloniality of power and knowledge and the project of the enlightenment. The
Americas mark the failure by slipping, mixing,
reinscribing, undoing the time, space, and narrative of Modern dialectical thought. Latin America, as the
name indicates, is neither outside nor inside, it is never on par in time or geographically coherent; it is
impossible in terms of pure lineages, ordered traceable progress, or the historical line of Western
development . . . and yet this series of discontinuities marks the concrete movement of modernity from
below. One may reconsider at this point the critical dichotomy between deconstruction and critique, in which historical dialectical critique appears as the
practical socio-political call of philosophical thought to its real context and responds with the positive configuration of theories, institutions, and ultimately the
recognition of the other; while deconstruction appears as a weak internal Western critique that in its exposure and undoing of the power dynamics and neuroses
behind Western narrative and the rational subject, ends up failing to produce a positive account of the other and his/her/their reality and agency. Such division is
not sufficient here if one engages the underside of modernity. On the one hand, as we have seen from looking at Quijano’s analysis, critique without deconstruction
remains always under the attraction of the affirmation of the positivist project of progress and of the temporal prejudice of modernity. On the other hand,
deconstruction, if limited to a strategy that plays out the undoing of Western onto-theology and the history of metaphysics and the rational subject, remains a blind
attempt to undo what remains untouched, since it is the racial temporal prejudice of the coloniality of power and knowledge that sustains Western thought,
including deconstruction within and from a Western perspective. As we will see now, instead
of remaining within this theoretical
Western divide, Latin America appears from radical exteriority as a severe interruption: as the trace
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that decenters and plays out Western thought, that exposes rationalist critique, while facing
modernity with five hundred years of narratives and concrete lives that articulate distinct ways and
senses of beings. When one looks closer at Quijano’s genealogy, at crucial moments one finds elements at play
that do not fit into the rationalist, materialist, historical analysis. If one engages them, if one enters the discussion again
with their sound in mind, the analysis shifts towards unexpected spaces, not subsumed by instrumental rationalism, by
the enlightenment’s rationalist project in its guises of subjectivity, history, and humanism. Quijano’s
genealogy recognizes the origin of the egocentrism that situates European thought at the apogee and center of all existence in the ego conquero. It is by virtue of
the irrational repetition of practices that a form of rationality takes its place as the ego cogito. To say it in terms of Walter Benjamin’s analysis of Western culture,
history acquires its direction and Westernized meaning by virtue of the pilling up of bodies, of
massacres, death, exclusion, and a fundamental violence against modalities and configurations of
senses of life.39 It is by discarding life that history takes its course and price. While Quijano’s analysis makes it possible to see the mechanism of power and
knowledge behind history, the life of the oppressed remains the differend, the life that is not history and yet
under historical dialectic rationalism.40 With the coloniality of power and knowledge, one uncovers
that there is another side of modernity; there is life, bodies, and distinct vital existences. This is the
realm of human experience, that is, living experience, the flesh and breath of the excluded, the source
that is a life calling for its own distinct articulation from outside the Western engine of rationalist historical
progress. This life is not some inarticulate noise or a muddled formless nature that awaits rational
determination. For more than five hundred years in Latin America, thought has been occurring that is
distinct from Western rationalism. Not irrational mysticism but thoughtful articulations of existence.
This is the thought that awaits beyond and towards philosophy today. These lives do not fit Quijano’s analysis, and therefore he must assign them ambiguous
places: first, in the “mythical” realm of Garcia Márquez; second, in the utopian project of an intersubjectivity that appears as the result of a dialectic that once again
leaves nothing outside of the system of production and progress under a new but still historical materialist project. The fate of critique is critique, rationalism, and
under this way of thinking, the fate of life is the system, i.e., a system under which life by necessity unfolds according to the requirements of instrumental
rationalism, produced, ordered, and at the next stage of progress. But how would one engage in thought if not through critique?
I close with just one indication: Neither the ego conquero nor the indigenous belong to or fit within the historical rationalism that sustains Quijano’s analysis. Is one
really to believe that the existence of the mapuche (literally people of the earth) with their lineages, practices, traditions, are the product of Western Modern
instrumental rationalism today? Which normative critique would begin from the concept of pachamama,41 and what would occur to that sense of existence when
turned towards a historical materialist project? One
could follow this unsettling impossibility of making sense of the
advent of modernity with a question concerning the construction of the body over against the
rational, a body which must be forged in light of the destruction of lives, that is, as a way of
adjudicating a place to violence within the domain of the rational. But this would answer to a need
itself obsessive, a need to clean up and conceal what cannot be subsumed, saved, said, in the name of
a progress that by now in our discussion is already undone by its exposed secret underside. As in the case of
the mapuche and pachamama, in these limits one finds a margin not of Western philosophy. As we just have seen, within the discourse of Western Modern thought
as well as within the discourses that will be generated by a critical thought like Quijano’s, one
finds a radical un-inscribable alterity and
one’s thought exposed to alterity: that is, exposed to the incompleteness internal to the critique,
exposed to that which may perhaps best be engaged in silence and listening, in finding oneself as one
is put into question by proximity to another that may refute critique as useless. This occurs in being
set back, in having the progress of history stopped by what remains vital, adrift, and tacitly
challenging as a being in radical exteriority, an unbridled reality that may liberate/transfigure “us,”
rather than being the occasion for further covering over or leaving to oblivion through critical
discourses and new theories towards liberating and including the other with its working negativity. We
are speaking of an unbridled reality, una realidad desmesurada (to use Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s fitting term to introduce Latin American reality in his Nobel Prize
speech of 1982), which figures an unbridled anachronism. In the poetry and thought of the Nahuas or Aztecs, one of the gifts of the one who has knowledge of what
is, the tlamantini, is a scepter with a mirror that faces us but has a perforation at the center through which, from behind the mirror, the tlamantini sees us. Perhaps,
it is the gaze of the tlamantini that situates Western thought in light of coloniality and at the beginning of thinking.42 To which race does Western philosophy and
its underside belong if not to that of a humanity condemned to its blind progresses under the coloniality of knowledge and power, which spreads underneath the
history of Western thought and its dialectic perpetuation? With this question we have moved from the affirmation of a racial divide and its social and political
origins and implications, and from the affirmation of the other that misses missing the other to engaging the very question of the limit and possibility of philosophy
and the senses of human knowledge and discourses of freedom.
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Alternative – Epistemic Coyotismo
The alt is Epistemic Coyotismo – to introduce radical thought in spaces like

debate
One of the most effective ways to work against epistemic racism is through what Nelson Maldonado-Torres has called
‘epistemic coyotismo.’ Epistemic coyotismo consists of introducing “theories and ideas that are banned or excluded from
the halls of academia into the universities and formal centers of learning ” (2006:16). In my experience, the
introduction of theories and ideas otherwise banned is especially fruit- ful for students who, at the same time, often take those theories beyond the specific class or
project in which they have learned about them. This means that the
theories and ideas can to some extent infiltrate academia from
below: the students will for example present an essay on another issue, which brings to the fore some
of these otherwise excluded theories. In this manner other faculty will start recognizing, if not necessarily
acknowledging, them. When introducing such theories to students, I have found it useful to add to the introduction a word of warning: they must know what
kind of invalidating strategies they will encounter when using these other theories, such as the strategies of epistemic racism that I listed previously. This helps to
prepare the students for countering these strategies by addressing them in advance. In my experience, the
fact that the list of strategies of
“invisibilization,” or epistemic racism, presented in the previous section, is not an expression of the teacher’s paranoia, but a realistic
description of some of the mechanisms at work today in their own university, often surprises them. However,
epistemic coyotismo pursued only at this level does not suffice. There is a need to promote destabilising spaces of debate that
move beyond the classroom level and are aimed at unsettling the mechanisms of epistemic racism. At the same time, there is a strong
need to address the ways in which the coloniality of knowledge manifests itself. By mapping and
addressing the global articulations of power, the dismantling of the same becomes a realistic
possibility. We know that there is a strong resistance towards these hegemonic articulations of power—most powerfully among social and ethnic
movements in the South. To some extent, this resistance is also at play within the university sector in the South. In the North, it is still very weak.10 As mentioned,
the university in the North is strongly attached to the triangle of coloniality and, indeed, works as a powerful weapon of global apartheid. As such, that is, as a
weapon, it needs to be dismantled. Therefore, epistemic coyotismo in the North must necessarily be articulated with the epistemic resistance (and coyotismo) in
the South. To start dissolving the power of the transnational elites, they need to be countered transnationally. Indeed, whether we like it or not, epistemic coyotes
are, leaving aside our very different geo-body- politics, very often members of the transnational elites. We might find ourselves in precarious conditions and
marginal positions within the university, and probably most of us embody that ‘incorporated dissent’ that is tolerated as long as it does not constitute a serious
threat. Neverthe- less, we are (peripherally) part of the global elites. This means that however negative the picture of coloniality is, and however persistent global
apartheid remains, we have some margin for maneuvre that must be exploited to the greatest extent. As Castro-Gómez (2007:80) has argued, ... even within the
University new paradigms of thought and organization are being incorporated, [paradigms] that could help break the trap of [the] modern/colonial triangle,
though still very precari- ously. I refer specifically to trans-
disciplinarity and complex thought as emerging models from
which we could begin to build bridges towards a transcultural dialogue of knowledges (my translation). In this
respect, strategic alliances between ‘epistemic coyotes’ and critical members of the transnational elites (potential epistemic coyotes) must not be discarded
insofar as they provide important fields of action and improve the possibilities of achieving access to funding. In any case, efforts at decolonizing the university
in Denmark must necessarily aim to foster ‘encounters’ between different epistemologies. Furthermore, as we know,
decolonization requires a
change in the subject (Maldonado-Torres, 2008; Gordon, 2004). My bet is that, at this initial point, in Denmark this change must be
fomented through these encounters—hopefully direct ones, as in seminars, courses, and other such
forums.
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Alternative – Epistemic disobedience

The alternative is epistemic disobedience - shifting geographic reasoning and
engaging within knowledge production creates a politics of identity—lack of
epistemic identity retrenches dominant structures that view the “other” as an
exploitable object separate from the subject of humanity
Mignolo 2011, (Walter, Prof at Duke University, “THE DARKER SIDE OF WESTERN MODERNITY: Global Futures, Decolonial Options”,
2011, 6/28/13|Ashwin)
The remarkable breakthrough, then, comes when a Maori becomes an anthropologist and practices anthropology
as a Maori, rather than studying the Maori as an anthropologist. Epistemic disobedience and delinking
are, in this case, two sides of the same coin. Let me explain this idea further by starting with a quotation from Linda T. Smith's
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (1999). One section of the first chapter is subtitled "On Being Human."¶ One
of the supposed characteristics of primitive peoples was that we could not use our minds or intellects.
We could not invent things, we could not create institutions or history, we could not imagine, we could not produce anything
of value, we did not know how to use land and other resources from the natural world, we did not practice the "arts" of civilization. By
lacking such values we disqualified ourselves, not just from civilization but also from humanity itself. In
other words, we were not "fully human"; some of us were not even considered partially human. Ideas
about what counted as human in association with the power to define people as human or not human
were already encoded in imperial and colonial discourses prior to the period of imperialism covered here."¶ No, Smith is
not still practicing Western anthropology: she is precisely shifting the geography of reasoning and subsuming
anthropological tools into Maori (instead of Western) cosmology and ideology. China is a capitalist country, but
one couldn't say that China is "practicing Western, neoliberal capitalism, unless we accept the principle that the
type of economy that liberals and Marxists describe as capitalism can only be run under neoliberal premises. I suspect it would be a narrow
Eurocentered perspective,¶ and an insult for Chinese leaders, that would describe the Chinese economy as neo-liberal. Certainly, there is a self-
serving interest in Smith's move, as¶ much as there is a self-serving interest among European anthropologists observing the Maori. The only
difference is that the self-interests do not always coincide, and Maoris are no longer amenable to being the
objects observed by European anthropologists. Well, you get the idea of the inter- relations between the
politics of identity and epistemology, which becomes identity in politics, including academic and
disciplinary politics. You could certainly be a Maori and an anthropologist, and, by being an anthropologist, suppress the fact that you
are Maori or black Caribbean or Aymara. Or, you can choose the decolonial option: engage in knowledge-making to "advance"
the Maori cause, rather than to "advance" the discipline (e.g., anthropology). Why would someone be interested in
merely advancing the discipline if not for either alienation or self-interest?¶ If you engage in decolonial thinking, and
therefore engage the decolonial options, and put anthropology "at your service," like Smith does,
then you engage in shifting the geography of reason, by unveiling and enacting geopolitics and body-politics of knowledge.
You can also say that there are non-Maori anthropologists of Euro-American descent who truly support and are concerned with the
mistreatment of Maoris, and that they are really working to remedy the situation. In that case, the anthropologists could follow two different
paths. One path will be in line with that of Father Barto- lome de las Casas and with Marxism (Marxism being a European invention responding
to European problems). When Marxism encounters "people of color; men or women, the situation becomes parallel to anthropology: being
Maori (or Aymara, or Afro-Caribbean like Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon) is not necessarily in smooth relation with Marxism, because of the
privileged class relations over racial hierarchies and patriarchal and hetero-¶ sexual normativity. The other path will be to "submit" to the
guidance of Maori or Aymara anthropologists and engage, with them, in the decolonial option. Politics
of identity is different
from identity politics—the former is open to whoever wants to join, while the second tends to be
enclosed by the definition of a given identity.¶ I am not saying that a Maori anthropologist has epistemic privileges over a
New Zealand anthropologist of Anglo descent (or a British or U.S. anthropologist). I am saying that a New Zealand anthropologist of Anglo
descent has no right to guide the "locals" in what is good or bad for the Maori population. The decolonial and the anthropological are two
distinct options. The 138¶ Chapter Three¶ It Is "Our" Modernity 139¶ former puts disciplinary tools at the service of the problem being
addressed. The latter tends to put the problem at the service of the discipline. That is precisely the naturalization of modernity that is taken for
granted, and that appears as the concept of knowledge in the report of the Harvard Inter- national Review, wherein a group of U.S. experts
expressed the belief that they can really decide what is good and what is bad for "developing countries:' Granted, there
are many
locals in developing countries who, because of imperial and capitalist cosmology, were led to believe
186
(or pretended they believed, or found it convenient to endorse) that

what is good for developed countries is good for
underdeveloped countries as well, because the former know "how to get there" and can lead the way for underdeveloped
countries trying to reach the same level. I am just saying, following Wiredu's dictum¶ ("African, know thyself"), that there is a good chance that
Maoris would know better what is good or bad for themselves than would an expert from Harvard or a white anthropologist from New Zealand.
And there is also a good chance that an expert from Harvard may "know" what is good for himself or herself and his or her people, even when
he or she thinks that he or she is stating what is good for "thern:' that is, the underdeveloped countries and people. If you are getting
the
idea of what shifting the geography of reason and enacting the geopolitics of knowledge means, you
will also begin understanding what decolonial option (in general) or decolonial options (in each particular and local
history) means. It means, in the first place, to engage in epistemic disobedience, as it is clear in the three examples I offered.
Epistemic disobedience is necessary to take on civil disobedience (Gandhi, Martin Luther King) to its point of no
return. Civil disobedience, within modern Western epistemology (and remember: Greek and Latin, and six vernacular
European modern and imperial languages), could only lead to reforms, not to transformations. For this simple reason, the
task of decolonial thinking and the enactment of the decolonial option in the twenty-first century starts from epistemic delinking: from acts of
epistemic disobedience
187
Alternative – Indegenism
Indigenism criticizes hegemonic political structures WITHOUT collapsing the

world under the norms of an “ideological umbrella”--for this reason, indigenism
should be considered the only paradigm in which to deconstruct coloniality – as
opposed to things like Marxism and Liberalism which make inclusive,
universalizing assumptions about the future
Wallace 12 (Robert A., M.A. from Marshall University, “DECOLONIZING THE MIND:¶ A COMPARATIVE
APPROACH TO INDIGENOUS¶ MOVEMENTS AND GLOBALIZATION”, December,
http://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1416&context=etd)
To this point indigenism has been described mainly as a critique of the dominant modes of¶
sociopolitical organization inherent to the modern world. Although both Marxist and Liberal¶
paradigms also originated as critiques of the hegemonic political orders of their respective eras,¶ they
inevitably put forth their own plans for radical social transformation . The normative¶ societal
blueprints described by both Liberals and Marxists were similar in that they contained inclusive
universalizing assumptions about the future of humanity. Future Marxist and liberal¶ polities will
purportedly incorporate all of humanity into their respective normative regimes.¶ Each predicts an
increasing degree of homogenization as their assumptions and ideologies are¶ disseminated across
the non-Western world. Both paradigms are considered¶ universalizing/inclusive because each sought
to subsume the entirety of humanity under its¶ respective ideological umbrella.¶ North American
indigenism, too, offers its own vision of a radically-redefined sociopolitical¶ world order. However,
whereas Liberalism and Marxism promote a universalizing/inclusive¶ normative regime, indigenism
advocates one which is universalizing/exclusive. The implication¶ is that, although indigenism promotes
a set of values and assumptions which would reconfigure¶ the global system, the resulting normative
regime would not impose itself onto non-Indians. Put¶ differently, once the system of colonial relations
has been deconstructed and indigenous peoples¶ have secured land and autonomy, they would not
seek to impose their own values or political¶ order upon the non-indigenous peoples of the world.
This distinction is the most critical¶ between Western paradigms and the indigenist paradigm. Differing
assumptions and attitudes¶ about nature and citizenship are much less problematic if they are formed
in a context of mutual¶ respect and cultural heterogeneity.¶ The remainder of this section will detail
the North American indigenist plan for a postcolonial¶ indigenous polity. The indigenist system is
predicated on four distinct socio-technical¶ concepts: soft-path technology, deep ecology, green
anarchism, and global balkanization. Each¶ of these conceptual categories plays a specific role in the
overall function and organization of the¶ indigenist polity. Taken Furthermore, each concept reflects
the underlying assumptions which support the indigenist paradigm. Taken together, these four
components constitute an old form¶ of indigenous socialism which Marx referred to as “primitive
communism” (Churchill 2003c,¶ 279). Following my description of this indigenist polity I will summarize
these assumptions in¶ the same format as those of Marxism and Liberalism in Chapter II…The North
American indigenist literature provides a compelling conceptual platform from¶ which to frame a new
paradigm. Not only does it incorporate the underlying themes of Latin¶ American “indigenisms,” it
establishes an entire theoretical/normative worldview which¶ carefully balances critique with praxis.
The assumptions inherent to an indigenist paradigm¶ would provide a valuable interpretive tool for
Western social scientists. This qualifier does not¶ mean that one must accept these assumptions as
188
fact, only that they must be fully considered¶ when analyzing indigenous resistance to globalization.
Earlier I demonstrated the fundamental¶ incompatibility between Western paradigmatic assumptions
and those of the indigenous world.¶ The following section will detail the assumptions of an emergent
indigenist paradigm in the same¶ format Chapter II.¶ Before moving forward I must make one final
comment about indigenist assumptions. The¶ assumptions inherent to the indigenist paradigm are not
merely the product of a theoretical¶ “brainstorming exercise.” They are wholly derived from indigenous
contexts and thus cannot be¶ considered “imperial impositions” in the vein of Marxist or liberal
assumptions about humanity¶ and political life (Churchill 2003c). Furthermore:¶ [Indigenism means
that] I am one who not only takes the rights of indigenous peoples as¶ the highest priority of my political
life, but who draws upon the traditions- the bodies of¶ knowledge and corresponding codes of values-
evolved over many thousands of years by¶ native peoples the world over (emphasis added). This is the
basis upon which I not only¶ advance critiques of, but conceptualize alternatives to (emphasis original)
the present¶ social, economic, and philosophical status quo. (Churchill 2003c, 275)¶ This distinction is
important because it fulfills the normative requirement that a paradigm for¶ indigenous studies be the
product of native, not external, thought. Examining the genealogical¶ purity of North American
indigenism would be a considerable undertaking, and there is at¶ present no reason to question its
epistemological credibility. Therefore it can be assumed that the indigenist paradigm is not a “colonial
imposition.”
189
Alternative – Mind Key
Eurocentric society is built on the oppression of indigenous people— fighting

coloniality must happen at the level of mind and subjectivity
Spirit, & Resistance Movement, “Colonization and Decolonization: A Manual for Indigenous Liberation
in the 21st Century” 2011)
The structure of European society is, by its very nature, a system of¶ oppression & control. It is
organized in a pyramid structure, with a small elite at¶ the top and the masses of people at the
bottom. Indigenous peoples comprise¶ the bottom layer of this pyramid, and it can be said that it is
literally built on top¶ of them (i.e., in Mexico City, the Presidential 'Palace is built on top of an Aztec¶ temple). The pyramid structure is one that reappears throughout
civilization, reflecting the oppressive relationships & ¶ patterns upon which such society's are based. The
patriarchal family unit, the government, the church, the army, the¶ corporation; all share similar
organizations of hierarchy, central authority, and control.¶ In society, one's position in this pyramid is
determined by gender, race, and economic class; the global elite are¶ overwhelmingly rich white
males. They are the descendents of the European nobility and aristocracy established after the¶
collapse ofthe Roman Empire.. Their rise to global power as a class began with the 1492 invasion ofthe Americas. This¶ class system is maintained in the interests of the rulers and is protected
by national police and military forces (including¶ courts & prisons).¶ Globally, the pyramid of power exists in the relations between nations;
the predominantly Euro-American Group of¶ Seven (the G7: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United States. With Russia it is the 08) ¶ control the international political and economic system. They are
Following the period of military invasion, and

the top ofthe pyramid. Most ofthe world's countries are¶ poor and impoverished, forming the bottom layers ofthe pyramid.
once¶ an occupation has been established, surviving Indigenous¶ populations are then subjected to
policies of assimilation. This¶ is only possible after their military defeat.¶ In many colonial situations, a first step in assimilation¶ is to contain the surviving Indigenous populations in a¶ reservation
system (Le., the South African Bantustan, or¶ reserves in North America). This is necessary to 'open up¶ territory for settlement & exploitation, while providing a basis¶ for systematic indoctrination into European society. ¶ In
many colonial situations, it is the Church and¶ missionaries who begin the process of indoctrination. A¶ common tactic is the forcible removal of children from their¶ families and communities, and their placement in Church-run¶
schools (i.e., missions, Residential or Industrial Schools, etc.). ¶ A primary target for indoctrination are chiefs or high¶ ranking families; once converted, they serve as useful¶ collaborators, able to influence their communities and
to¶ mobilize resources.¶ Along with education, all aspects of the colonial¶ society are utilized in a process of
assimilation, i.e., political,¶ economic, ideological, cultural, etc. The goal is to eradicate¶ as much of the Indigenous culture &
philosophy as possible,¶ .and to replace these with those of European civilization.¶ Assimilation is a final phase in colonization.
What distinguishes it from the previous stages of recon, invasion &¶ occupation is its primarily psychological aspects . It is not a military attack against a village, but a
psychological attack against the mind & belief system of a people .¶ As a result of assimilation polices in Canada& the US, generations of
Indigenous people have become increasingly¶ integrated into European society. Since the 1970s, more Indigenous people have become professionals (lawyers, doctors, ¶ businessmen, etc.), and more have passed through
universities or ·colleges. As a result of this increased training, band¶ councils now self-administer government policies and are more involved in business & resource exploitation that at any time ¶ in the past.¶ While this is
promoted as progress (and even 'decolonizaton'), it is actually greater assimilation into the colonial¶ society. Overall, today's generations ofIndigenous people show a greater degree ofassimilation than previous ones. Some ¶
factors that account for this are the effects ofresidential schools, decline of culture, reduced reliance on traditional ways of¶ life, greater dependence on the colonial system, increased urbanization, and ongoing exposure to
Western culture through¶ modem communications (TV, movies, music, printed material, etc.).
190
Alternative – Reject Modernity
The alt is to deny the innocence of modernity and affirm the alterity and dignity
of the other. Vote negative to unmask the true violence of the aff and adopt an
ethics of responsibility
Dussel 2k (Enrique D, professor in the Departament of Philosophy in the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), Campus
Iztapalapa in Mexico City, doctorate in philosophy in the Complutense University of Madrid and a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne of
Paris. He also has a license in theology from Paris and Münster. He has been awarded doctorates honoris causa from the University of Fribourg
in Switzerland and the Higher University of San Andrés in Bolivia; “Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism” Nepantla: Views from South, Volume
1, Issue 3, 2000, pp. 465-478)
For these reasons, if one aims at overcoming modernity, it
becomes¶ necessary to deny the denial of the myth of
modernity from an ethics of¶ responsibility .18 Thus, the other denied and victimized side of modernity¶
must first be unveiled as “innocent”: it is the “innocent victims” of ritual¶ sacrifice that in the self-
realization of their innocence cast modernity as¶ guilty of a sacrificial and conquering violence—that
is, of a constitutive,¶ originary, essential violence. By way of denying the innocence of modernity¶ and
of affirming the alterity of the other (which was previously denied),¶ it is possible to “discover” for the first
time the hidden “other side” of¶ modernity: the peripheral colonial world, the sacrificed indigenous
peoples,¶ the enslaved black, the oppressedwoman,the alienated infant, the estranged¶ popular
culture : the victims of modernity, all of them victims of an irrational¶ act that contradicts modernity’s
ideal of rationality .¶ Only when the civilizing and exculpating myths of modern violence¶ are denied
and the injustice inherent to sacrificial praxis both inside¶ and outside of Europe is recognized is it
possible to overcome the essential¶ limitation of “emancipatory reason.” This overcoming of emancipatory¶
reason as a liberating reason is possible only when both enlightened reason’s¶ Eurocentrism and the
developmentalist fallacy of the hegemonic process of¶ modernization are unmasked. It ismycontention here
that these operations¶ can still be performed from enlightened reason when one ethically discovers¶ the dignity of the
other (of the other culture, sex, or gender), when one¶ pronounces innocent the victims of modernity by
affirming their alterity¶ as identity in the exteriority. In this manner, modern reason is transcended¶ not as
denial of reason as such, but rather as denial of the violent, Eurocentric,¶ developmentalist,
hegemonic reason . What is at stake here is what¶ I have called “transmodernity,” a worldwide ethical liberation
project in¶ which alterity, which was part and parcel of modernity, would be able to¶ fulfill itself.19 The fulfillment of
modernity has nothing to do with a shift¶ from the potentialities of modernity to the actuality of European modernity.¶ Indeed, the
fulfillment of modernity would be a transcendental shift¶ where modernity and its denied alterity, its
victims, would mutually fulfill each other in a creative process. The transmodern project is the mutual¶ fulfillment of
the “analectic” solidarity of center/periphery, woman/man,¶ mankind/earth, western culture/peripheral postcolonial cultures, different¶ races,
different ethnicities, different classes. It should be noted here that¶ this
mutual fulfillment of solidarity does not take
place by pure denial but¶ rather by subsumption from alterity.20All of this implies that what is at stake here is
not a premodern¶ project that would consist of a folkloric affirmation of the past, nor is¶ it an antimodern project of the
kind put forward by conservative, rightwing,¶ populist or fascist groups. Finally, it is not only a postmodern project¶ that would deny modernity
and would critique all reason, thus falling¶ into a nihilist irrationalism or a pure affirmation of difference without¶ conmensurability. This
is a
transmodern project that would emerge by real¶ subsumption of the rational emancipatory character
of modernity and its¶ denied alterity (the other of modernity) by way of the denial of modernity’s¶ sacrificial-
mythical character (which justifies modernity’s innocence over its¶ victims and, by this token,
191
becomes irrational in a contradictory manner).¶ It is true that the culture that will subsequently produce modernity¶ formally
developed in certain medieval European cities, especially in¶ those of the Renaissance quattrocento. However, modernity only truly began¶
when the historical conditions of its real origin were met: in 1492, when¶ a real worldwide expansion took place, when the colonial world
became¶ organized and the usufruct of its victims’ lives began. Modernity really¶ began in 1492: that is my thesis. The real
overcoming
of modernity (as subsumption¶ and not merely as Hegelian Aufhebung) is then the subsumption¶ of its emancipatory,
rational, European character transcended as a worldwide¶ liberation project from its denied alterity.
Transmodernity is a new¶ liberation project with multiple dimensions: political, economic, ecological,¶
erotic, pedagogic, religious.¶
192
Alternative – Reorient
Reorienting ourselves towards a different form of thinking which is outside

hegemonic power structures is key- without a reorientation to this subaltern
thought we reinforce the epistemology of coloniality
Grosfoguel 11 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley, “Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political-Economy: Transmodernity,¶
Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality”, [http://www.dialogoglobal.com/granada/documents/Grosfoguel-Decolonizing-Pol-Econ-and-Postcolonial.pdf]
In October 1998, there was a conference/dialogue at Duke University ¶ between the South Asian Subaltern Studies Group and the Latin
American Subaltern ¶ Studies Group. The dialogue initiated at this conference eventually resulted in the ¶
publication of several issues of the journal NEPANTLA. However, this conference was ¶ the last time
the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group met before their split. ¶ Among the many reasons and
debates that produced this split, there are two that I ¶ would like to stress. The members of the Latin
American Subaltern Studies Group ¶ were primarily Latinamericanist scholars in the USA. Despite their
attempt at producing a radical and alternative knowledge, they reproduced the epistemic schema of
Area Studies in the United States. With a few exceptions, they produced ¶ studies about the subaltern rather
than studies with and from a subaltern ¶ perspective. Like the imperial epistemology of Area Studies, theory was still
located ¶ in the North while the subjects to be studied are located in the South. This colonial ¶ epistemology was crucial to
my dissatisfaction with the project. As a Latino in the ¶ United States, I was dissatisfied with the
epistemic consequences of the knowledge ¶ produced by this Latinamericanist group. They
underestimated in their work ¶ ethnic/racial perspectives coming from the region, while giving
privilege ¶ predominantly to Western thinkers. This is related to my second point: they gave ¶
epistemic privilege to what they called the “four horses of the apocalypse” (Mallon ¶ 1994; Rodríguez 2001),
that is, Foucault, Derrida, Gramsci and Guha. Among the ¶ four main thinkers they privilege, three are
Eurocentric thinkers while two of them ¶ (Derrida and Foucault) form part of the
poststructuralist/postmodern Western canon. ¶ Only one, Rinajit Guha, is a thinker thinking from the
South. By privileging Western ¶ thinkers as their central theoretical apparatus, they betrayed their
goal to produce ¶ subaltern studies. ¶ Among the many reasons for the split of the Latin American Subaltern Studies ¶
Group, one of them was between those who read subalternity as a postmodern ¶ critique (which
represents a Eurocentric critique of Eurocentrism) and those who ¶ read subalternity as a decolonial
critique (which represents a critique of Eurocentrism ¶ from subalternized and silenced knowledges)
[Mignolo 2000: 183-186; 213-214]. ¶ For those of us that took side with the decolonial critique, the dialogue with
the Latin ¶ American Subaltern Studies Group made evident the need to epistemologically ¶ transcend,
that is, decolonize the Western canon and epistemology. The South ¶ Asian Subaltern Studies Group’s
main project is a critique to Western European ¶ colonial historiography about India and to Indian nationalist
Eurocentric ¶ historiography of India. But by using a Western epistemology and privileging Gramsci ¶ and Foucault,
constrained and limited the radicalism of their critique to Eurocentrism. ¶ Although they represent different
epistemic projects, the South Asian Subaltern ¶ School privilege of Western epistemic canon overlapped with the sector of the Latin ¶ American
Subaltern Studies Group that sided with postmodernism. However, with all ¶ its limits, South
Asian Subaltern Studies Group
represents an important contribution ¶ to the critique of Eurocentrism. It forms part of an intellectual
movement known as ¶ postcolonial critique (a critique of modernity from the Global South) as
opposed to the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group postmodern critique (a critique of ¶ modernity
from the Global North) [Mignolo 2000]. These debates made clear to us ¶ (those who took side with the decolonial
critique described above), the need to ¶ decolonize not only Subaltern Studies but also Postcolonial Studies
(Grosfoguel ¶ 2006a; 2006b).
193
Alternative – Total Rejection Key
The struggle for decolonization means destroying the very category of the
colonized—only absolute rejection can lead to the recreation of indigenous
culture and the possibility of diverse modernities.
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was an African intellectual and psychologist, involved in Algeria's war for¶ independence in the 1950s. His analysis of
colonialism and its effects on colonized peoples have had a profound impact on¶ anti-colonial resistance movements around the world. For
Fanon, culture was a vital part of this resistance.¶ As noted, Indigenous culture is a primary means of
decolonization. It is both a link to our ancestral past and to¶ another way of thinking, of seeing the
world. It is the essence of our identity as Indigenous peoples and a vital part of¶ challenging colonial ideology. Yet, as Fanon and others have
observed, this culture, when not totally erased, is warped &¶ distorted by the colonial society:¶ "The
colonial situation calls a halt¶ to national culture in almost every field...¶ By the time a century or two
has passed¶ there comes about a veritable emaciation¶ [starvation, or thinning out] of the stock of¶ national
culture. It becomes a set of¶ automatic habits, some traditions of dress¶ and a few broken-down institutions. Little¶ movement can be
discerned in such¶ remnants of culture; there is no real¶ creativity and no overflowing life.· The¶ poverty ofthe people, national oppression¶
and the inhibition of culture are one and¶ the same thing. After a century ofcolonial¶ domination we fmd a culture, which is¶ rigid in the
extreme, or rather, what we¶ findare the dregs [left-overs] ofculture, its¶ mineral strata, The
withering away of the¶ reality of
the nation and the death-pangs of¶ the national culture are linked to each other¶ in mutual
dependences."¶ (Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the¶ Earth, p. 237-38).¶ Here, Fanon describes the effects¶ of colonization on culture. Its
natural¶ development, the incorporation of new¶ experiences, etc., are more or less stopped¶ at the
point of contact. In many ways, it is¶ the colonial power (or anthropologists,¶ etc.) that comes to : define what is¶
traditional and what is not. The colonized,¶ in an effort to retain traditional culture, at the same time
also stop its development and impose strict limits on interpretation¶ in an effort to retain an imagined
'purity'. While superficial aspects of culture remain, the essence & vitality o fthe culture¶ itself are lost
or minimized (think pow-wow, or consider the influences of Christianity & New Age 'spiritualism' on¶ Indigenous culture).¶ ous culture).¶
An important point Fanon makes is that a people's culture is directly linked to the physical world: the colonial ¶
occupation of a nation's territory is total, affecting everything & everyone. According to Fanon, it is the anti-
colonial¶ resistance that revitalizes the culture of the colonized:¶ "It is the fight for national existence
which sets culture moving and opens to it the doors of creation... We believe¶ that the organized
undertaking by a colonized people to re-establish the sovereignty of that nation constitutes the
most¶ complete and obvious cultural manifestation that exists . It is not alone the success of the
struggle, which afterwards gives¶ validity and vigor to culture; culture is not put into cold storage
during the conflict. The struggle itself in its development¶ and in its internal progression sends culture
along different paths and traces out entirely new ones for it. The struggle for¶ freedom does not give
back to the national culture its former value and shapes; this struggle which aims at a fundamentally
different set of relations between [people] cannot leave intact either the form or the content ofthe
people's culture. After the conflict, there is not only the disappearance of colonialism but also the
disappearance of the colonized ..."
194
Alternative – Total Rejection Key
Decolonization is a total and ongoing process—we must begin from the total
annihilation of the colonial system. Only then do ethics, culture and agency
become meaningful or possible
Decolonization is the ending of colonialism and¶ the liberation of the colonized. This requires the¶
dismantling of the colonial government and its entire¶ social system upon which control &
exploitation are¶ based. Decolonization, then, is a revolutionary struggle¶ aimed at transforming the
entire social system and reestablishing the sovereignty of tribal peoples, In political¶ terms, this
means a radical de-centralization of national¶ power (i.e., the dismantling of the nation-state) and
the¶ establishment of local autonomy (community & region,¶ traditionally the village and tribal
nation).¶ Any discussion of decolonization that does not¶ take into consideration the destruction of
the colonial¶ system & the liberation ofland & people can only lead to¶ greater assimilation &
control. The demand for greater¶ political & economic power by chiefs & councils,¶ although presented
as a form of decolonization (i.e.,¶ "self-government"), only serves to assimilate Indigenous¶ peoples
further into the colonial system.¶ Just as colonialism enters and passes through¶ various phases,
beginning first with recon missions and¶ then the application of military force, so too does¶
decolonization. It would be a mistake to conceive of¶ decolonization as a single event. Instead, it is a
process¶ that begins with individuals & small groups. The primary¶ focus in the first phase of
decolonization is on¶ .disengaging from the colonial system" and re-learning¶ one's history, culture,
etc. This phase places a heavy¶ emphasis on rejecting European society & embracing all¶ that
isIndigenous as good & positive.¶ Some common steps in this phase include¶ returning to one's
community, re-establishing family¶ relations, re-Ieaming culture (inc. art, language, songs,¶
ceremonies, hunting, fishing, etc.). This not only¶ counters the destructive effects of colonialism, but
also¶ instills in the Indigenous person a greater respect &¶ appreciation for their own culture and way
oflife. In many ways it is a struggle for identity & purpose. While this is a¶ crucial first step in any
decolonization process, without the infusion ofradical & revolutionary analysis, however, the focus¶ on
cultural identity in and of itself does not necessarily lead to anti-colonial consciousness. In fact, this
focus on 'culture'¶ alone can easily lead to conservative and even pro-colonial sentiments.
195
Alternative – Transmodernity
We advocate a multicultural transmodern world that affirms human richness

and respect
2002, pp. 221-244)
If it is true that European–North American modernity has had¶ economic and military hegemony over other cultures (Chinese, Southeast¶
Asian, Hindustani, Islamic, Bantu, Latin American [mestizo, Aymara,¶ Quechua, Maya], etc.) for only the last two hundred years—and over
Africa¶ for only a little more than one hundred years, since 1885—then this is not enough time to penetrate the “ethico-mythical nucleus” (to
borrow Paul Ricoeur’s¶ term) of the intentional cultural millenary structures. It is therefore¶ no miracle that the
consciousness of
these ignored and excluded cultures¶ is on the rise, along with the discovery of their disparaged
identities. The¶ same thing is happening with the regional cultures dominated and silenced¶ by European modernity, such as the Galician,
Catalan, Basque, and Andalusian¶ cultures in Spain; the diverse regions and cultural nations in Italy¶ (especially the Mezzogiorno), Germany
(especially Bavaria and the five¶ Länder of the East), France, and even the United Kingdom (where the¶ Scottish, Irish, and other groups, like the
Québécois in Canada, struggle¶ for the recognition of their identities); and the minorities in the United¶ States (especially Afro-Americans and
Hispanics). All of
this outlines a¶ multipolar twenty-first century world, where cultural difference is
increasingly¶ affirmed, beyond the homogenizing pretensions of the present capitalist¶ globalization
and its supposedly universal culture, and even beyond¶ the postmodern affirmation of difference that
finds it difficult to imagine¶ cultural universalities from a millenary tradition outside of Europe and¶
the United States. This “trans”-modernity should adopt the best that the¶ modern technological
revolution has to offer—discarding antiecological¶ and exclusivelyWestern aspects—and put it at the
service of differentiated¶ valorized worlds, ancient and actualized, with their own traditions and¶
ignored creativity. This will allow the emergence of the enormous cultural¶ and human richness that
the transnational capitalist market now attempts¶ to suppress under the empire of “universal”
commodities that materially¶ subsume food (one of the most difficult things to universalize) into capital.¶ The
future “trans”-modernity will be multicultural, versatile, hybrid,¶ postcolonial, pluralist, tolerant, and
democratic (but beyond the modern¶ liberal democracy of the European state). It will have splendid
millenary¶ traditions25 and be respectful of exteriority and heterogeneous identities. ¶ The majority
of humanity retains, reorganizes (renovating and including¶ elements of globality),26 and creatively develops cultures
in its everyday,¶ enlightened horizon. The cultures of this majority deepen the valorative¶ “common
sense” of their participants’ real and particular existences, countering¶ the exclusionary process of
globalization, which precisely because¶ of this process inadvertently “pushes” toward a “trans”-
modernity. It is a¶ return to the consciousness of the great majorities of humanity, of their¶ excluded
historical unconscious!
196
Alternative Solvency – Academy
The alt is key to affirm Latin@ scholarship here, in an academic space in which it
is regularly excluded or assimilated
Maldonado-Torres 11 (Nelson, PhD, Religious Studies with a Certificate for Outstanding Work in Africana Studies, Brown
University¶ BA, Philosophy, University of Puerto Rico: ”THE LATINA/O ACADEMY OF ARTS¶ AND SCIENCES: DECOLONIZING¶ KNOWLEDGE AND
SOCIETY IN THE¶ CONTEXT OF NEO-APARTHEID” Harvard Latino Law Review, Vol 14, 2011)
To be sure, there are many Latina/o scholars and allies who take the¶ challenges outhned above seriously and already have a strong record of
research¶ and institufion-building in much needed areas." At the same time, it¶ is not strange for many of these scholars and others to confront exclusion,¶
misunderstanding, and marginahzation, not only in society at large, but also¶ in the academy itself. They
find that normative university culture tends to¶ demand as much assimilation from scholars who belong
to non-normadve¶ groups or who specialize in the study of problems or issues that are particularly ¶
relevant to non-normative groups, as normative society demands assimilation¶ from its multiple
minoritized populations.^"* Just like in society, in the¶ university there is a system of penalties and rewards
supported by skewed¶ forms of democracy, appeals to equality, and shared governance." It is not strange for
these scholars to have to jusdfy their objects of¶ study and research quesdons repeatedly and be
pressured to comply with¶ what is considered the established norm.^^ This is a major problem for Latina/¶ o scholars as
the serious consideradon of the history, memories, cultural ¶ acdvism, knowledge, polidcal dynamics, and social and economic condidons ¶ of minoridzed
populadons often results in the introducdon of quesdons ¶ and methods that challenge the boundaries of established disciplines, fields, ¶ and the division of
knowledge in the academy." While Latina/os are under¶ siege in society, the situadon in the academy is not
dissimilar—at least not¶ for those who are most interested in addressing issues that particularly affect¶ Ladna/os and other minoridzed populadons or groups,
or who raise quesdons¶ from muldple minoritized perspecdves. The connecdon among the status of Ladna/os in society, the consideradon ¶ of their history,
memory, and knowledge in the academy, and the condidons ¶ within which progressive scholars who focus on quesdons relevant to ¶ Latina/os have most recendy
been made obvious by the attack on Raza Studies ¶ by the passing of Proposidon H.B. 2281 in Arizona,^* H.B, 2281 was ¶ passed shortly after S,B, 1070,^9 While the
latter targets "illegal immigrants"¶ in the state of Arizona, H.B. 2281 focuses on Raza and Mexican ¶ American Studies in public schools.^" Combined, the two
proposidons¶ demonstrate the perspecdve that neither certain migrants (and by extension ¶ people who look like them), nor the memories, historical perspecdves,
and¶ knowledge of that populadon, are fit to be included in the public or the ¶ public realm. In the face of actual demographic shifts in the inhabitants of ¶ the state,
the response is to further delimit the sphere of the public by excluding¶ people and their histories, memories, cultures, and understandings of ¶ it. The only routes
left in this context would seem to be voluntary departure,¶ forced removal, condnued persecudon, exclusion and minoritizadon, unidirecdonal ¶ assimiladon, and
resistance in response to the nadvist menaces.¶ The social and pohdcal climate in Arizona is particularly significant ¶ because it dramadzes a reality that has already
existed and that is growing in¶ other states in the nation.^' It is a response to rapid demographic change,where traditionally undesirable communities are growing
in number and¶ where a variety of groups respond, not only by Hmiting the possibilities for ¶ citizenship but also by limifing the scope of what is considered
public."¶ This situation leads to a more numerous population being considered out of ¶ the boundaries of the "people" and closer to that of the "damned."" The ¶
banning from belonging to the pubhc focuses on bodies as much as it also ¶ targets minds, or consciousness and knowledge, thereby reducing the possibilities ¶ for
diversity even among those who can claim to be an authentic ¶ part of the public. While privatization and the expectation of unilateral assimilation erode ¶ the
strength of the public, Latina/os are increasingly relegated to the space of¶ the "under-public" or "damned;"
and if Latina/os make it to the sphere of¶ the public, or rise to the position of managerial private compensation (or any¶ other
position in society), the idea is that only their bodies make it there, but¶ not their minds.^"* It is in this context
that it is particularly important to assert¶ the presence of Lafina/os in bodies and in mind in society
and public institutions,¶ including the academy . It is important to challenge problematic tendencies¶
in society and in each of those institutions, while also formulating¶ goals and ideals that can help to
create a larger and healthier sense of the full¶ extent of the pubhc in all its richness and diversity .
Although Latina/os and¶ their allies have been working on this for a long time," and their productive ¶ efforts should be valued and supported, there is a
need to continue conceiving¶ and creating projects and institutions that can complement the work
that¶ is already being done and contribute to make more powerful and visible the¶ collective strength
of those who wish to evade new forms of social and epistemological apartheid and their
consequences. The idea for creating a Latina/¶ o Academy of Arts and Sciences was bom out of this wish and need.
197
ATs
198
AT – Anti-Politics
ALL knowledge is produced out of history, power relations and dynamics – every
utterance is an epistemological and political action
November 2011
Whatever we understand by knowing or knowledge (or, by extension, by true or truth), we almost

invariably know amid unstable, asymmetric power relations, interests, and dynamics. The old dictum
that knowledge is power probably contains more (and more problematic) wisdom than what we
usually would want to grant it. To know is always, at least implicitly, a claim to know, thus an attempt
to either reaflirm “what everybody knows” (and thus gain recognition as a normal, acceptable
member of the community), or to sway others toward a more or less novel way of understanding (and
thus gain recognition as a legitimate challenger of accepted verities). Claiming to know something, to
have knowledge, is thus always a kind of claim to power, a political move. ¶ Knowledge might simply
be, to begin with, a claim to share and accept what all or most (or those with the weightiest say) in a
community accept and share as “true,” “obvious,” “mandatory,” “expected,” or the like (as in “we all
know that undocumented, illegal, and criminal go together”). That is, it might be a way of claiming that
the present, prevailing state of affairs is OK, is as it should be, and needs not be challenged.
(Claiming) knowledge, therefore, might entail a surreptitious threat to whoever dares to even think of
challenging the prevailing power arrangements in the community (be such community a family, a
network of specialized scientific experts, a nation, a political constituency, a hospital, a religious
congregation, etc.): a subtle summons to acquiesce to the establishment.¶ Knowing, however, may
involve a claim to know something that others do not know: a claim to a “new” or “hidden”
knowledge, one that does not fully mesh either with the prevailing power arrangements in the
community or with the established epistemological order therein (i.e., the limits of what is socially
accepted to be known and knowable). Think of the claim that “first generation immigrants have a
significantly lower rate of involvement in criminal activities than U.S.-born, third generation or higher,
'white' citizens.”¶ An utterance is then, more often than not (and regardless of the awareness of the
“speaker”), simultaneously an epistemological and a political act(ion): awakening, activating,
mobilizing not only knowledge/ s (within a wide range of possibilities going from confirmation of the
prevailing state of affairs to its questioning, interruption, and/ or subversion), including in the “speaker”
herself/ himself as well as in her/ his web of relations-but also awakening, activating, mobilizing power
claims, relations, struggles, conflicts, fears, and other types of conflictual dynamics.¶ In fact, most
utterances could be seen as being in themselves, at least to a certain degree, claims to power, to
authority: appeals to assent, respect, and recognition-i.e., political moves. This is particularly the case
when/ if such an utterance commands (or tries to bring forth) attention-an attempt that is more likely
to succeed if/ when the person uttering something is capable of mobilizing significant forces (social,
economic, military, political, legal, emotional, etc.) behind her/ his utterances, or at least of giving the
appearance and stirring the fear of having such capability.¶ Conversely, the “same” utterance (as seen
abstractly by an “outsider”), even in the “same” community, but uttered by a different or differently
located “speaker” (or by the “same” one but in a different juncture in¶ the dynamics of the “same”
community) might be entirely “inaudible,” overlooked, meaningless-or worse: It might elicit rejoinders,
199
attacks, violent silencing, or even physical suppression.¶ Or, to put it in yet other terms: No utterance
(written, sung, spoken, iconic, gestured, or otherwise) can have only one meaning in or of itself;
because meaning is not something residing in the utterance, or even in the utterer, but, rather, it is
produced and can be “present” only ln the relation (itself unstable and perishable) between utterance
(and, if somehow present, its utterer, too) and a community of interpretation-the latter equally
unstable, mobile, perishable.¶ Meaning is located always in an unstable relation-a relation, among
others, of course, of knowledge, inexorably located amid a dynamic larger constellation of relations,
which indeed complicate the production, circulation, perception, and transformation of meaning (i.e., of
knowledge): relations of identity, competition, exchange, power, domination, resistance, alliance,
and so on, which include (but are by no means limited to) gender, sexual, economic, political,
cultural, linguistic, military ) and other types of relations, many of which (but not necessarily all, nor all
necessarily reinforcing each other) involve lopsided, asymmetric, conflictual power dynamics.¶ Thus,
the meaning of an utterance, if any, is (re)produced in relation (both specific and variable) to the
history, culture, and dynamics (including power dynamics) of a specific community-be these
personified in one single individual member of a community having access to that utterance, or
embodied in a group.¶ This suggests that, in all probability, any utterance can mean anything-including
what would seem from certain perspectives as absolute opposite meanings-depending on the interest/
knack of the “hearer(s)” (reader/s, dancer/s, singer/s, preacher/s, professor/s, etc.) to (re)pro-¶ duce a
particular meaning, as well as on her/ his/ their ability to mobilize certain forces (social, political, legal,
emotional, etc.) both in favor ofsuch meaning, and over against those different or opposite
understandings of the “same” utterance (and against the bearers of those other differing senses).¶ What
is needed to transform a certain, accepted meaning, of a “stable” discourse (text, icon, song, etc.) in a
particular community into what would have been typically grasped in that same community as its
exact opposite meaning is at least, probably, time (which helps forget and¶ transform meanings),
people (i.e., increased numbers of individuals and groups invested in the “new” meaning), and power
(of any and/or all sorts) to both boost the “new” meaning and counter the lingering or reemerging
remembrance, allegiances, and diffusion of former meanings of the “same” discourse or utterance. Is
not this what happens in many of our churches with the ancient Hebrew injunction regarding hospitality
to the stranger?
200
AT – Colonialism Over
No. IVI.
Maldonado-Torres 2007 [Nelson, Professor of Comparative Literature at Rutgers, PhD in Religious Studies “ON THE
COLONIALITY OF BEING¶ Contributions to the development of a¶ Concept” 2007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548]
What is coloniality?¶ Coloniality is different from colonialism. Colonialism denotes a political and¶
economic relation in which the sovereignty of a nation or a people rests on the¶ power of another
nation, which makes such nation an empire. Coloniality,¶ instead, refers to long-standing patterns of
power that emerged as a result of¶ colonialism, but that define culture, labor, intersubjective
relations, and¶ knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations .14
Thus, coloniality survives colonialism . It is maintained alive in books,¶ in the criteria for academic
performance, in cultural patterns, in common¶ sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of
self, and so many other¶ aspects of our modern experience. In a way, as modern subjects we breath¶
coloniality all the time and everyday .¶ Coloniality is not simply the aftermath or the residual form of
any given¶ form of colonial relation. Coloniality emerges in a particular socio-historical¶ setting, that
of the discovery and conquest of the Americas.15 For it was in the¶ context of this massive colonial
enterprise, the more widespread and ambitious¶ in the history of humankind yet, that capitalism, an
already existing form of¶ economic relation, became tied with forms of domination and
subordination¶ that were central to maintaining colonial control first in the Americas, and¶ then
elsewhere. Coloniality refers, first and foremost, to the two axes of¶ power that became operative and
defined the spatio-temporal matrix of what¶ was called America. According to Anibal Quijano these
two axes were:¶ The codification of the differences between conquerors and conquered in¶ the idea
of ‘race’, a supposedly different biological structure that placed¶ some in a natural situation of inferiority
to the others. The conquistadors assumed this idea as the constitutive, founding element of the
relations of¶ domination that the conquest imposed.... The other process was the¶ constitution of a
new structure of control of labor and its resources and¶ slavery, serfdom, small independent commodity
production and reciprocity, together around and upon the basis of capital and the world market.16¶ The
project of colonizing America did not have only local significance. Quite¶ the contrary, it became a
model of power, as it were, or the very basis of what¶ was then going to become modern identity,
inescapably framed by world¶ capitalism and a system of domination structured around the idea of
race. This¶ model of power is at the heart of the modern experience . Modernity, usually¶ considered
to be a product of the European Renaissance or the European¶ Enlightenment, has a darker side, which
is constitutive of it.17 Modernity as a¶ discourse and as a practice would not be possible without
coloniality, and¶ coloniality continues to be an inevitable outcome of modern discourses.
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AT – Education
Foregrounding coloniality is key to scholarship
Grosfoguel 9 (Ramon, Associate Professor. Ethnic Studies Department,, UC Berkeley, A Decolonial

Approach to Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Border Thinking and Global Coloniality, Kult 6,
http://postkolonial.dk/artikler/GROSFOGUEL.pdf
Finally, my interest here lies in the continuities between the colonial past and current global colonial/ racial hierarchies. All too often, the
social sciences
and the humanities’ focus on intricacies, nuances or indeterminacies of the historical process,
contribute to the invisibility of coloniality. It is not accidental that the insistence on pointing at the continuities
of colonial mechanisms of exclusion and oppression most often comes from the subaltern groups, and
not from established scholars in the academic world. It is enough to participate in the World Social Forum and in general to come
close to social movements in Latin America and elsewhere, to corroborate that the ideas which I present here are, indeed, up to date and pertinent to the vast
majority of the world’s population1. These conceptualizations are, however, often classified as “outdated” within the academic realm. This conceptualization only
confirms my point – that far
from having overcome the linear evolutionist and paternalistic model of Europe
being the developed and the rest being underdeveloped, academics continue labeling the
conceptualizations of subaltern subjects as ideas that belong to the past, which, unsurprisingly,
Europe has long-gone overcome. This not only brings about questions on the legitimacy of knowledge
and knowledge production ; it also shows that subalternized subjects are regarded as incapable of
conceptualizing their own realities.
202
AT – Epistemology Bad
Your epistemology bad arguments don’t apply– ours is grounded and backed
with empirical data
The conceptualisation of modernity/coloniality is grounded in a series of¶ operations that distinguish it

from established theories. These include: 1)¶ locating the origins of modernity with the conquest of
America and the control¶ of the Atlantic after 1492, rather than in the most commonly accepted
landmarks¶ such as the Enlightenment or the end of the 18th century; 2) attention to¶ colonialism,
postcolonialism and imperialism as constitutive of modernity; 3) the¶ adoption of a world perspective
in the explanation of modernity, in lieu of a¶ view of modernity as an intra-European phenomenon; 4)
the identification of the¶ domination of others outside the European core as a necessary dimension of¶
modernity; 5) a conception of eurocentrism as the knowledge form of modernity/¶ coloniality—a
hegemonic representation and mode of knowing that claims¶ universality for itself, ‘derived from
Europe’s position as center’.31 In sum, there¶ is a re-reading of the ‘myth of modernity’ in terms of
modernity’s ‘underside’¶ and a new denunciation of the assumption that Europe’s development must
be¶ followed unilaterally by every other culture, by force if necessary—what Dussel¶ terms ‘the
developmentalist fallacy’.32 The main conclusions are, first, that the¶ proper analytical unit of analysis is
modernity/coloniality —in sum, there is no¶ modernity without coloniality, with the latter being
constitutive of the former.¶ Second, the fact that ‘the colonial difference’ is a privileged
epistemological and¶ political space. In other words, what emerges from this alternative framework
is¶ the need to take seriously the epistemic force of local histories and to think¶ theory through the
political praxis of subaltern groups.
203
AT – Evidence Good
Their evidence-based education creates a monocultural approach to knowledge

production which serves to exclude minoritized bodies
Shahjahan 2011 [Riyad Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) at Michigan State University.
Ph.D. at the OISE/University of Toronto in Higher Education. “Decolonizing the evidence-based education and policy movement:¶ revealing the
2,¶ 181 — 206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.508176]
Evidence-based education projects a monoculture in different education systems,¶ promotes technical

skills and conceptualizes learning as a package that is transmitted¶ from teacher to students, from government to the public
(Hodkinson 2005). Furthermore,¶ it also pushes minoritized bodies ‘out’ of schooling along the lines of race,¶
class, and language, while at the same time reinforcing colonial discourses of the ¶ ‘other.’ Fanon (1967),
in summary, aptly describes the colonizing nature of standardized¶ testing on the bodies of teachers and students, whereby their identity is
states:¶ Overnight the Negro [educational leaders,
reconfigured¶ into a subjectivity informed by high-stakes testing. He
teachers and students] has been given …¶ frames of references within which he has had to place
himself. His metaphysics, or, less¶ pretentiously, his customs and the sources on which they were
based, were wiped out¶ because they were in conflict with a civilization [accountability and high-
stakes testing]¶ that he did not know and that imposed itself on him. (Fanon 1967, 110) Similar to earlier colonial
discourses, by espousing one standard, the evidence-based¶ education movement maintains control, as there is
one goal to work towards and therefore,¶ everything is broken down into fitting that goal (i.e. improving
students’ scores¶ in standardized tests). In summary, such regulations of knowledge production in terms ¶ of
evidence and curriculum are increasingly fixed by evidence-based education that¶ perpetuates a
monoculture of the mind, where alternative ways of knowing are¶ displaced or subjugated, ‘very much like
the introduction of monocultures destroying¶ the very conditions for diverse species to exist’ (Shiva 1995, 12). Similar to colonial¶
discourse, the ideas and meanings attached to evidence and the outcome of education¶ are being
‘fixed’ (Hall 1997) in evidence-based education which perpetuates a monoculture¶ of the mind in
education that serves the global economy. Using such a colonial¶ discourse, proponents of evidence-based education are
‘fixing, bounding, and settling’¶ (Cohn 1996, 8) education and those within schooling.
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AT – Perm
The perm isn’t possible—preserving Western nodes of thought creates an
epistemic lock-in, preventing consideration of alternate viewpoints
Mignolo 5 (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, The Idea of
Latin Americ, BLACKWELL PUBLISHING)
The reader immersed in the Western tradition of thought,¶ philosophy, and science may wonder if
there can really be any¶ other (an-other) mode of thinking beyond it. For instance, can you¶ really think
in Mandarin, and its long-lasting memory, after it has¶ interacted with Western categories of thought
since the nineteenth¶ century? Do the Chinese think in German or Russian, after Mao’s¶ revolution? Are
they thinking in English now because an economy¶ based on capital is transforming the country? The
same kind of¶ questions could be asked about Arabic-Muslim countries, even¶ though the path they are
following significantly differs from that of¶ China. In fact, the questions I am asking apply to every local
history¶ articulated in the borders between the expansion of Western histories¶ and Western modes of
life and the rich diversity of local histories¶ and local ways of life around the globe. “ Latin” America is
one¶ of those local histories, sharing with the rest of the world the experiences¶ of the
imperial/colonial borders and the colonial difference.¶ If we turn back to Afro-Caribbean philosophers,
we can see that¶ they are, indeed, writing in English and French. But are they “thinking¶ in English or
French”? To answer that question, it is necessary¶ to question the question itself, which necessarily
changes the geopolitics¶ of knowledge. Otherwise, it will be impossible to pop the¶ bubble, the
totalizing effect of a regional way of knowing encoded¶ in Greek and Latin, and in the six
modern/colonial and European¶ languages. Of course, I am not saying that one has to write in¶ Swahili
or Aymara, but that you could write in English and be thinking¶ in Aymara and from Aymara (or any
other language disqualified as¶ a tool for thinking). Imperial/colonial local histories are the conditions¶
of border thinking. Imperial local histories alone are the conditions¶ for monotopic and territorial,
partial thinking.¶ Once again, I needed this excursus to convey the radical shift in¶ the geography and
geo-politics of knowledge confronting the hegemony¶ of theological and egological politics of
knowledge. To return¶ to Afro-Caribbean philosophy, then, let us look to Padget Henry.¶ Note again, he
is not a “Latin” philosopher but an “Anglo” one, as¶ he belongs to the history of Afros and the British
colonies in the¶ Caribbean. This history nourishes his thought. He sees that history and thinks from it (is
that “Caribbean studies”?) in confrontational¶ dialogue with the European history of philosophy. The
intellectual¶ and political legacy of Présence Africaine and its consequences are –¶ for Henry – the
grounding of a genealogy of thought as much as¶ the Greeks and Kant were for Martin Heidegger, or as
much as¶ Kant and Heidegger are for “Latin” philosophers in South America.¶ As you can imagine, Henry
is far removed from Greece and Germany,¶ as far removed as Heidegger is from Africa and Présence
Africaine.¶ Heidegger, however, belongs to the paradigm of newness while¶ Henry belongs to the
paradigm of co-existence.
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AT – Perm
Perm fails – non-Western knowledge will be appropriated to strengthen colonial

hegemony
53)OG
In a sense, Freire’s (1970) theorizing of the

dialogic nature of knowledge¶ production is important here, but it requires
that both parties in the dialogue acknowledge that there is wisdom and important knowledges to be¶
gathered from the other dialogue partner. There is a need to acknowledge the significance of
contextual, localized, and spiritual knowledges, in educational institutions, in the world of aid, and in
societies in the South at large simply because the current epistemic hegemony is not able, as has ¶
been repeatedly noted, to address these issues in a sustainable way alone. It is with this perspective that White
suggests the importance of an alterna-¶ tive Western knowledge system derived from the teachings of St. Francis,¶ which I propose to call the
Francisization of Western knowledge produc-¶ tion.7 There is a sense that the negotiation
of a third space in relation to¶ CHAT,
which encompasses different knowledge systems may be facilitated¶ with the inclusion of, or the appropriation of, aspects of
this alternative¶ Western knowledge into the hegemonic one. There are, however, difficul-¶ ties with such an appropriation
/inclusion due to the hegemonic power/¶ knowledge syndrome and also because of a heavy historical legacy.
206
AT – Perm
No perm: ANY residual modernity mitigates any solvency – a COMPLETE break is

necessary (also postmodernism doesn’t solve)
2002, pp. 221-244)
Without contradicting this perspective, although implying a completely¶ different intellectual commitment, the concept of “post”-modernity¶
(the A moment I will show in figure 2) indicates that there is a process that¶ emerges “from within” modernity and reveals a state of crisis
within globalization.¶ “Trans”-modernity, in contrast,
demands a whole new interpretation¶ of modernity in
order to include moments that were never incorporated¶ into the European version. Subsuming the
best of globalized European and¶ North American modernity, “trans”-modernity affirms “from
without” the¶ essential components of modernity’s own excluded cultures in order to develop ¶ a
new civilization for the twenty-first century. Accepting this massive¶ exteriority to European
modernity allows one to comprehend that there¶ are cultural moments situated “outside” of
modernity. To achieve this, an¶ interpretation that supposes a “second” and very subtle Eurocentrism
must¶ be overcome .6 One can then shift to a non-Eurocentric interpretation of¶ the history of the world-system, a system only
hegemonized by Europe¶ for the last two hundred years (not five hundred). The emergence of other¶ cultures, until now
depreciated and unvalued, from beyond the horizon of¶ European modernity is thus not a miracle
arising from nothingness, but¶ rather a return by these cultures to their status as actors in the history
of¶ the world-system. Although Western culture is globalizing—on a certain¶ technical, economic,
political, and military level—this does not efface other¶ moments of enormous creativity on these
same levels, moments that affirm¶ from their “exteriority” other cultures that are alive, resistant, and
growing.
207
AT – Perm – Cooption
Movements operating within the state are necessarily co-opted and repressed—
empirics prove
Lind 12 [Amy Lind, Mary Ellen Heintz Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of
Cincinnati “Intimate Governmentalities, the Latin American Left, and the Decolonial Turn.” feminists@law, Vol 2, No 1 (2012)
https://journals.kent.ac.uk/kent/index.php/feministsatlaw/article/view/43/115]
Breny Mendoza raises several key questions about the turn to the left and/or the decolonial turn in Latin
America, particularly as this transformation is playing out in Honduras. As she points out, in Honduras social movements are
at the forefront of resistance not only to the coup but also to various forms of modern/colonial power.
Like in Honduras, in countries that have shifted to the left at the state level (e.g., Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela), many
activists and critical scholars have pointed out the multiple processes taking place simultaneously, and as part of
this, the ongoing contradictions among the goals of social movements and those of socialist states. The move by
indigenous movements and other activists, as well as that of cultural studies scholars, to rethink the dualisms that so
pervade colonial/modern logic, including that of (neo)developmentalism, capital and citizenship, is perhaps at the center
of the many ongoing struggles we see concerning how to imagine and institutionalize “another world.” This
“another world” has been addressed in various ways, from theorizing another form of production to
producing alternative form(s) of knowledge – questions that have great ontological, epistemological
and political significance, at least when posed by those interested in a truly decolonial turn. As Breny alludes to, the Honduran
resistance movement’s emphasis on constitutional reform exemplifies the strategy used by other left-turning governments to remake the
nation. Much of the emphasis, at least originally and on the surface, has been on Latin American states’ shift away from the global neoliberal
agenda; that is, on the anti-neoliberal or post-neoliberal turn. As Arturo Escobar points out (2010), Latin
America was the first
region to undergo structural adjustment measures – of the most extreme kind, inspired by Harvard University’s
Jeffrey Sachs – and also the first where states so widely adopted (often forcibly) a World Bank/IMF inspired neoliberal
restructuring agenda. Yet more recently it was also the first to resist the inequalities emerging from that process and from modern/colonial
capitalism more generally, including perhaps most notably in the turn to the left, which we have now seen in up to twelve countries, or about
two-thirds of the region, to varying degrees.¶ I want to respond to Breny’s commentary by focusing on an example of constitutional reform
that has already occurred: namely, that of the 2008 Ecuadorian constitution and the broader revolución ciudadana that President Rafael Correa
(2007-present) has promoted. I’ll also bring in some examples from the 2008 Bolivian constitution and Evo Morales’ MAS (Movimiento al
Socialismo) administration (2006-present). As I have followed the debates within social movements and in the constitutional assembly process,
a few key disjunctures stand out, including the following: (1) the well-known disjuncture between the turn to the left and the decolonial turn;
(2) a lack of analysis of the governance of intimacy (Lind 2010a) and biopolitics in both leftist and decolonial accounts of “another world”; and
(3) decolonial vs. liberal challenges posed by activists in the remaking of Latin American nations.¶ First, for the most part I would argue that the
Ecuadorian state is not participating in a decolonial turn but rather in a turn to a leftist form of alternative modernization, akin to Chavez’s
production regime in Venezuela, Morales’ in Bolivia, and Bachelet’s center-leftist concertación in Chile (among possible others). I state this with
the caveat that of course one
can find many examples of decolonial strategies in Ecuador, including in the constitution
itself, yet
mostly the Ecuadorian state is focused on alternative modernization. As in Bolivia, Venezuela and Chile, the
Ecuadorian state has continued to rely on the extraction of hydrocarbons and other resources; this is so despite
the fact that the 2008 Constitution grants nature equal rights to human beings and generally
advocates “well-being” over economic growth (“well being” being the translation of sumaq kawsay in Quichua or el buen
vivir in Spanish). And to make matters worse – what analysts could not have predicted when the Correa administration was first inaugurated –
when indigenous communities have resisted the state’s developmentalist presence, including its ongoing
exploitation of nature and endorsement of the nature/culture dualism despite the new constitutional language, they have been
repressed. Most sectors of the organized indigenous movement have been alienated by the Correa administration; currently there is little
dialogue between the two. And although Bolivian President Morales himself identifies as indígena, he too has alienated
indigenous and peasant communities in Eastern lowland Bolivia concerning his administration’s plans to build a
highway on their land – a direct blow to local communities and also a denial of his own constitution’s declaration of nature as having
constitutional rights. In Chile, indigenous
protestors of Bachelet’s policies were arrested and labeled as
terrorists (Richards in press). What these leaders are discovering (or perhaps what they are having confirmed) is that
208
while they can create an anti-neoliberal agenda, they cannot necessarily create a post-capitalist
economy based on non-capitalist forms of social and economic life, nor a post-liberal order that transcends liberal
classifications of identity. There are glimpses of this, within the state and outside. For example Ecuador’s National Plan of Living Well attempts
to institutionalize the “solidarity economy” alongside the capitalist economy, and the 2008 Constitution provided for an Inequality Council
which would, in theory, address five axes of inequality based on race, ethnicity, ability and gender in an intersectional and transversal way.
This has yet to be institutionalized, however. Moreover, we can see clear attempts within social movements
to create a post-capitalist economy that challenges the modern/colonial versions of governmentality
found in these states. But regardless one must distinguish between the political ideals of 21st century
socialism envisioned by social movements, on one hand, and on the other, the kinds of governmentalities created by these
socialist states.
209
AT – Perm – Epistemic Trade-Off

Zero-Point Epistemology is a DA to the Permutation—Only a shift to a
democratic form of epistemology-grounded in geo/body politics RATHER THAN
EUROCENTRICISM allows for a transition to a decolonial society—the
permutation precludes the ability to detach from colonial matrices
Mignolo 11 (Walter, Prof at Duke University, “THE DARKER SIDE OF WESTERN MODERNITY: Global Futures, Decolonial Options”, 2011,
6/28/13|Ashwin)
The new nomos of the earth comes with a new observer and a new epistemic foundation. This sense
of "newness" will become one of the anchors of all¶ rhetoric of modernity, from the sixteenth century to
the twenty-first. The Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gomez described it the hubris of the zero
point. This second consequence sets the stage for imperial control and colonization of knowledge. ¶
Basically, zero point epistemology is the ultimate grounding of knowledge, which paradoxically is
ungrounded, or grounded neither in geo- historical location nor in bio-graphical configurations of the
bodies. The geopolitical and bio-graphic politics (e.g., body-politics, not bio-politics) of knowledge is
hidden in the transparency and the universality of the zero point. It is grounding without grounding; it
is in the mind and not in the brain and in the heart. Every way of knowing and sensing (feeling) that do
not conform to the epistemology and aesthesis of the zero point are cast be-¶ hind in time and/or in
the order of myth, legend, folklore, local knowledge, and the like. Since the zero point is always in the
present of time and the center of space, it hides its own local knowledge universally projected. Its
imperiality consists precisely in hiding its locality, its geo-historical body location, and in assuming to
be universal and thus managing the universality to which everyone has to submit. The zero point is
the site of observation from which the epistemic colonial differences and the epistemic imperial
differences are mapped out. Latin absorbed and recast knowledges that were either translated from
Greek to Arabic or that were cast in the Arabo-Islamic tradition. While of course Arabic remained crucial
locally, it lost its global influence once that modern/European language—derived from Greek and
Latin—became the language of sustainable knowledge, disavowing the epistemic insights of non-
European languages. Being where one thinks has become since then a fundamental concern of those
who have been mapped out by the colonial and imperial differences and, therefore, relegated to a
second or third¶ place in the global epistemic order. "I am where I think" sets the stage for epistemic
affirmations that have been disavowed. At the same time, it creates a shift in the geography of reason
for the affirmation "I am where I think." From the perspective of the epistemically disavowed colonial
subjects (now¶ migrants in Western Europe and the United States), the affirmation implies And you too:'
addressed to believers in the epistemology of the zero point. In other words, "we all are where we
think:' but only the European system of knowledge was built on the basic premise "I think, therefore I
am:' which was a translation of the theological foundation of knowledge, in which the privilege of the
soul over the body was translated into the secular mind over the body and on the premise that love
should be global currency, and that every one in the world should believe (after Descartes) that they
think and therefore exist.¶ "By way of this strategy," Castro-Gomez observes, "scientific thought po-
sitions itself as the only valid form of producing knowledge, and Europe acquires an epistemological
hegemony over all the other cultures of the world."5 From the fact that Western epistemology—that
is, the epistemology of the zero point—became hegemonic, it doesn't follow that whoever was and is
not thinking in those terms is not thinking. There is ample evidence to the contrary, evidence that is kept
silenced both in the academic world and in mainstream media. The democratization of epistemology is
under way (my argument intends to contribute to it), and "I am where I think" is one basic epistemic
210
principle that legitimizes all ways of thinking and de-legitimizes the pretense of a singular and
particular epistemology, geo-historical and¶ bio-graphically located, to be universal. Decolonizing
Western epistemology means to strip it out of the pretense that it is the point of arrival and the
guiding light of all kinds of knowledges. In other words, decolonizing knowledge is not rejecting
Western epistemic contributions to the world. On the contrary, it implies appropriating its
contributions in order to then de-chain from their imperial designs. "Hu- manitas" and "modernity" are
concepts that do not emerge from an ontology wherein entities carry with them the essential being
of humans and modernity; instead, they are concepts allowing those who manage categories of
thought and knowledge production to use that managerial authority to assert themselves by
disqualifying those who ("anthropos" who at once¶ are barbarians and traditional) are classified as
deficient, rationally and ontologically. Once you realize that true values and objectivity without paren-
thesis are only true values and objectivity for those who believe in them (as in the case of religion or
any other ideology that holds to truth and objectivity without parenthesis), you are ready to delink, to
free yourself from the imperial magic of "modernity" sustained by the epistemology of the zero point.
Humanitas and modernity, then, are two companion concepts and central concepts of Western
civilization. Such an epistemic style of thinking hides coloniality and prevents pluriversal, dialogic, and
epistemically democratic systems of thought from unfolding. Two choices are given to the anthropos:
to assimilate or to be cast out. In other words, universal options are options based on truth without
parenthesis and cannot admit the difference. As a matter of fact, differences are created in order to
eliminate other options.¶ This argument is being structured from anthropos's perspectives. That means
that it builds and is built on an enunciation grounded on geo- and body-politics of knowledge, while
humantitas's arguments build and are built on theo- and ego-politics of knowledge,' that is, on zero
point epistemology
211
AT – Perm – Fusion DA
Perm is net worse – fusing epistemologies strengthens Western power by

appropriating indigenous knowledge
Bhabha’s third space is a contested terrain and has been critiqued for¶ its presumed lack of historical
and political embeddedness. While Bhab-¶ ha’s third space is conceptually and theoretically interesting,
one should¶ be wary of being too optimistic given the long history of economic and¶ epistemic
subjugation. The epistemological dimension of colonialism¶ should not be underrated and should not
be thought of in the past tense.¶ The inherent danger of such a space is the perpetuation of imbalance
and¶ asymmetry between the knowledge systems—between the dichotomized¶ space of Self and
Other within the third space. When exploring the third¶ space one has to acknowledge that all
indigenous knowledges are subju-¶ gated knowledges, and that the issue of power is central in
discussing and¶ analyzing the power relationships between indigenous knowledges and¶ so-called
Western science and epistemology. There is a question of nego-¶ tiation here, but the question is how
much can be negotiated when the¶ power relationship between the knowledge systems is so skewed
and when¶ there is an issue of domination and subjugation. There is a concern that¶ indigenous
knowledges are appropriated by the North to serve North’s¶ own purposes or interests, and that they
are made to fit the paradigms¶ of Western epistemology. As Agrawal (2005) states: “those who
possess¶ indigenous knowledge have not possessed much power to influence what¶ is done with their
knowledge” (p. 380).
212
AT – Perm – Gender Affs
Perm fails – any resistance to the coloniality of gender MUST turn inward – the
perm’s use of any macro OR micro mechanisms of power destroy the possibility
of decoloniality
The semantic consequence of the coloniality of gender is that “colonized woman” is an empty
category. No women are colonized. No colonized females are women. Thus, the colonial answer to
Sojoumer Truth is clearly-No. That gives to her defiant question a depth and complexity that' is
otherwise lost. Unlike colonization, the coloniality of gender is still with us; It is what lies at the
intersection of gender and class and race as central constructs of the capitalist world system of power.
Thinking about the coloniality of gender enables us to think of historical beings, only one-sidedly
understood as oppressed. As there are no such beings as colonized women, I suggest that we focus on
the beings that resist and respond critically and praxically the coloniality of gender from the colonial
difference. Such beings are, as I have suggested, only partially understood as oppressed, as
constructed through the coloniality of gender. The suggestion is not that we search from another side of
the eurocentric construction of gender in indigenous organizations of the social world. Resistance to the
coloniality of gender is historically complex. When I think of myself as a theorist of resistance, of
defiant response from an other logic, that is not because I think of resistance as the end or goal of
political struggle, but rather its beginning, its possibility. I am interested in the relational subjective/
intersubjective spring of liberation, as both adaptive and creatively oppositional . Resistance is the
tension between subjectification (the forming/informing ofthe subject) and active subjectivity , that
minimal sense of agency required for the oppress- ing -) (_ resisting relation to be an active one, without
appeal to the maximal sense of agency of the modern subject.”¶ Resistant subjectivity often expresses
itself infrapolitically. Infrapolitics marks the tum inward in a politics of resistance toward liberation. It
shows the power of groups, enclaves, and communities of the oppressed constituting both resistant
meaning and each other against the constitution of meaning and social organization by power. As
colonized and racially gendered, we are also other than what the hegemony makes us b e. That is an
infrapolitical achievement. If we are exhausted, fully made through and by micro and macro
mechanisms and circulations of power, “liberation” loses much of its meaning or ceases to be an
intersubjective affair . The very possibility of an identity based on politics’ and the project of
decoloniality loses its peopled ground .
213
AT – Perm – ID Politics
Perm fails—the structure of America is built upon coloniality, coopting state-led
“decolonization” and ignoring micropolitical identities
2012)
In the book’s conclusion, ‘‘Who’s Afraid of Identity Politics?,’’ Alcoff carefully defends the new post-postivist accounts of
identity by discussing how approaches to the self developed by Hegel, Freud, Foucault, and Althusser have influenced
the most important postcontemporary conceptions of identity and subjectification. The answer to the problems
of essentialism and anti-essentialism, Alcoff argues, is not Wendy Brown’s theory of ‘‘wounded attachments’’ (Brown 1995), where the cycle of blame is never
transcended, but new, better formulations of identity produced by the essayists in Reclaiming Identity. Near her essay’s ending, Alcoff (2000, 335) writes, ‘‘To
say that we have an identity is just to say that we have a location in social space, a hermeneutic
horizon that is both grounded in a location and an opening or site from which we attempt to know the
world. Understood in this way, it is incoherent to view identities as something we would be better off without.’’ Given this précis of what I take to be one of the
central aims of the Reclaiming Identity project, I end this section by raising two issues for further interrogation. The first concerns the issue of
identity in relationship to what Quijano and Wallerstein call ‘‘Americanity’’ and what Quijano, Mignolo, Agustín Laó-
Montes, Ramón Grosfoguel, and others are theorizing as ‘‘the coloniality of power.’’ ∏ As I noted in the preface, Quijano and Wallerstein (1992) argue that the
Américas were fundamental to the formation of the modern (colonial) world-system and that
Americanity is a fundamental element of modernity. For our purposes, Quijano and Wallerstein identify four new categories that
originated in the so-called discovery of the Americas. They are coloniality, ethnicity, racism, and the concept of newness
itself. My first hesitation with the Reclaiming Identity project thus has to do with the way most of the contributors are generally silent about our identities in
relationship to what Quijano and Wallerstein grapple with in their work— namely, coloniality. In other words, if Mohanty, Moya, Hames-García, and Alcoff are right
that to have an identity means that we have to understand that ‘‘we have a location in social space’’ (Moya and Hames-García 2000, 335), would it not be useful for
us to ground these identities and locations in the history of the modern (colonial) world-system? Quijano and Wallerstein remind us that, after all, coloniality
created a structure of hierarchy and drew new boundaries around and within the Américas. Moreover,
coloniality was essential to the formation of states, and in his more recent work, such as ‘‘Coloniality
of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America’’ (2002), Quijano makes the additional claim that, even in decolonization,
the ‘‘stateness’’ of decolonized states re-centered the colonial structure of power . In ‘‘What is termed
globalization,’’ Quijano (2000b, 533) writes, is the cultural process that began with the constitution of America
and colonial/modern Eurocentered capitalism as a new global power. One of the fundamental axes of power is the social
classification of the world’s population around the idea of race, a mental construction that expresses the basic experience of colonial domination and pervades the
more important dimensions of global power, including its rationality. The racial axis has a colonial origin and character, but it has proven to be more durable and
stable than colonialism in whose matrix it was established. Therefore the model of power that is globally hegemonic today
presupposes an element of coloniality. For Quijano and Wallerstein (1992, 550; emphasis added), ethnic identity
fundamentally is the set of communal boundaries into which in part we are put by others [through
coloniality], in part which we impose upon ourselves, serving to locate our identity and our rank within the state. . . . [ Ethnic identities] are always
contemporary constructs, and thus always changing. All the major categories, however, into which we ethnically
divide today in the Américas and the world (Native Americans or Indians, Blacks or Negroes, Whites or Creoles/Europeans, Mestizos or other
names given to a so-called mixed-category)—all these categories did not exist prior to the modern world-system. They
are part of what makes up Americanity. They have become the cultural staple of the entire world-system.
214
AT – Perm – Recolonization DA
The permutation is a recolonization of the mind—the struggle for new

paradigms is key
Wallace 12 (Robert A., “DECOLONIZING THE MIND:¶ A COMPARATIVE APPROACH TO INDIGENOUS¶
MOVEMENTS AND GLOBALIZATION”, A thesis submitted to¶ the Graduate College of¶ Marshall
University, In partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of¶ Master of Arts in¶ Political Science,
December 2012)
The application of Western paradigms to indigenous peoples is problematic for two reasons:¶ one
conceptual and the other normative. Conceptually, (as demonstrated in Chapter II) Western¶
paradigms are often ill-suited to the task of conducting research in non-Western contexts.¶
Normatively, the application of Western paradigms to indigenous societies extends colonial¶ relations
onto the intellectual plane, a figurative colonization of the mind . If colonialism¶ historically deprived
indigenous peoples of land, livelihood, and autonomy, the inappropriate use¶ of paradigm threatens
to deprive them of perspective . How, then, can political science¶ understand and explain the political
processes, attitudes, and assumptions of indigenous peoples¶ in a manner which is both conceptually
valid and normatively acceptable?¶ 34¶ I propose that the search for a new paradigm is the only way to
address these conceptual and¶ normative problems. Paradigm shifts historically occurred when a new
paradigm emerged to¶ challenge and critique the existing dominant paradigm (IE Liberalism to
feudalism/monarchy¶ and Marxism to Liberalism). What paradigm thus has the potential to challenge
the dominant¶ status of both Marxism and Liberalism in modern social theory? The emergent
philosophy¶ known as “indigenism” is perhaps the best answer to the paradigmatic challenges for
indigenous¶ peoples in the age of globalization. Indigenism originated as a resistance philosophy among¶
North and Central American Indians during the mid-to-late 20th Century, thus ensuring its¶ normative
credibility. As I will demonstrate in the following sections, indigenism also contains¶ the intellectual rigor
and explanatory power to achieve paradigmatic legitimacy on par with that¶ of Marxism and liberalism.
215
AT – Science Good
Their colonial discourse promotes a monoculture of the mind and normalizes

bodies to be controlled
Shahjahan 11 [Riyad Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) at Michigan State University. Ph.D.
at the OISE/University of Toronto in Higher Education. “Decolonizing the evidence-based education and policy movement:¶ revealing the
2,¶ 181 — 206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.508176]
Colonial hierarchies of knowledge and monocultures of the mind¶ Colonial

discourse is also evident among proponents of
evidence-based education as¶ diverse ways of knowing are not tolerated and a distortion of other
ways of knowing¶ is continued. Colonial discourse promoted a monoculture of the mind to maintain¶
control over knowledge production . For instance, Chilisa (2005) argues that colonizers¶ used research methods
to fashion the whole world into sameness in order to dominate¶ and suppress the colonized. Similar to the
debate on what constitutes evidence¶ and what should be included as evidence as part of systematic reviews in evidencebased ¶ education (see
colonial-era investigations into indigenous¶ science and technology separated ‘accurate’
Thomas 2004),
and ‘rational’ knowledge from ‘mythology’¶ (Baber 1996, 159). Such a hierarchy of knowledge was then
used to systematize¶ and rank groups of people around the world in terms of ‘intelligence’ in order to¶
legitimize domination (Pratt 1992; Grosfoguel 2007).¶ Throughout proponents’ discourses of evidence-based education, there is a
notion¶ of evidence and ‘scientific based research’ that is constantly fixed to mean a certain ¶ thing.
This features an emphasis on empirical randomized control experimental¶ research studies, surveys,
longitudinal studies, and statistical data. For instance, Slavin¶ associates ‘rigorous research’ with studies that use ‘rigorous
experimental methods’¶ (2005, 7). Similarly, the American Educational Research Association Council in July¶ 2008 refers to scientific-based
research as ‘the use of rigorous, systematic, and objective¶ methodologies to obtain reliable and valid knowledge.’ The AERA council also¶
outlined what kind of research it prefers for policy-making:¶ The examination of causal questions requires experimental designs using random
assignment¶ or quasi-experimental or other designs that substantially reduce plausible competing¶ explanations for the obtained results. These
include, but are not limited to,¶ longitudinal designs, case control methods, statistical matching, or time series analyses.¶ This standard applies
especially to studies evaluating the impacts of policies and¶ programs on educational outcomes. (http://www.aera.net/opportunities/?id=6790)
While Slavin explicates what he means by evidence, other authors are not as forthright.¶ Proponents of evidence-based
education use the rhetoric of ‘evidence-based’¶ practice and policy. This rhetoric leaves out a
definition of ‘evidence’ and therefore¶ assumes that there is a standardized notion of ‘evidence.’
Similarly, colonial discourse¶ constructed and produced standardized subjects for rule in order to
consolidate¶ colonial power despite the heterogeneity among the colonized in terms of their identity¶
and knowledge systems (Rafael 1993; Cohn 1996).¶ While multiple methods are proposed in the evidence-based education
movement,¶ there is still a standard of evidence that is espoused, which leads to prediction¶ and control (Lather 2004). This standard
also falls in line with a colonial discourse,¶ which does not tolerate diverse ways of knowing. Instead,
the rhetoric of bias is¶ used in the evidence-based education movement to negate other ways of
knowing¶ so that control is maintained. For instance, Blunkett (2000) posits that statistically¶ based, experimental research is
the preferred method that should be used by¶ evidence-based practitioners since it is less biased by the interests of the researcher. ¶ Similarly,
a Canadian federal response to an Organization for Economic Cooperation ¶ and Development (OECD) conference on evidence-based education
describes¶ similar types of evidence that were used for generating evidence for learning¶ policy: The research program consists of analyses of
data from national surveys and longitudinal¶ surveys, community based case studies, laboratory simulations, randomized controlled ¶
experiments and program evaluation. All of them involve systematic procedures, tests of¶ statistical significance and peer review. Though there
may be limitations to each method¶ in the tool kit, multiple lines of evidence are used to build the case for policy … Canada ¶ relies on a system
of national surveys covering learning from birth to late adulthood.¶ These surveys provide the data for the bulk of the research supporting
policy. (Brink¶ 2004, 2) What is significant to point out in this Canadian example is that while the rhetoric of¶ ‘multiple lines of evidence’ is used,
the examples cited in this quote are all associated¶ with the empirical realm and are exclusively based on positivistic, quantitative methods. ¶
Furthermore, it is quite clear that ‘survey data’ are the most valued means of¶ generating evidence as they provide the ‘bulk’ of evidence
supporting federal policy.¶ Similarly in Britain, three types of evidence are employed in policy decision-making¶
(Sebba 2004). These include: (1) statistical quantitative data from national surveys¶ that monitor, evaluate, and provide forecast analyses; (2)
216
inspection data generated¶ through Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections; and (3) research¶ evidence derived from externally
¶ The types of data
commissioned projects or programs funded by the¶ government or external bodies, including research councils.
collection tools and data, used across these three countries, are¶ very similar to the techniques used
during the colonial era to establish governmentality.¶ Throughout the colonial world, statistical
knowledge and surveys were part of¶ colonial governmentality. As Cohn states ‘A number was, for the
British, a particular¶ form of certainty to be held on to in a strange world’ (1996, 8). Kalpagam (2000)¶ argues that
the practices of governance by the colonial state in India, and elsewhere, ¶ ushered in a new
‘quantificatory episteme’ which promoted the modern statistical¶ worldview. The administrative measures in
these colonial states required an immense¶ effort to record information. From the latter half of the nineteenth century, in the colonial¶
state, populations were ‘enumerated, classified, and territorially delineated’ so¶ that people could
become targets of colonial interventions (Kalpagam 2000, 49). As¶ statistical techniques developed, it became possible to
identify and codify aggregates¶ of population for specific kinds of description and intervention. Similarly, in later¶ centuries, quantitative
research played a key role in naming, taming, and controlling¶ the colonized subjects. Within the Philippines,
in the twentieth century, census data¶ were an important component of the American imperial project. As Rafael notes, the ¶ power and
persuasiveness of a census lie in its amazing capacity to picture in simple,¶ quantitative terms ‘the totality of the world’s multiplicity’ and at the
same time appear¶ to be ‘an objective representation of the world’ (1993, 188). In short, systemic knowledge¶ production
was a tool of colonial administration that allowed the colonizers to¶ name, classify, and control the
‘other’ as well as provide legitimacy to the colonial¶ administration. However, one could pose the question: Does
the use of such research methods¶ have colonizing effects in the contemporary educational arena as it
did in the past? I¶ would argue, ‘mostly yes .’ In the British context, Stronach (2005) highlighted the fact¶ that 70 complaints about the
activities of the Ofsted are made annually. With respect¶ to Ofsted inspections, Stronach reports that:¶ It privileges an imperative to
standardize … It transfers the notion of fairness from the¶ individual situation (the child, the school) to
a systemic location where it marks the place of the child or the school within national comparisons. In
this way individual ‘aims and¶ characteristics’ are subordinated to measures of average national attainment. And¶ ‘fairness’ becomes a
technical rather than a moral requirement. (2005, 19)¶ Gillborn points out that British schools need to always demonstrate ‘a
good performance¶ in the official statistics’ and ‘continual ‘under-performance’ can trigger a range¶ of sanctions including, ultimately, school
closure’ (2005, 19). Ball argues that such¶ British technologies of governance, ‘require individual practitioners to organize themselves¶ as a
response to targets, indicators, and evaluations,’ and require them ‘to set¶ aside personal beliefs and commitments and live an existence of
calculation’ (2003,¶ 215). Ball further notes that the burden of performativity felt by teachers in this British¶ school, whereby ‘[t]he activities of
the new technical intelligentsia, of management,¶ drive performativity into the day-to-day practices of teachers’ (2003, 223). Furthermore,¶ in
a study on school leaders in Britain and Canada and the usage of statistical¶ data in decision-making, Earl and Fullan found ‘expressed
unhappiness among these¶ school leaders about what they termed the ‘surveillance’ orientation of central government’ ¶ (2003, 390). They
continue:¶ Although leaders were experiencing the value of using data and had many examples of¶ occasions when data provided them with
insights and motivation to address a problem,¶ they were plagued by worries, because of the climate of surveillance, that the data would¶
come back to ‘bite’ them at some point. This tension was particularly evident in contexts ¶ of large-scale centralised reform. (Earl and Fullan
2003, 391) This top-down mechanism of research used in policy decision-making takes agency¶ away from
school leaders to interpret and make their own decisions based on data. As¶ Earl and Fullan state, ‘When the
data are locally developed, leaders still are able to¶ decide how to use it and who should see it. When the data are public, there is no escaping¶
through
the release of data and needing to respond to questions and concerns that come¶ from various constituents’ (2003, 392). Hence,
these colonial discourses, not¶ only is the concept of evidence being ‘fixed,’ but also the research
techniques used are¶ being standardized for policy decision-making. This ‘fixing’ has colonizing
ramifications¶ on schools, educational leaders, and teachers, in that they are all objectified. ¶ I need to be
clear that my argument here is not suggesting that quantitative research¶ techniques, surveys, or Ofsted inspection are in
themselves colonizing in nature. The¶ point here is that they have been the predominant tool used for technologies of
governance¶ in colonial rule, and continue to have similar functions and effects in the¶ evidence-based
movement. These technologies of accountability are also racialized¶ and gendered in their impacts on
students and teachers (see Ball 2003; Lipman 2003;¶ Gillborn 2005; Kerr 2006). They serve the function of
standardizing the subjects of¶ knowledge and function as tools of governmentality. Beyond the question of
‘evidence,’ evidence-based education also espouses a¶ certain conception of educational practice and
217
policy which does not tolerate diversity¶ (i.e. diverse bodies and knowledge forms) and thus promotes a
monoculture of the¶ mind. It perpetuates a standardized curriculum (i.e. a standardized form of knowledge),¶
student, and teacher subjectivity, through the culture of high-stakes testing and¶ accountability. As scholars have noted, there
has been a growing emphasis on highstakes¶ testing and accountability culture in the current neoliberal climate in Canada, ¶ Britain, and the
USA which leads to the standardization of education and learning (Hill¶ 2004; Lipman 2004; Hursh 2007; Majhanovich 2008). For instance, in
the USA, recent studies have argued that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy’s focus on highstakes ¶ testing has drastic effects, including:
limiting teachers’ flexibility and becoming¶ more lecture-based, leaving little time to explore different learning styles, narrowing¶ curricula
content to the tests, pushing minoritzed students (along the lines of race, class,¶ and language) out of schooling in order to increase test scores,
and bolstering the¶ achievement gap between majoritized/minoritized students (McNeil 2000; Lipman¶ 2002, 2004; Valenzuela 2005; Au 2007;
Hursh 2007; Biramiah 2008). In a recent study¶ examining third and fourth grade standardized tests of 11 states, Viruru (2009) discovered¶ a
qualitative difference in the representations of European-Americans and people¶ of color. These tests, according to Viruru, depicted European-
Americans as normal,¶ while ‘colonialists images of people of color’ (2009, 101) were perpetuated by which¶ people of color were ‘deemed …
exotic, less resourceful, passive and waiting for¶ change to come’ (2009, 115). In short, a high-stakes performativity and accountability¶ culture
is fixing and consolidating monocultural ways of knowing and being in US¶ schooling, while simultaneously colonizing diverse ways of knowing
and being.
218
AT – State Good
The state can’t solve the alt—the stances of indigenous and minorities groups
are channeled into un-enforced writing—only a rethinking of Western political
processes solves
Aparicio 2011 [Juan Ricardo, Associate Professor Department of Languages and Sociocultural Studies University of the Andes, “Reply
To Arturo Escobar's ‘Latin America at a Crossroads: Alternative Modernizations, Post-Liberalism, or Post-Development?” Cultural Studies¶
Volume 25, Issue 3, 2011 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502386.2010.527156#.UfbYqI21Fsl]
In fact, a whole scholarly literature in Latin America has precisely analyzed how the popular demands
of indigenous, afro-descendant and minority groups were channeled into the traditional framework of
liberal democracies and constitutions in the 1990s (Ochoa 2003, Hale 2005, Gros 2000). Not
coincidentally, these same transformations were taking place with the subtle arrival and
sedimentation of neo-liberal policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
under the scripts of ‘participation’, ‘descentralization’, ‘flexibilization’ and ‘good governance’. For these
commentators, in this ‘perverse confluence’ (Dagnino) between constitutional transformations and the
popular demands, the ‘radical difference’ was cancelled and tamed under the guise of the multicultural
state (Alvarez 2008). In fact, one could argue that the reconfigured ‘state-form’ was able to
reterritorialize these vectors into new consensuses while losing their radical drive. But one could again
ask: is this all the story? Thus the state apparatus of capture completely tamed difference? Or does the
capture completely control and regulate the speeds and intensities of these vectors? And for those of us
in the academy, how should one think and write about these processes and transformations?¶ For sure,
Arturo Escobar's 2010 groundbreaking article on the recent transformations taking place ‘at the State
level’ in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia raises these same crucial interrogations with even more
acuteness As he argues right in the beginning, posing a formidable challenge to academics working in
these areas, ‘how one thinks about these processes is itself an object of struggle and debate’ (Escobar
2010, p. 3). And he adds: ‘Is it possible to suggest ways of thinking about the ongoing transformations
that neither shortcut their potential by interpreting them through worn out categories, not that
aggrandize their scope by imputing them utopias that might be far from the desires and actions of the
main actors involved?’ With these warnings, the author continues to narrate the possibilities and limits
of these transformations taking place in these three countries to eradicate and transform the
traditional liberal and modern framework of these state-forms. He recognizes two major current socio-
economic, political and cultural transformations taking place in the country. The first one is the one of
alternative modernizations that ‘stems from the end of the hegemony of the neo-liberal project but
does not engage significantly with the second aspect of the conjuncture … , the hegemony of Euro-
modernity; (b) [the second one], decolonial projects, based on a different set of practices (e.g.
communal, indigenous, hybrid, and above all, pluriversal and intercultural), leading to a post-liberal
society (an alternative to Euro-modernity). This second project stems from the second aspect of the
conjuncture and seeks to transform neoliberalism and development from this perspective’ (Escobar
2010, p. 11). With these arguments that seem to reproduce the essential contradiction pointed above
around Laclau's work, this is, between the fundamental tension between the ‘power bloc’ and the
popular, or between ‘democracy’ and radical difference, and I might add, in their ontological and
epistemological dimensions, Escobar's argument seems to move between the classic Gramscian move
of the ‘pessimistic of the intellect’ and ‘the optimism of the will’. He even argues that his argument at
this stage deals more about potentiality (about the field of the virtual) than about ‘how things really
are’. But nevertheless, he still maintains the warning that even those vectors of potentiality or about the
field the virtual are never free from any contradictions or tensions.
219
AT: Perm – Prerequisite

Decolonial approaches come first – delinking from modernity and geopolitical shifts in
epistemology are a crucial prerequisite to any movement towards a just world
Mignolo 11, Walter, Argentine semiotician and professor at Duke University, “Decolonizing
Epistemologies” Chapter “Decolonizing Western Epistemology” Fordham University Press, November
2011
Let’s move closer to ongoing processes of decolonization of knowledge and building decolonial
epistemologies. The following argument is in time and in conversation with Maria Lugones’s and Nelson
Maldonado Torres’s contributions to this volume, and with the work of Emma¶ Perez.” You will see
decolonial thinking at work grounded in particular,¶ although similar, genealogies of thoughts and
experiences of embedded¶ in colonial epistemic and ontological differences. In my view, this¶ guishes
us (in the project modernity/ coloniality or at least myself) from¶ the genealogy of thought, experiences,
and issues that generated the¶ great work of thinkers such as Max I-lorkheimer, Simone de Beauvoir,¶
and Michel Foucault, to give a few examples. If all of us are concerned¶ and working toward a just and
nonimperial world order (Ecuadorian¶ quichua “sumak kawsay,” to live in plenitude, living in harmony;
Manda-¶ rin’s “Ho” peace, harmony, union; or Western languages’ “democracy”)¶ we do it in different
ways because-due to the modern/ colonial world¶ order we are all living in-we share the same goals
but have different¶ ways to march toward them: Some are imperial, religious, or secular;¶ others,
national; others, decolonial. And that is the simple “fact” that¶ requires geopolitics and body-politics
of knowing, understanding, and¶ being, to avoid modernity/rationality, as Quijano said, in its
variegated¶ forms: the imperial Right, the modern liberating secular Left (Marxism),¶ and the modern
theology of liberation. To extricate oneself (to de-link¶ from modernity/ rationality means to de-link
from the the Right, the Left,¶ and liberation theology. It means simply that the decolonial options
need to be asserted in order to “extricate oneself” not only from the imperial / dominating option but
also from liberating options such as Marxism and theology of liberation. Decolonizing epistemology
means, in the long run, liberating thinking from sacralized texts, whether religious or secular.)
220
AT: Perm – Prerequisite
Decolonial Latin@ discourse must be placed at the forefront – liberation is impossible

if the basis of knowledge production is founded on European forms of thought
Isasi-Diaz 11, Ada Maria, professor of ethics and theology at Drew University, “Decolonizing
Epistemologies” Chapter “Mujerista discourse: A Platform for Latinas’ Subjugated Knowledge” Fordham
University Press, November 2011
One of the main goals of mujerista discourse has been to provide a platform for the voices of Latinas
living in the United States. Mujerista discourse, particularly focused on Christian ethics and theology,
has as its goal the liberation/flourishing of Latinas. It uses as its source the understandings and practices
of Latinas, in particular the religious understandings and practices of grassroots Latinas who struggle
against oppression in their everyday lives. Mujerista discourse, originally a liberationist one, highlights
the voices of Latinas, which as a group are ignored by U.S. society! Often considered intellectually
inferior, Latinas’ understandings are indeed one of the many subjugated knowledges that are ignored
to the detriment not only of our own community but also of the whole of society.”
Mujerista thought is a “thinking-with” grassroots Latinas rather than a “thinking-about” them? Mujerista
discourse is a “we” discourse that embraces commitment to being community while not ignoring
specific- ity and particularity. Elaborated by academic Latinas, mujerista discourse takes very seriously
what Paulo Freire noted long ago: At the heart of all liberation thinking there has to be a commitment to
the people, what he calls a “communion with the people.”‘ This communion, or solidarity, with the
people has to find expression in an ongoing dialogue that profoundly respects the people’s ability to
reason and to participate reflec- tively in their own struggles against oppression.
In order to remain true to the struggle for liberation, one needs to continuously find ways of creating
knowledge from the underside of history. This is why mujerista thought attempts to be beyond the
controlling rationality of dominant discourses. To do this, we use the experience of Latinas as the
source for knowledge: This is a nonnegotiable understanding in the struggle for our liberation. Our
work is not to elaborate and explain our understandings against the background of “regular”
knowledge, using the dominant discourse to validate our insights.
221
Framework – Anti-Colonial Discourse
An anti-colonial discursive framework is key to decolonizing debate and

challenging institutionalized power
Wane, et. al 9 (Njoki Nathani Wane is the Special Adviser on Status of Women at University of
Toronto as Co-Director of Centre for Integrative Anti-Racist Research Studies. ¶ Anne Wagner (featured
left) is a professor of Modern and Contemporary ¶ Art at UC-Berkeley. Riyad Shahjahan is an educational
administrator at ¶ Michigan State University. “Rekindling the Sacred: Toward a ¶ Decolonizing Pedagogy
in Higher Education” Journal of Thought, ¶ Spring-Summer 2009
We use a critical anti-colonial discursive framework (Dei & As-ghazadesh, 2001) to situate our discussion on
spirituality and teaching in higher education. It is our belief that no anti-colonial work would be complete
without attending to the spirit , the broken spirit, the spirit that the colonizers managed to convince
the colonized subject was poor and in need of salvaging (see Pearce, 1998; Mazama, 2002). Wane (2006)argues that
when missionaries met Indigenous people of the world,the first thing they claimed to notice was the spiritual poverty of thepeople. The
missionaries embarked upon a project of decolonization bycontinually eroding and destroying all vestiges of the indigenous people’sspirituality
(see Battiste & Henderson, 2000; Some, 1994). Adopting
an anti-colonial discursive theory, it is critical to place
issues of spiritual-ity of the colonized people at the center of our discussion (Shahjahan,2005a). This
framework provides the basis from which to challenge the foundations of institutionalized power
and privilege and the power congrautions embedded in ideas, cultures, and histories of knowledge
production (see Dei, 2000).By embracing anti-colonial thought, we acknowledge spiritual practices which have survived the colonial and
neo-colonial powers. We view these acts of survival as forms of resistance that need to be acknowledged and
legitimated in the academy. Anti-colonial theorizing rises out of alternative, oppositional paradigms,
which are in turn based on indigenous concepts and analytical systems and cultural frames of
reference (Dei, 2000). It recognizes the displacement of spirituality and other non-dominant ways of
knowing the world by Western knowledge systems as significant (Graveline, 1998; Smith, 2001). Hence, as Zine(2004)
has written about using an anti-colonial framework to understand issues of spirituality: “addressing the erasures of spiritual
knowledge in academic and discursive contexts is part of an anti-colonial politics of knowledge
construction, reclamation, and inclusion” (p. 5). Furthermore, the anti-colonial discursive framework
provides a political ontology which serves to decolonize academic knowledge and pedagogical
practices , by valuing and employing spiritual ways of knowing (Magnusson, 2004).Indigenous knowledges
are central in the process of de colonization and an important entry point for theorizing issues of
spirituality (seeGraveline, 1998). Within indigenous cultures, narrative and storytell-ing are primarily
pedagogical tools. In considering how such practices may contribute to the project of decolonizing the
academy, Iseke-Barnes(2003) contends that: Through story telling we can highlight how knowledge production
in the academy reinforces colonial and neo-colonial relations and the considerable implications of
these struggles over knowledge for claims of Indigenousness, agency, and resistance in community
activities and academic pursuits focused on cultural vitalization and self-determina-tion. (p. 218)¶ Building
on this understanding, we offer the following narrative, atapestry of dialogical insights into our theorizing of how spirituality may be
incorporated into teaching in higher education. This narrative developed as a result of an interactive presentation entitled “EvokingSpirituality
in the Academy: A Tool for Decolonization and Transforma-tion for Global Citizens”¶ ¶ presented at an International Transformative Learning
Conference, May 2003.
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Framework – Coloniality Turn
Debate should be a question of shifting the geography of reason, not just

resolving competing interpretations from the position of neutral observation.
Their framework arguments are part and parcel of coloniality’s epistemological
structure.
& Society 2009)
The introduction of geo-historical and bio-graphical configurations in¶ processes of knowing and
understanding allows for a radical re-framing (e.g.¶ de-colonization) of the original formal apparatus of
enunciation.2 I have¶ been supporting in the past those who maintain that it is not enough to¶ change
the content of the conversation, that it is of the essence to change¶ the terms of the conversation.
Changing the terms of the conversation¶ implies going beyond disciplinary or interdisciplinary
controversies and the¶ conflict of interpretations. As far as controversies and interpretations remain¶
within the same rules of the game (terms of the conversation), the control¶ of knowledge is not called
into question. And in order to call into question¶ the modern/colonial foundation of the control of
knowledge, it is necessary¶ to focus on the knower rather than on the known. It means to go to the
very¶ assumptions that sustain locus enunciations.¶ In what follows I revisit the formal apparatus of
enunciation from the¶ perspective of geo- and bio-graphic politics of knowledge. My revisiting is¶
epistemic rather than linguistic, although focusing on the enunciation is¶ unavoidable if we aim at
changing the terms and not only the content of the¶ conversation. The basic assumption is that the
knower is always implicated,¶ geo- and body-politically, in the known, although modern
epistemology (e.g.¶ the hubris of the zero point) managed to conceal both and created the figure¶ of
the detached observer, a neutral seeker of truth and objectivity who at¶ the same time controls the
disciplinary rules and puts himself or herself in¶ a privileged position to evaluate and dictate .¶ The
argument is structured as follows. Sections I and II lay out the¶ ground for the politics of knowledge geo-
historically and bio-graphically,¶ contesting the hegemony of zero point epistemology. In Section III, I
explore¶ three cases in which geo- and body-politics of knowledge comes forcefully¶ to the fore: one
from Africa, one from India and the third from New Zealand.¶ These three cases are complemented by a
fourth from Latin America: my¶ argument is here. It is not the report of a detached observer but the
intervention¶ of a de-colonial project that ‘comes’ from South America, the Caribbean and Latinidad in
the US. Understanding the argument implies that the¶ reader will shift its geography of reasoning
and of evaluating arguments . In¶ Section IV, I come back to geo- and body-politics of knowledge and
their¶ epistemic, ethical and political consequences. In Section V, I attempt to pull¶ the strings together
and weave my argument with the three cases explored,¶ hoping that what I say will not be taken as the
report of a detached observed¶ but as the intervention of a de-colonial thinker.¶
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Framework – Debate key
Universal or “true” epistemologies homogenize the human – our knowledge

production cannot mimic the exploitative structures we seek to undermine. Shifts to
new forms of knowing are necessary
Maduro 11, Otto, Latino philosopher and sociologist of religion at Drew University, “Decolonizing
Epistemologies” Chapter “An(other) Invitation to Epistemological Humility: Notes toward a Self-Critical
Approach to Counter-Knowledges” Fordham University Press, November 2011
Globalization accelerates, multiplies, and elicits the constant criss- crossing, encounters, conflicts,
clashes, and mutual influences and transformations of a multiplicity of knowledges, knowers, and
ways of knowing-often unevenly able to deal openly and creatively with each other. Dialogue and
syncretisms are only a few of the dynamics emerging from these encounters, sadly often
overshadowed (or worse) by destructive dynamics of invisibility, denial, exclusion, persecution,
(in)civil wars, and other forms of conflict generated in the encounter among diverse ways of knowing
through migrations, seasonal labor, maquilas, electronic communications, and other dimensions of
the contemporary processes of globalization.¶ The paradox of a way of knowing that aims to
undermine an authoritarian, hierarchical, exploitive social system is that, in order not to mimic,
legitimate, and serve as an instrument of that very system, it needs to shape itself as an open,
humble, dialogical, consistently self-examining way of understanding and producing knowledge-which
inevitably turns it into a more fragile, vulnerable way of understanding and producing knowledge,
even more liable to be destroyed by the very social system it emerges against.
All epistemological problems are simultaneously political and ethical problems. All political problems
are simultaneously ethical and epistemological problems. All ethical problems are simultaneously
political and epistemological problems. Actual power dynamics, our efforts toward knowledge, and our
accountability toward our planet and all our fellow creatures are intricately intertwined with each
other.
The dangerous ideal of a universal, eternal, and singular true knowledge-a delusion that is habitually
part of imperial designs of forced uni- fication, subjection, and homogenization of a variety of ways of
being human-is all too often one of the most intractable hurdles to the peaceful resolution ofhuman
conflicts, to the respect and flourishing of human diversity, and to the possibility of learning from such
conflicts and diversity a few new and better ways of coexisting with one another. Would it be socially
thinkable to humbly and respectfully launch, at a fairly broad¶ and durable scale, an invitation to reach
partial, temporary, open agreements as to the variety of (epistemological) knowledges, (ethical) values,
and (political) structures within which we can live-and within which we can revise, transform, and
disagree, too, on the variety of acceptable ways of living? Would it be feasible to start among some
U.S. Latina/o groupings an experiment in epistemological, ethical, and political humility that becomes
someday a witness of another way of not just knowing, but of knowing justly: knowing in a way that
contributes to enhancing¶ life on earth for all?
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Framework – Decolonize Curriculum
We must decolonize the curriculum – it upholds the larger hegemonic epistemic

system
What is almost completely under-communicated in the South is how¶ the hegemonic educational
discourse—across the curriculum of school and¶ university systems and across nations—has helped to
promote the capitalist¶ world-system and globalization and defend positions of power. The sig-¶
nificance of privileging Western epistemology, beyond its alienating effect,¶ is how the hegemonic
epistemology and educational discourse effectively¶ prevents a critique of the present neo-colonial
epistemological legacy—the¶ hegemonic world system and its oppressive features.¶ This is made
possible because the hegemonic epistemology and its trans-¶ lation into educational discourse is
unrivalled in schools. Such an educa-¶ tional discourse reinforces the epistemic dominance in countries
in the¶ semi-periphery or periphery, which already experience the negative aspects¶ of the present world
order. To challenge this hegemonic knowledge neces-¶ sitates a deconstruction of the triad of Western
epistemology-(neo)coloni-¶ zation-hegcmonic power and implies a decolonizing of the curricula and¶
the educational discourses globally.
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Framework – Decolonize Education
We must decolonize education by centering minority epistemologies
Richardson 12 (Troy A, Associate Professor, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Cornell
University, "Disrupting the Coloniality of Being: Toward De-colonial Ontologies in Philosophy of
Education." Studies in Philosophy and Education 31.6 (2012): 539-551)OG
Countering hierarchical social and educational relations in contexts of racialization is¶ outlined by Margonis (1999, 2000, 2011a, b) as an
ontological project and philosophers of¶ education invested in a critical analysis of the intersections of race, class and colonialism¶ are indebted
to his thinking. I think it is important to read Margonis as fostering
a¶ de-colonial position in philosophy of education and
his call for a dialogical pedagogical¶ practice is crucially important for shifting the location of philosophical
knowledge generation and the languages of education. Indeed, Margonis’ dialogical (2007, 2011a, b)¶ project for anti-
assimilatory education would suggests multilingualism to assist in moving¶ from the hegemonic languages of philosophy (German, French and
English) to Indigenous¶ languages, African-American Vernacular English, creole and Chicano Spanish. Accordingly, his call for dialogue is in
direct conversation with Mignolo (2000) and MaldonadoTorres (2004, 2009). For each of these thinkers, coming into and becoming through a¶
dialogical relation re-situates being by exposing and disrupting the colonialist claims that¶ Indigenous and African and African diaspora peoples
were or are primitive. Likewise,¶ dialogue
resituates being by placing minoritized knowledge systems and forms
of being at¶ the center of relationships of learning.¶ Dialogue and multilingualism in the service of more expansive
discussions of being¶ cannot then be grounded in a pre-formulated or normalized (continental) existentialist¶ language of philosophy. Rather,
dialogue can be outlined according to a de-colonial¶ attitude (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 262) which takes as its
primary effort the assertion of¶ the languages which relate those knowledge systems and forms of being that
have been¶ conceived as outside or below the domain of Being. Dialogue conceived with a decolonial¶ attitude would
necessitate bi- or multilingualism to undermine the ways in which the term¶ ‘‘enigma’’ is used to dismiss and denigrate minoritized knowledges
and forms of life. As I¶ will elaborate below, multilingualism should be rethought according to languaging¶ (Mignolo 2000). Following the work
of Khatibi (1999) and Anzaldua (1987) Mignolo has¶ used the terms languaging and bilanguaging to signal a shift away from a strictly technical ¶
project for linguistic communication or translation (see also Sandoval 2000). For each of¶ these thinkers, bilanguaging operates to re-position
being according to the ways of life of¶ the minoritized. In this way, African Americans, Latina/os and Native Americans are not¶ enigmas for
philosophers of education but opportunities and invitations for a formulation¶ of being that is non-assimilationist to the privileged and
hegemonic languages of¶ philosophy.¶ Dialogue and the Decolonial Attitude¶ Maldonado-Torres (2007) speaks of a Du Bois (1999) inspired de-
colonial attitude that¶ ‘‘demands responsibility and the willingness to take many perspectives and [the] points of¶ view of those whose very
existence is questioned and produced as insignificant’’ (262).¶ While dialogue is not explicitly named here, it is an assumed element in
developing the¶ decolonial attitude. Indeed, elsewhere Maldonado-Torres (2004) elaborates how ‘‘radical¶ critique
should take
dialogical form’’ whereby philosophers ‘‘make space for the¶ enunciation of non-Western cosmologies
and for the expression of different cultural,¶ political and social memories’’ (51). Du Bois (1999) is for Maldonado-Torres (2007) one¶ who made
spaces for the memories of African and African diaspora peoples through a¶ radical form of dialogue. From this dialogue a different direction for the articulation and¶ formulation of African American forms of being was charted.¶ Moreover, as Maldonado-Torres (2007) goes on to note,
Du Bois’ dialogue enabled ‘‘the¶ creation of black institutions in the United States as well as furthering Pan-African visions¶ and struggles’’ (262). Du Bois fostered and called forth spaces for Pan-African visions,¶ providing a ‘‘fundamental shift in perspective that leads one to see the
world anew in a way¶ that targets its evil in a new way and gives us a better sense of what to do next’’¶ (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 262). On Maldonado-Torres’ (2004, 2007) reading, the institution building Du Bois achieved was a realization of a radicalized form of dialogue w here¶ the
knowledges, terms and forms of being expressed by African and African diaspora¶ peoples provide the intellectual, philosophical and ontological force for these projects.¶ There is in Maldonado-Torres’s description here an important complementarity to¶ Margonis’ (2011a, b) notion of
being in dialogue with the sentiments and existential¶ situations of racialized/colonized peoples. Indeed, Margonis (2011a, b) echoes some of this¶ Du Boisian de-colonial attitude when he writes ‘‘educators would do well to invite broad¶ and cacophonous forms of interaction in the
classroom; a mix of conservative, artistic,¶ comedic, and narrative patterns in the classroom gives a broader range of points of contact¶ with students’’ (3). Margonis arrives at this call for a cacophonous classroom in large part¶ through his careful reading and reworking of Freire’s (1993)
notion of dialogue. ‘‘Freire’s¶ description of egalitarian, de-colonizing dialogue,’’ he writes, provide ‘‘means for setting¶ in motion social spaces of focused, passionate intellectual intensity’’ (Margonis 2011a, b,¶ 3). Like Maldonado-Torres (2004, 2007) the insistence here on dialogue as
crucial to¶ providing the space for engagements with multiple intellectual traditions is crucial for¶ Margonis. As I have suggested above however, this space for dialogue has not prompted a¶ stance which works to expose the coloniality of being operating in Rousseau (1984) or¶
Heidegger (1962). Again, Margonis (2007, 2011a, b) seems to limit a more radical¶ understanding of dialogue provokes an anti-assimilationist stance toward Rousseau’s¶ (1984) and Heidegger’s (1962) philosophies of being. In this way, Margonis (1999, 2009)¶ inadvertently de-couples a
particular existentialist philosophical discourse from its relationship to colonialism.¶ In stating this, I am not suggesting that Margonis, I or Maldonado-Torres (2007, 2009)¶ could easily ‘‘fix’’ the discourse of primitive in Heidegger for example (1962) as a way to¶ deploy him otherwise. As
Bernasconi (2005) has warned, we cannot simply enact a¶ ‘‘surgical [philosophical] operation’’ (243) to smooth over these tensions for a more¶ ‘‘inclusive’’ Heideggerian existentialism. A de-colonial dialogue can be more attentive to¶ shifts toward bilanguaging in the enunciations and
learning of Indigenous, African and¶ African diaspora and Latino/a traditions of being.¶ Bilanguaging and/as Border Thinking for Trans-Ontologies¶ Finally, Mignolo (2000) identifies the space of dialogue as a site of ‘‘border thinking’’ and¶ ‘‘bilanguaging.’’ Anticipating Maldonado-Torres’
(2004) idea of a more radical form of¶ dialogue, bilanguaging is ‘‘a form of life possible in the fractures of a hegemonic (national¶ or imperial) language’’ that ‘‘draw[s] in something that is beyond sound, syntax and¶ lexicon’’ (Mignolo 2000, 264). Margonis (2011a, b) pedagogy of
cacophony solicits a form¶ of border thinking and hints at this idea of bilanguanging, but his philosophical framework¶ has not been fractured in ways that would shift us away from the Rousseauean (1994) and¶ Heideggerian (1962) coloniality of being. Dialogical practice as focused
intellectual¶ intensity would seem to entail the kind of bilanguaging Mignolo (2000) speaks of here to¶ achieve a decolonial dialogue. This would more fully attend to the way trans-ontologies¶ undermine the coloniality of being enacted through professional philosophy. Taken¶ together,
In the context of the United States and the Americas more

a decolonial trans-ontology is an emergent form of being stemming from a border¶ thinking and bilanguaging.¶
broadly,it is not only an¶ intellectual and pedagogical project that would provide the opportunity for
trans-ontologies¶ to emerge. An anti-assimilatory pedagogy seeking cacophony would entail a shift in¶
location to those physical borders where the complex forms and languages of being¶ continuously
emerge. That is, philosophers and teachers would situate themselves where¶ African American youth are not conceived as enigmas. In this
sense, Margonis’ (2007,¶ 2011a, b) teachers would not only seek a cacophonous classroom, but the
cacophonous,¶ creative, driven and constructive locations of African American, Indigenous and Latono/a¶
being. Through radical dialogues in these shifted locations we learn the pre-situations of¶ such youth. Learning with minoritized youth in this
way entails forms of bilanguaging¶ wherein European ontologies lose something of their habitability. In those, perhaps fleeting¶ moments,
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decolonial trans-ontologies are more clearly recognized as the future which¶ denies the coloniality of being.¶ The
processes of radical
dialogue (Maldonado-Torres 2004) and bilanguaging (Mignolo¶ 2000) for trans-ontologies underscores the
potentialities of a de-colonial turn in philosophy¶ of education. ‘‘The de-colonial turn,’’ writes Maldonado-
Torres (2007), ‘‘marks the¶ definitive entry of enslaved and colonized subjectivities into the realm of
thought at before¶ unknown institutional levels’’ (262). Margonis’ (1999, 2007, 2011a, b) efforts for
antioppressive pedagogical practices and philosophical frameworks serves as an important¶ moment
in a de-colonial turn in philosophy of education. Continuing with him toward a¶ critique of the
coloniality of being provide a way to move past the terms of enigma and¶ primitive to decolonial
trans-ontologies in philosophy of education.
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Framework – Discourse and Agency First

Debate as a space of agency is a prior question to political action
Slater 04(David. 2004. Geopolitics and¶ the Post-colonial¶ Rethinking North–South Relations. Blackwell
Publishing. )
¶ ¶ ¶In this context, it is possible to think of movements in terms of the¶ ¶ social construction of collective
identity. Thus, social subjects produce an¶ ¶ interactive and shared definition of the goals of their
action and the¶ ¶ terrain on which it is to take place. For Melucci (1992) such a definition¶ is an ‘active
relational process’ and collective identity is constructed and¶ ¶ negotiated through an activation of the
social relationships connecting¶ ¶ the members of a group or movement. Here, cognitive frames,
dense¶ ¶ interactions and emotional and affective exchanges are expressive of the¶ ¶ continuing
process of the formation of collective identities. This process¶ ¶ is found both within a movement and
also in the more recent example of¶ ¶ a ‘movement of movements’, where the World Social Forum,
originally¶ ¶ initiated in Porto Alegre, provides a new space of democratic encounter¶ ¶ that spreads out
globally, a theme to which I shall return below.¶ ¶ Process, as has been already indicated, is crucial in
both the general¶ ¶ area of subjectivity and in the formation of collective identity. This basic¶ ¶ but
sometimes neglected point is also relevant in the analysis of the¶ ¶ relations between discourses and
social identity. The realization of particular versions of meaning in forms of social organization relies
on the¶ ¶ discursive constitution of subject positions from which individuals actively interpret the
world and by which they are themselves reciprocally¶ ¶ affected. Clearly the social and political
affinities of any discourse will¶ ¶ not be realized without the active agency of individuals who put into¶
¶ practice those affinities and allegiances, and in this way it is possible to ¶ ¶ suggest that social subjects
are both the site and agents of a discursive¶ ¶ struggle for identity – both the recipients and
protagonists of meaning¶ ¶ and action. And in that process of reception and projection, discourses¶ ¶
are themselves altered and reconfigured. At the same time, the construction of individuals as subjects
is an ongoing process and is always open to¶ ¶ challenge and destabilization. Similarly, with
oppositional social movements, the questioning of sedimented meanings – as reflected, for¶ ¶ example,
in the women’s movement’s interrogation of patriarchal relations – has required the articulation of
different subject positions that¶ ¶ Foucault (1980b: 100–1) termed new ‘reverse discourses’.
228
Framework – Epistemology First

Deconstructing colonialist knowledge production is a prerequisite to
development—Latin America has a history of inequality perpetuated by
epistemologically flawed policies
Miguel 9 (Vincius Valentin Raduan, holds a degree in Legal Sciences Faculty of Humanities and a
professor at the Federal University of Rondônia, “Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Latin America”
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/colonialism-and-underdevelopment-in-latin-america/)
The argument that colonialism as an external imposition is the only determinant for the actual socioeconomic situation in former colonies is
certainly not convincing: we have to take in account the role of local elites who have benefited from those
exploitative relations. Colonialism is part of the historical process and formation of these countries.
The contemporary economies are debilitated for the following main reasons: a) The agro-export oriented
economies gave the general contours to the colonized production, forestalling attempts at industrialization and import substitution; b) The
agrarian structure excluded a majority from the access to the land and privileged a non-intensive
production; c) Concentration of income, poverty and inequality impeded the creation of internal
consumption; d) the internal dynamics of the ruling classes haven't facilitated savings, (re)investments and innovation in the national
economy. Finally, the geography (or how it was appropriated by the colonial powers) gave an incentive for easy
exploitation of natural resources (a necessary input to production), shaping the patterns of occupation and de-population of the
colony. The actual development policy of Latin American countries has focused on the exportation of
agricultural products, repeating old economic patterns. The monoculture is mystified under the label of diversification of products. The
impacts are more environmental destruction and (re)concentration of land in favor of big and old landowners. Low cost labor
is once more a comparative advantage in international trade, now called "competitive" costs in the globalized world. Years of
development studies demonstrated that there is not a model or "recipe" for progress and
modernization. A diversity of development policies are needed in order to face these structural problems. The developmentalists in Latin
America are ignoring a very basic premise: any real attempt of development must focus on the rupture of the old
colonial legacy. Otherwise, social change will purely constitute a perpetuation of actual unequal
conditions.
Calls for liberal peace and development are grounded in Eurocentric thought
that justifies illegitimate rule—deconstructing decolonial epistemology is key
Sabaratnam 13 (Meera, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge,
Like the god Vishnu, Eurocentrism has many avatars (Wallerstein, 1997). These allow it to come into being age after age, to meet different
adversaries and set its followers back on its own path. For those who recognize Eurocentrism as a problem within the study of world politics
and wish to overcome it, it is necessary to be perpetually reflexive about its recurrent and evolving
manifestations. This has been a major preoccupation of postcolonial security studies and international relations (Barkawi and Laffey,
2006; Jones, 2006; Shilliam, 2010; Hobson, 2012). This issue has also been in the sights of many critical accounts of the liberal
peace,1 which interrogate the security–development nexus and its prescriptions for intervention (e.g. Duffield, 2001, 2007;
Chandler, 2006; Richmond, 2005; Pugh, 2004, 2005; Mac Ginty, 2011).2 Overall, the liberal peace can be understood as a set
of particular ideas and practices intended to reform and regulate polities in the global South so as to
avoid both poverty and conflict. In contrast to the reassuring tenor of ‘policy-relevant’ conflict management and state-building
strategies, the critical literature has fundamentally called into question the political significance and legitimacy of the liberal peace as a form of
imperial global order. In Duffield’s (2001: 10–11) words: liberalpeace embodies a new or political humanitarianism
that lays emphasis on such things as conflict resolution and prevention, reconstructing social networks, strengthening civil and representative
institutions, promoting the rule of law, and security sector reform in the context of a functioning market economy. In many respects, while
229
contested and far from assured, liberal peace reflects

a radical developmental agenda of social transformation. In this
case however, this
is an international responsibility and not that of an independent or single juridical
state. These critiques have been suspicious of policies that project liberal peacebuilding strategies as
merely effective technical solutions to violent conflict, underdevelopment and state weakness (Götze and
Guzina, 2008; Chandler, 2010a). Rather, the critiques elaborate insightful accounts of the politics of international interventions in ‘post-conflict’
or ‘fragile’ environments. These critiques are ‘anti-imperial’ in orientation and ethic; that is to say, they derive much of
their intellectual significance from exposing the tensions between norms and ethics of self-determination, democracy and sovereignty, on the
one hand, and the neo-imperial interventionist discourses and practices that constitute the liberal peace ,
on the other (Chandler, 2006; Zaum, 2007). They respond to a much larger ‘mainstream’ literature on peacebuilding that has broadly sought to
defend the latter’s core practices (e.g. Paris, 2010; Ignatieff, 2003; Caplan, 2005; see also the discussion by Cunliffe, 2012). The common
charge within the critiques of ‘neocolonialism’ or ‘imperialism’ is thus understood as being serious as
it implies association with an illegitimate relation of rule. However, despite growing interest in the ‘everyday’, ‘local’ or
‘subaltern’ actors in post-conflict societies and their modes of ‘resistance’ or ‘hybridity’ (Richmond, 2011; Mac Ginty, 2011), the critiques
have failed to address systematically the deeper problems of ‘Eurocentrism’ in how we think and
research the politics of the international. As Walker (1993) has argued, international relations theory is itself political theory;
that is to say, it circumscribes our understanding of the ‘possible’ in world politics through its ontologies
and epistemologies. This insight, however, must also be applied to our traditions of critical theory. The core
contribution of this article is an interrogation of the Eurocentric limits of thought in the critical liberal peace
literature, which close down rather than open up counter-hegemonic modes of thinking the international
(see also Krishna, 1993; Hobson, 2007, 2012). Thus, although the critical literature’s ethics are often ‘postcolonial’, the analytics can be
further ‘decolonized’. In this sense, the push in this article to ‘decolonize’ critiques of the liberal peace can be seen as sympathetic to
the anti-imperial ethos of the existing literature, if critical of its limits. Getting beyond those limits requires a deep appraisal of the particular
forms of Eurocentrism in social theory. Such an appraisal leads towards a repoliticization of assumptions of ‘difference’. This article begins by
identifying three major variants of Eurocentrism at work in social theory. It then unpacks key features of critical accounts of the liberal peace
and discusses the ways in which they are inhabited by avatars of Eurocentrism. These culminate in what we might call a ‘paradox of liberalism’.
Finally, the article offers three strategies for ‘decolonizing’ research on the development–security nexus through a repositioning of the analytic
gaze.
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Framework – Evidence-Based Education Bad
The reliance on evidence based education perpetuates a colonial discourse

Shahjahan 2011 [Riyad Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University. Ph.D. at
the OISE/University of Toronto in Higher Education. “Decolonizing the evidence-based education and policy movement:¶ revealing the colonial
vestiges in educational policy, research, and¶ neoliberal reform” Online publication date: 22 March 201, Journal of Education Policy, 26: 2,¶ 181
— 206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.508176]
During the 1550s, while Spain debated the origins and behaviors of Native Americans, ¶ Dominican
Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas stated:¶ And the savage peoples of the earth may be compared to
uncultivated soil that readily¶ brings forth weeds and useless thorns, but has within itself such natural
virtue that by¶ labour and cultivation it maybe to yield sound and beneficial fruits. (cited in Sardar and¶ Davies
2002, 154)¶ How different are Las Casas’ words compared to the rhetoric used by proponents of¶
evidence-based education and their thoughts on educational research and practices¶ today? In this paper, using evidence-based
colonial remnants continue with us in the discourses of
education as a working example, I demonstrate¶ how
educational policy¶ and neoliberalism.¶ In the past several years we have witnessed a growing interest and debate on¶ evidence-
based education, practice, policy, and decision-making.1 Many journal¶ special issues, articles, and books have been dedicated to the topic,
both in Britain and the USA (see Constable and Coe 2000; Erickson and Gutierrez 2002; Feuer, Towne, ¶ and Shavelson 2002; Slavin 2002;
Thomas and Pring 2004). Some authors attribute¶ the growing evidence-based movement to the worldwide trend in Western countries¶
towards greater ‘accountability’ (see Levin 2003; Rogers 2003; Hojgaard 2005).¶ Other authors trace the evidence-based movement in
education to the formation of the¶ Cochrane Collaboration (evidence-based medicine initiative) in 1993 and the Centre¶ for Evidence-Based
Medicine in Oxford in 1995 (Simons 2003). Pirrie (2001),¶ however, argues that the
rise of the evidence-based movement in
education stems¶ from the ‘crisis of legitimization in educational research’ (124) perpetuated by several¶
of the ‘most prominent champions of … “evidence-based” policy and practice in¶ education and
proponents of evidence-based education’ (126). To counteract this¶ delegitimization of educational research and the practice
of education in general, a¶ growing body of literature from a critical perspective has also emerged in response to¶ this movement (see Atkinson
2000; Elliott 2001; Hammersley 2001; Davies 2003;¶ Bloch 2004; Lather 2004; Olson 2004; Ryan and Hood 2004). So far these discussions have
evidence-based policies
rarely connected the current evidence-based education¶ movement with colonial histories. For example,
and¶ practices have been used to marginalize indigenous bodies around the world, particularly¶
through forced cultural assimilation, theft, and the plundering of indigenous land¶ (Shiva 1995; Smith 1999).
My intention in this article is to foreground how evidencebased¶ education proponents are unknowingly
perpetuating a colonial discourse . In¶ other words, I join with those who have already critiqued evidence-based education,¶ and
extend their critique by offering an anticolonial perspective. To this end, I will¶ first provide a brief description of the anticolonial theoretical
framework. I will next¶ provide an overview of the literature that problematizes evidence-based education¶ from different critical perspectives.
Drawing on the literature and policy documents¶ related to evidence-based education, particularly works written by proponents and¶ critics in
the USA, Britain, and Canada, the following section analyzes this policy¶ discourse from an anticolonial perspective. I argue that
proponents of evidence-based¶ education promote a colonial discourse and material relations of
power that continue¶ from the European-American colonial era. I posit that this colonial discourse is
present¶ in the evidence-based education movement in at least three ways: (1) the discourse of¶
civilizing the profession of education, (2) the promotion of hierarchies of knowledge¶ and
monocultures of the mind, and (3) the interconnection between neoliberal educational ¶ policies and
global colonialism. I conclude with the implications of unpacking¶ these colonial vestiges in educational policy and suggest that we,
as educators, need¶ to ‘slow down’ in the process of educational policy and practice.
231
Framework – Limits Bad

Limits are bad – precludes questioning colonialism
Shifting the geography of reason is part and parcel of the decolonial turn; it is indeed part of what the
decolonial turn first achieved: the idea that we do not produce rigorous knowledge by adhering to the
questions, concepts, and standards on the basis of the views or needs of only one region of the
world, and even less of a region that has been characterized by either colonizing or ignoring other
regions. This view of knowledge production as bounded by particular geographical horizons, or by
disciplines or methods, is precisely what Gordon argues leads to disciplinary decadence. In that sense,
decolonizing knowledge necessitates shifting the geography of reason, which means opening reason
beyond Eurocentric and provincial horizons, as well as producing knowledge beyond strict disciplinary
impositions. This includes the suspension of method, and the attention to problems and questions
that emerge in the very effort to liberate oneself from the view of certain areas or bodies as
epistemologically irrelevant. That is, “shifting the geography of reason” is a way to decolonize
knowledge.
232
Framework – Now is Key
Our skepticism strengthens current decolonial movements

Departing from the intersection of the main theoretical currents present in these two special issues, one can also see the twentieth
century as the moment when the decolonial skepticism , and the creative thought of figures such as the Caribbean-
Algerian Frantz Fanon and the Chicana Gloria Anzaldúa—skepticism towards dehumanizing forms of thinking that present
themselves as natural or divine—, animate new forms of theorizing based on the scandal in face of
the continuity of dehumanizing practices and ideas. These dehumanizing forces, logics, and discourses
hardly seem to find an end in the current neoconservative and neoliberal moment, or in the liberal
and Eurocentric radical responses that it sometimes generate. Continued Manichean polarities between
sectors considered more human than others, the accelerated rhythm of capitalist exploitation of land
and human labor—sometimes facilitated, as Fanon well put it, by neocolonial elites among the groups of the
oppressed themselves—, as well as anxieties created by migration and rights claims by populations
considered pathological, undesirable, or abnormal—to name only a few of the most common issues found today—,
make clear that decolonization will remain unfinished for some time.9 Likewise, decolonial movements of
racialized populations in as varied places as the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, to
name only a few, make clear that decolonization is relevant in the present and will continue to be doing so
in the considerable future.
233
Framework – Objectivity Bad
Objectivity and pragmatism are all tools to promote fragmentation and

coloniality in the classroom
Wane, et. al 9 (Njoki Nathani Wane is the Special Adviser on Status of Women at University of
Toronto as Co-Director of Centre for Integrative Anti-Racist Research Studies. ¶ Anne Wagner (featured
left) is a professor of Modern and Contemporary ¶ Art at UC-Berkeley. Riyad Shahjahan is an educational
administrator at ¶ Michigan State University. “Rekindling the Sacred: Toward a ¶ Decolonizing Pedagogy
in Higher Education” Journal of Thought, ¶ Spring-Summer 2009
Hence Awaikta’s narrative resonates with what Anne remarked aboutepistemological dissonance. The
objectivist paradigm and
over-empha-sis on rationality continues to be a major obstacle to the inclusion of aspiritual ontology
(Palmer, 2000). The misconception which equates anydiscourse of spirituality with religious dogmatism is yet another barrier(Scott, 1998).
Finally, institutional culture and peer pressure function tosilence any discussion of spirituality within the halls of academe (hooks,2003; Dillard
et al, 2000). The institutional culture presents an ongoing challenge, especially in the context of
research universities, where thereis a pervasive and exclusive emphasis on “meritocracy” and
productivity(Rendon, 2005; Shahjahan, 2005a). Hence, we feel that we do not have ime to talk about the “why”
issues of life (Why am I here? What is the purpose of life?), instead, focusing on the “how’ issues of
life, (How amI going to publish more articles? How am I going to fund my researchprojects?) (Shahjahan, 2005a). Such pragmatism is a
reflection of theway in which different forms of knowledge production are valued in the academy.
Similarly students are assimilated into a meritocratic environment of marks and competition where
they “are pitted against each other” (Rendon, 2005, p. 88). Hence, we continue to live a life of fragmentation,
rather than connectedness . As a result, we become as-similated into the meritocratic, or what I call the
neo-colonial academy ,where institutional goals and ideologies become internalized as ourown, both for
faculty and students. Yet how might we counteract these entrenched challenges? I believe it is critical to address inclusiveness interms of
factors such as curricula, bodies, language, pedagogical stylesand other considerations
234
Framework – Radical Deliberation

Radical democratic deliberation over Latin America should include the imagination of
new subjectivities beyond the state
Slater 04(David. 2004. Geopolitics and¶ the Post-colonial¶ Rethinking North–South Relations. Blackwell
Publishing. )
First, there is a questioning of the place of the individual in society, ¶ whereby on the one hand there is the assertion of
the right to be different¶ while on the other there is strong opposition to anything which separates¶ the individual or splits up community life.
Second, the privileges of¶ official knowledge, its secrecy and disinformation, are strongly challenged,
calling into question the established relation of knowledge to¶ power. Third, there is a rejection of state
violence and a refusal of a¶ ‘scientific or administrative inquisition’ which attempts to determine¶ who
one is. These innovative features, which are relevant to the 1980s¶ debate on the new social movements, and
also to the contemporary¶ discussion of protest and change, revolve around the dynamic intersections among
the individual, society and political power. In this context,¶ the crucial political and ethical problem of the
day was to try and liberate¶ oneself from both the state and the type of individualization that is
linked¶ to the state – what is then needed are new forms of subjectivity. These¶ new forms of subjectivity
will vary in content, and such variation will¶ clearly be deeply affected by the historical and societal context. To¶
illustrate this idea and to take the argument forward, I want to take an¶ example from Latin America and specifically from Brazil.¶ At the
beginning of the 1990s, it was noted that in Latin America, in¶ addition to the rooted problems of
social polarization, marginalization,¶ underemployment and unemployment, poverty and social
deterioration,¶ the continent was facing new problems from emigration and drugs. This¶ seemingly
intractable situation led one Brazilian social theorist, namely¶ Weffort (1991), to stress the deleterious
effects of social decay, of the¶ dangerous prospects of a generalized anomie, of a loss of a future and
of¶ a sense of societal disintegration.7¶ Pitted against this dystopian scenario,¶ Weffort (1991: 93)
affirmed the force of democracy as the ‘force of¶ hope’. And this democracy referred not only to the
nature of political power but equally significantly to the extraordinary increase in the¶ organizational
capacity of civil society. How then would such an organizational capacity connect to new forms of
subjectivity and the¶ proliferation of resistances?
235
Framework – Schools Key
Schools are the key starting point for epistemological transformation
55)OG
It has been argued that it is urgent to start new conversations about the¶ world and man in terms of the present economic and
ecological crisis, but¶ also in terms of the global architecture of education.¶ A natural starting point for these new conversations is
the school, with¶ its large catchment area. The following section interrogates the state of¶ affairs of educational discourse
production globally and queries how nation¶ states in the South, often with a non-hegemonic, indigenous epistemologi-¶ cal orientation,
prepare the new generation in the South for a sustainable¶ future. Clearly schools and education institutions are important
sites where¶ knowledge production takes place.¶ While education cannot be seen as the miracle cure that can change the¶
situation in these countries for the better, there is little doubt that education¶ and relevant knowledges are important
factors in fostering societies that¶ have the potential to reduce poverty and promote sustainable
development¶ within the constraints of the global system discussed earlier. By undertak-¶ ing a survey of educational
discourses across the globe, one finds evidence¶ of the global architecture of education (Jones, 2007).¶ The global architecture of
education or the global educational discourse¶ has had, and still has, enormous consequences for how
the school systems¶ function in various parts of the world. This homogenous global educational¶ discourse exists in
countries with heterogeneous socio-economic and politi-¶ cal systems, both in the core and the periphery, and is distributed in substan-¶ tial
part through the World Bank, IMF, UN organizations, INGOs such as¶ USAID, Save the Children, etc., and through state-to-state cooperation on¶
education.9 With such a perspective, education plays a homogenizing epis-¶ temological and a modernizing role .
The epistemological transfer, besides¶ its ramifications nationally and internationally, impacts school
quality as¶ it contributes, I argue, to alienating students in the South cognitively from¶ their home environment by introducing them to an
alien culture and episte-¶ mology in school.
236
Framework – Social Location
Knowledge is inherently tied to social location and human experiences – a community

must understand and validate a thought for it to become considered knowledge
November 2011
Whatever we understand by knowledge, we always and only know in community, in a culture and a
language shared by a community; a shared culture and language allow us to communicate what is
understood, challenged, or probed as being-or not being-knowledge. In another culture or language
we could easily be at a total loss, at least at first, to claim having, achieving, or conveying anything as
knowledge.¶ This is markedly important for Latin American immigrants, their U.S. l-lispanic/ Latin@
descendants, and their relatives gradually turned into aliens-by either xenophobia, racism, and/ or the
ever-moving westem and southern frontiers (“we didn’t cross the broder, the broder crossed us” is a
piece of grassroots counter-knowledge shared by many Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans, among
others).¶ Part of the social paradox of knowing is that knowledge is not yet quite knowledge unless
and until it is recognized as such by a group of people-both in the sense of being “understood” by
them and in the¶ sense of being “accepted” by the group. If nobody understands or (what is almost the
same, but not quite) if nobody accepts what somebody "knows,” for all intents and purposes that
knower knows nothing (for the time being), that is, her/ his/ their knowledge is at least provisionally
incapable of making a difference in the community where the knower/ s is/are located.¶ “Individual”
knowledge is never merely individual: It is always a knowledge claimed by an individual within a
community, but not quite yet knowledge until it is understood and validated by a community (or
another). Cr, otherwise stated, knowledge is always in process, in an unpredictable process for that
matter, and knowledge is always in struggle: the process and the struggle of trying to (re)formulate
(received or “new”) knowledge in such a way as to gain understanding and acceptance (recognition),
indeed, but also the process and the struggle of reacting and responding to the obstacles to such
knowledge’s being received and acknowledged as knowledge.¶ Even in the extreme, hypothetical case
of a hermit separated from any human contact for decades, and suffering from what could be deemed
(from the outside) as dementia, whatever s/ he knows, cannot be so but in response to, and with the
elements o£ what s/he acquired in the community of her/ his years before being estranged from
human contact-and it is on such a basis that her/ his creativity might build. What- ever s/he knows, it
will not be understood and recognized as knowledge, again, unless and until a group of people
concurs with it.¶ Changes, conflicts, and power dynamics in any community- unavoidable traits of any
group of people, especially when time, innovations, and social differentiation intervene-have
consequences in the ways in which knowledge is (differentially) understood and “used within human
interaction. For starters, those alterations, struggles, forces at work tend to induce analogous
changes, conflicts, and power struggles around what people want (or desperately need) to make
sense o£ to know, what we recognize (or overlook, or disqualify) as knowledge, and those whom we
recognize (or dismiss) as producers or carriers of legitimate knowledge, as authorities.
237
Framework – Social Location
Subjugated knowledge must be freed in the struggle against coloniality. Viewing

history from the position of the ignored is necessary to engage in decolonial discourse
Isasi-Diaz & Mendieta 11 (Ada Maria, Eduardo, professor of ethics and theology at Drew University,
associate professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University, “Decolonizing Epistemologies” Chapter
“Freeing Subjugated Knowledge” Fordham University Press, November)
The essays in this book are at the intersection of two axes: liberation epistemology and decolonizing
epistemology. Liberation epistemology, born from the struggles of oppressed peoples all over the world,
emerged originally in Latin America, the roots of Latinas/os living in the United States. The centrality of
comunidades de base -base communities-in this movement and the insistence on the richness of
popular religion that is fed by Amerindian, African, and European beliefs clearly indicate that the
experiences and understandings of grassroots people are the source and locus ofliberating Latina/ o
subjugated knowledge. The decolonizing axis, a more recently developed one, emerged as a
response/reaction to the way that over the last half a century most theories have synergistically
conspired to exclude the non-West, the non-Male, the non-White, and the non-European, which
means the rivile · of European Anglo-¶ decolonizing axis points to how a group of Latina/o scholars
has challenged the way Latinas / os have been written off the epistemic geopolitical maps produced
by the West-Europe and now the United States.¶ Latinas/os are not postcolonial subjects the way
that Indians or South¶ Africans are postcolonial subjects. Nor are we imperial subjects, in the¶ way one
can say that the Spaniards, the French, and the British are impe-¶ r:ial subject;§. Latina/ o political and
cultural identities have been forged in¶ the cauldron of struggles to resist postimperialism (after Spain,
Portugal,¶ England, France) and neoimperialism (U.S.). Latinas/os are not national¶ subjects of one given
nation, for we occupy at the same time different¶ national imaginaries and have plural allegiances; nor
are we postnation-¶ als, for most ofus are U.S. citizens, and our Latina/o identities are forged..¶ in and are
part of the United States. All of these forces, political vectors,¶ spaces of belonging, sites of
dispossession, claimed interstices, erased¶ memories, and hushed stories have been theorized under
a group of¶ terms that aim to reorient the way we approach knowledge production.¶ At the center of
this new epistemic matrix is an understanding of our "coloniality/neocoloniality," which we live in the
street~ of New York, Miami, Chicago, an:d San Francisco and in the agricultural fields of Florida,
Michigan, Ohio, and California. We are the children of a West, a Europe, and a United States, whose lies
about themselves refuse and negate our histores. To survive and flourish we have to decolonize our-
selves. Our confrontation with the "coloniality of power," to use Anibal Quijano's generative
expression, requires a relentless and ceaseless struggle to value our past as our peoples experienced
it and not as the West has written it. Our past is part of our present, as it continues to frame what
becomes actuality from a horizon of possibilities. Our decolonizing enterprise to free subjugated
knowledges is a creative process that works at uncovering how to determine, from our own Latina/o
perspectives, horizons of possibility and knowability. Both axes - liberation and decolonization – focus
their knowing gaze on the ignored histories of Latinas/os;¶ they also embody archaeologies and
genealogies that deliberately explore "sites of exception, fracture, dehumanization, and liminality"
(Nelson Maldonado-Torres).
238
Framework – University Key
The University can provide the catalyst for changing our knowledge production
and including subalternate thinking to break down the hegemonic power
structures of the West
Boidin 12 (Capucine Boidin,Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, “Introduction: From University to
Pluriversity: A Decolonial Approach to the Present Crisis of Western Universities”,
[http://www.readperiodicals.com/201201/2582466231.html#b]
The crisis that American and European universities suffer today are not only the result of pressures
created by neoliberalism, the financial crisis and global capitalism (such as the "Bologna Process" in Europe, budget
cuts in American universities, state abandonment of its historical policies of strong support to public education, etc.). This crisis also
originates in the exhaustion of the present academic model with its origins in the universalism of the
Enlightenment. The participants in the conference were in broad agreement that this type of
universalism has been complicit with processes of not only class exploitation but also processes of
racial, gender, and sexual dehumanization.¶ In fact, internal criticisms of Western forms of knowledge are
not new. But in the last decade, the Kantian-Humboldtian model of university (including "science by and for science"
detached from theology, the encyclopedic character of research, the figure of the teacher-researcher and of the researcher-student) has
been widely questioned and criticized by Asian, Latin-American, North American and European
postcolonial thinkers who call for decolonial social sciences and humanities. In particular, the Latin
American and US Latino critical intellectuals, who prefer to refer to themselves as decolonial rather
than postcolonial, are questioning the epistemic Eurocentrism and even the epistemic racism and
sexism that guide academic practices and knowledge production in Westernized universities. They use
these terms in critical reference to theories that are (1) based on European traditions and produced
nearly always by European or Euro-American men who are the only ones accepted as capable of
reaching universality, and (2) truly foundational to the canon of the disciplines in the Westernized
university's institutions of social sciences and the humanities. Moreover, they question the intention of total
encyclopedic knowledge, in particular anthropological knowledge, which is a process of knowing about "Others" that never fully acknowledges
these "Others" as thinking and knowledge-producing subjects.¶ Such
criticism does not necessarily lead to a narrow
relativism and/or to the rejection of all research-making claims of universality. On the contrary, the most
interesting dimension of Latin American and US Latino thinkers' latest reflections is that they
underline the necessity of a process of universal thinking, built on dialogue between researchers from
diverse epistemic horizons. This is what some Latin American decolonial intellectuals, following the
Latin American philosopher of liberation, Enrique Dussel, has characterized as transmodernity. The latter
refers to pluri-versalism as opposed to uni-versalism.¶ It is striking to note that the reforms proposed by the Bologna Process and the budget
cuts to universities in the Americas do not address the internal and external critiques of the university outlined above. On the contrary, they
reinforce the academic world's disenchantment with traditional forms of knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities.¶ Yet the
potential for the renewal of American and European universities is considerable. One important path
to renewal would involve opening the university resolutely to inter-epistemic dialogues with a view to
building a new university, following what Boaventura de Sousa Santos has called an "ecology of knowledges." Far from limiting
itself to a weak relativism by default, or to "micro-narratives," the decolonial proposal would be to
search for universal knowledge as pluriversal knowledge, but through horizontal dialogues among
different traditions of thought, or in Dussel's terms transmodernity as pluriversalism. The construction of
"pluriverses" of meaning by taking seriously the knowledge production of "non- Western" critical
traditions and genealogies of thought would imply a refounding of the Western university. There are social scientists and
humanists in many parts of the world who, because of epistemic racism/sexism, are silenced or
239
ignored or inferiorized by the canon of Western male tradition of thought, that is, the foundational
authors of all the major disciplines in Westernized universities. Reforming the university with the aim
of creating a less provincial and more open critical cosmopolitan pluriversalism would involve a
radical re-founding of our ways of thinking and a transcendence of our disciplinary divisions.¶ The conference began a
dialogue with other traditions of thought, particularly among Latin American, North American and European thinkers. It also included
experiences such as those of the indigenous universities in the Americas. As was observed by several speakers, one of the main effects of
neoliberalism has been the market-oriented university where research priorities and funding are based on market needs. As a result, the US
model of the corporate university has been elevated to the status of a model since the 1970s. Latin America rapidly adopted this model and
caused it to multiply into hundreds of private institutions during the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. In other words, analyzing and
discussing the academic changes that have occurred in the Americas and in Europe for the last
decades should enable us to get a more profound understanding of the situation we find ourselves in
today and to better rethink the university of tomorrow. The Bologna-inspired reforms of universities in the European
Community are in many ways attempts at imitating the corporate neoliberal university model of the United States and, increasingly, Great
Britain.¶ In one way or another the
conference papers published in this volume discuss critiques of Eurocentric
knowledge and of the universities (or other, related institutions such as museums) that have generated it, and
explore initiatives to fight epistemic coloniality in several countries in Europe (the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany
Denmark) as well as in the Americas (Bolivia and the U.S.).¶ Regarding the Bologna university agenda in Europe, the intervention of Boaventura
de Sousa Santos in this volume is fundamental for understanding the contemporary structures of the university. De Sousa formulates a series of
what he calls "strong questions" about the contemporary European university in the context of the Bologna Process. These are questions that,
in his words, "go to the roots of the historical identity and vocation of the university in order to question ... whether the university, as we know
it, indeed has a future" (p. 8). The
aim is to determine, for example, whether the European university can
successfully reinvent itself as a center of knowledge in a globalizing society in which there will be many other
centers as well; whether there will be room for "critical, heterodox, non-marketable knowledge,"
respectful of cultural diversity, in the university of the future; whether the scenario of a growing gap
between "central" and "peripheral" universities can be avoided; whether market imperatives can be relativized as a
criterion for successful research and whether the needs of society- in particular those not reducible to market needs-can be taken sufficiently
into account; and, whether the university can become the site of the refounding of "a new idea of universalism on a
new, intercultural basis." A decade after the beginning of the Bologna Process, De Souza observes that these strong questions have received
only weak answers to date but he imagines a future scenario in which stronger answers can be provided and the university can "rebuild its
humanistic ideal in a new internationalist, solidary and intercultural way" (p. 13).¶ In the context of the Bologna Process of neoliberal European
university reform, Manuela Boatcã argues that the German authorities have recently promoted an "Excellence Initiative" which has defined as
one key objective the promotion of area studies. To the extent that such initiatives constitute a more modestly funded imitation of existing US
programs and share their affinity with evolutionist modernization theories and their instrumental function in orienting elite strategy, they
operate as a vector of "re-Westernization" of the German university. However, these initiatives may also in some particular cases open
up new spaces for the development of critical approaches to migration studies and ethnic and racial
studies, from a more subaltern perspective, with openings to critical gender studies and attention to
minority politics.¶ In the Danish university, outlooks on the countries of the South and issues of development are strongly conditioned by
hegemonic perspectives marked by coloniality. Although, in an era of neoliberal university reform, decolonial critique of dominant
forms and institutions of knowledge is a marginal pursuit, Julia Suárez- Krabbe draws on the experience of the collective
Andar Descolonizando, based at Roskilde University, to suggest some ways in which decolonizing critique can be trained
on the university institution itself and its "position within global articulations of power ." Such critical
work, aiming in particular at epistemic racism, can be accomplished through what she calls, with
philosopher Nelson Maldonado-Torres, "epistemic coyotismo"-that is, introducing into the discussion
theories and perspectives that are generally excluded from academia and causing them to be
recognized at least, if not openly accepted and seeking decolonizing forms of collaboration with social
movements in the South.¶ On the basis of direct experience in the Dutch university system, Kwame Nimako analyses the ways in
which knowledge about ethnic minorities-so-called "minority research"-has been hegemonized by
dominant elites who view minorities as problem populations and seek to manage minority problems in such a way as
to minimize them and never question their own domination nor the historical heritage of colonialism and slavery. This forced Dutch
minority groups to search for critical thinking and knowledge production outside the university
structures. Nimako describes several initiatives undertaken- mainly outside the university-by minority groups to re-examine race and ethnic
relations and the history of slavery and abolition, including the National Platform on the Legacy of Slavery, the National Institute for the study
240
of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy (NiNsee), the Black Europe Summer School, etc.¶ The
domination of Eurocentric social
sciences in the Dutch university is reflected in the reproduction of ideological myths in its knowledge
production. Sandew Hira examines certain dominant historical narratives regarding slavery and abolition produced and disseminated in the
Dutch university and Dutch governmental institutions by colonial social scientists and historians. He denounces their ideological and non-
scientific approaches and in particular their strong tendency to understate or deny the oppressive character of slavery and the responsibility of
Dutch ruling classes in its promotion, while also mystifying the historical factors that explain why abolition took place.¶ Drawing inspiration
from Patricia Hill Collins' critique of the "Eurocentric, masculinist knowledge-validation process," Stephen
Small examines various
ways in which universities, both in Britain and the United States, have long suppressed critical inquiry
into the history of empire, slavery and the slave trade. Parallel to this critique, he examines museums and
other memorial sites devoted to slavery in Britain and the U.S., including a small number of initiatives
that challenge hegemonic accounts and draw attention to the agency and the resistance of slaves. He
further draws attention to initiatives within academic institutions in the U.S., Britain and other parts of Europe to challenge dominant accounts
of slavery and its legacy.¶ Contrary to Western European universities, ethnic
studies and gender studies in the United
States emerged from social pressures from below as part of the legacy of the civil rights struggles. This
is why they are centres of critical thinking inside the United States' Westernized university. Ramón
Grosfoguel examines the formation of ethnic and racial studies programs in the United States as a
form of epistemic insurgency against epistemic racism/sexism. He develops an epistemic and
institutional critique to the Westernized university as well as a critical view of the dilemmas ethnic
studies confront today.¶ Taking ethnic studies as a decolonial project in the sense of "a southern
epistemological space within a northern setting," Nelson Maldonado-Torres develops a radical
critique of the humanities-and its crisis-today. He uses the decolonial epistemic revolt of ethnic
studies as a point of departure for thinking about ways to decolonize the humanities. He calls for
serious consideration of the experiences and epistemic perspectives of racialized colonial subjects
traditionally ignored by the humanities in order to address its present crisis centred in Eurocentric
knowledge production irrelevant to the present demographic shifts in the United States. He shows the
parallels of the racial logic that have excluded colonial subjects and the neoliberal logic that today
justifies huge budget cuts in the humanities. He argues that: "The temptation for the humanities would be to show that they
are the depositories of a better form of whiteness (without ever calling it that, or recognizing it as such) than the one that is putting the
humanities at the level of 'unproductive' people of color" (p. 98).¶ Drawing on his anthropological field work in Bolivia in the midst of profound
social and political change, Anders
Burman examines various interlocutors' attitudes towards knowledge, and
in particular the important differences between "hegemonic theories of knowledge and indigenous
epistemologies, between propositional and non-propositional knowledge, between knowledge of the
world and knowledge from within the world, or between representationalist and relational ways of
knowing" (p. 111). He stresses that there is "no absolute dividing line," no "clear-cut dichotomies after
almost 500 years of asymmetric and colonial intermingling of epistemologies and knowledge systems
from different traditions" (Ibid.). Yet he notes: "Relational ways of knowing and indigenous traditions of
thought continue to be systematically treated as inferior but they are still present and are currently
making themselves felt at the university" (Ibid.).¶ Maria Paula Meneses, speaking as a Mozambican researcher living and
working in Portugal, examines the different types of knowledge about the history of the colonial relationship and the independence movement
produced in the two countries. She
observes that (at least) two separate narratives coexist and render difficult
any possibility of mutual recognition. Colonialism involved much forgetting and silencing; the
dominant Eurocentric perspective on colonial history needs to be questioned and problematized. This
does not contradict a critical questioning of the official post-colonial narrative of the independent Mozambican state, whose state- and nation-
building function has caused it to silence the diversity of memories generated by the interaction between colonizers and colonized and to
justify the repression of those who questioned the official version of history. Public narratives, official or otherwise, that construct or
reconstruct memories are inevitably in competition with each other and reflect power relations. But the full plurality of memory does not
receive public attention; it must be dug out by activist researchers who are able to distinguish among different subjective viewpoints and
produce knowledge with a full understanding of the complex relations among conflicting historical legacies.
241
Aff Answers
242
Capitalism/Economic Rationality Good

Economic freedom solves poverty, human rights, war, and democracy worldwide
Kim 7 [Anthony B. Kim, Policy Analyst in the Center for International Trade and Economics at The Heritage Foundation, “The Link between
Economic Freedom and Human Rights,” September 28, 2007, http://www.heritage.org/Research/WorldwideFreedom/wm1650.cfm]
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, President Bush urged the nations of the world to work together "to free people from tyranny and violence, hunger and disease,
] That message echoes the enduring confidence that Americans have in
illiteracy and ignorance, and poverty and despair."[1
freedom as a moral and liberating force for all peoples. It is the foundation of true democracy and human rights.
Freedom is the engine that drives sustainable economic growth and provides increased access to
prosperity for all people everywhere. Economic freedom is essentially about ensuring
human rights. Strengthening and expanding it guarantees an individual's natural right to achieve his
or her goals and then own the value of what they create. Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate economist who has made considerable contributions to development economics, once noted that
"Development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity for exercising their reasoned legacy."[2] People crave
liberation from poverty, and they hunger for the dignity of free will. By reducing barriers to these
fundamental human rights, forces of economic freedom create a framework in which people fulfill
their dreams of success. In other words, the greater the economic freedom in a nation, the easier for its people to work, save, consume, and ultimately live their lives in dignity
and peace.
This relationship is well documented in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall
Street Journal, which measures economic freedom around the globe. The Index identifies strong synergies among the 10 key ingredients of economic freedom, which include, among others, openness to
The empirical findings of the Index confirm that greater economic
the world, limited government intervention, and strong rule of law.
freedom empowers people and improves quality of life by spreading opportunities within a country
and around the world. As Chart 1 clearly demonstrates, there is a robust relationship between economic freedom and prosperity. People in countries with
either "free" or "mostly free" economies enjoy a much higher standard of living than people in countries with "mostly
unfree" or "repressed" economies.[3]
Citizens in nations that are built on greater economic freedom enjoy greater access to ideas and resources, which are the forces that let "all of us exchange, interact and participate"[4] in an increasingly
interconnected world. Access, another form of freedom that has practical promise, is an important transmitting mechanism that allows improvements in human development and fosters better
democratic participation. A new cross-country study, recently commissioned and published by the FedEx Corporation, measures the level of access that a nation's people, organizations, and government
enjoy in comparison to the world and to other countries. The study looks into trade, transport, telecommunication, news, media, and information services in 75 countries.
There is strong positive linkage between degrees of economic freedom and levels of access. As Chart 2
shows, greater economic freedom allows people to have more access to necessary means to success such as
new ideas and resources. Reinforcing each other, greater economic freedom and better access to ideas and information combine
to empower people, improve their quality of life, and expand opportunities for nations to benefit
from global commerce.
Higher economic freedom also has a strong positive correlation with the United Nation's Human Development Index, which
measures life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living for countries worldwide.[6]By creating virtuous cycles and reinforcing
mechanisms, the prosperity created by economic freedom results in reduced illiteracy (through greater access to education) and increased life expectancy (through access to higher quality health care
and food supplies).[7]
Debate over the relationship between economic freedom and political freedom and the question of causation has been somewhat controversial due to the complex interplay between the two freedoms.
economic freedom leading to economic prosperity can enhance political
Yet it is well recognized that
liberty. As the late Milton Friedman, the father of economic freedom, once noted in his book Capitalism and Freedom:
Economic freedom plays a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is
itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political
freedom.
As we have witnessed over the past decades, economic progress through advancing economic
freedom has allowed more people to discuss and adopt different views more candidly, ultimately leading
societies to be more open and inclusive. Although transformation has been somewhat slower than one might hope, the process has been facilitated by the battle
of ideas and greater access to information, guided by forces of economic freedom and innovation. Economic freedom makes it possible for independent sources of wealth to counterbalance political
, economic freedom has underpinned and reinforced political
power and to cultivate a pluralistic society. In other words
liberty and market-based democracy.

The cause of freedom has swept around the world over the last century. It is the compelling force of economic freedom that empowers people, unleashes powerful forces of choice and opportunity,
freedom's champions must confront both the dark
and gives nourishment to other liberties. As the 21st century progresses,
ideology of extremists and those who would restore the failed socialist models of the past.
Confidence in, and commitment to, economic freedom as a liberating force must continue to serve as the foundation of
open societies and human rights.
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Capitalism via engagement raises life expectancy and quality of life especially in Latin
America
Martinez-Diaz ‘08
(Leonardo, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere in the United States Department of
the Treasury, Latin America: Coming of Age, http://wpj.sagepub.com/content/25/3/221.citation)
These are the best of times in Latin America and the Caribbean. With very few exceptions, all of the
hemisphere’s countries are now stable democracies. Civil war is a malady of the past, and peaceful
transitions of power have become the rule, not the exception. Economic growth has been positive and robust across
the region in recent years, hyper-inflation is a fading memory, and sound fiscal management has never been so widespread. The region’s people
are richer and living longer than ever before. Even inequality—that chronic bane of Latin Ameri- can societies—has fallen in Brazil and
Mexico.¶ Yet over the next quarter century, this region of 33 nations and 600 million people faces powerful forces of change from outside and
within. Latin American societies are aging rapidly, and demographic change is forcing them to confront new social and economic problems. The
rise of India and China is generating enormously lucrative opportunities for some Latin American countries but creating serious competitive
difficulties for others. Climate change potentially threatens Central American and Caribbean nations with destruction and dis- location. A
growing middle class is changing domestic political dynamics. What will these trends mean for Latin
America in the¶ next 25 years? What will the region look like in 2033?¶ A few themes will be central to Latin
America’s story in the next quarter century. To undertake crystal ball-gazing exercises that produce useful insights, the key is to focus on
variables that are critical to a society’s future but that are relatively inflexible in the short- or medium-term—for example, a country’s
industrial structure and the age distribution of its population. These characteristics provide clues about how a society’s more volatile dimensions,
such as its politics and economy, might evolve.¶ The Graying of Latin America¶ As countries get richer, they experience de-
mographic change. Over the past half-century, as the economies of Latin America grew, life
expectancy increased, infant mortality declined, and parents chose to have fewer children. The
number of children per woman fell from 5.9 in the 1950s to 2.5 by the early twenty-first century.
Today, the average Latin American lives roughly 72 years, almost as long as his or her European and
North American counterpart. These trends are likely to continue. According to the United Nations,
Latin America’s birthrate will fall further, to 1.9 children per woman by 2030. Life expectancy at
birth may approximate 78 years by then-¶. As a result, the number of Latin Americans aged 65 and older will rise steadily—
indeed, that age group will increase faster than other age groups, at about 3 percent per year.¶ By 2033, Latin America will look a lot
like the advanced economies of Europe and North America today, at least in demographic terms.
Cuba and Uruguay will have the most people over 60 as a percentage of their populations, followed by
Chile and Ar- gentina. In 25 years, Brazil will have a ratio of old to young comparable to that of Canada
today. Chile will have the age distribution of present-day Austria, and Argentina will look like today’s Norway.¶ To keep things in
perspective, overall Latin America will remain more youthful than Europe and Japan. In 2033, some 15 percent of Latin
Americans will be over 60, but in Europe, the number will be closer to 30 percent. Still, by the
standards of developing Asia and Africa, Latin America will be at a distinctly more advanced stage of
maturity. Latin America, along with the United States, will come to occupy an inter- mediate position between the richest but
demographically stagnant, societies of the global North and the poor, but fast-growing, countries of the developing South. (One key exception is
China, which will come to resemble Latin America’s more mature countries.)
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Our methodology also applies to their criticism’s methodology—a failure to incorporate the
fundamental laws of economics is an improper examination of epistemological and ontological
concerns. Prioritize economic rationality when evaluating solvency evidence.
Boettke 3 – Professor of Economics at George Mason University (Peter, “Economics as Ideology: Keynes, Laski, Hayek and the Creation of
Contemporary Politics”, Compte rendu de l’ouvrage, accessed 7/20/12)//BZ
In fact, economic history
is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed
with a bold disregard for the laws of economics. It is impossible to understand the history of economic
thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of
those in power. An economist can never be a favorite of autocrats and demagogues. With them he is
always the mischief-maker, and the more they are inwardly convinced that his objections are well
founded, the more they hate him. Ludwig von Mises Is this statement of Mises one of ideology or science? The politically correct
answer would be that this is just another example of Mises’s excessive ideological commitment to laissez faire. But as with much in modern
intellectual life, thedesire not to offend produces polite but flawed argument at the expense of the harsh
truth of the matter. The choice of economic policy may be a matter of democratic decision making, but
the consequences of economic policy on human well-being certainly is not. And once we recognize that, then the
analysis of the development of economic doctrine and evolution of political economy in the 20th century looks totally different. The
breakdown of the Keynesian consensus in the 1970s, the collapse of communism in the 1980s and the wide-
spread reco-gnition of the failure of development planning in the 1990s, point 21st century political
economy in a direction that would be a radical departure from the path it was set on at the beginning of the 20th, when
an almost blind-faith in the ability of democratic government to correct social ills captured the
imagination of the intellectual elites. The lesson of the 20th century for political economy should be one of
humility and restraint. The fatal conceit of the 20th century which sought to unleash the power of the
government elites to do “good” in the name of the masses must give way to a contemporary version of the 18th
and 19th century project of constraining the power of the state and its elites, and unleashing the productive
potential of the masses. “The curious task of economics,” Hayek has written, “is to demonstrate to men how
little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” [(1988, p. 76]. But if economic science
doesn’t exist independently from the democratic will of the citizens, then such a task is not just curious,
but absurd. Enter Kenneth Hoover’s Economics as Ideology. At one level this is a fascinating book, dealing with an important subject, and
approaching it in a unique way. The role of ideology in science, and how different thinkers of the past can shape
the contemporary political climate is indeed a worthy subject of serious study. Moreover, the attempt to
explain how the personal biographies of thinkers shape their own identity and thus ideology is also important. Unfortunately, there is also the
problem of truth in scientific discovery. All the good will in the world doesn’t matter if the theory advocated is simply in conflict with reality.
William Easterly, for example, in dealing with the post-WWII era efforts to orchestrate economic development in the 3rd world refers to the
“cartel of good intentions.” (2002) One of the first principles of political economy is that intentions
do not equal results - this is
true for the central mystery of political economy (how individuals pursuing their own interests, and only their own interests,
can within certain institutional environments generate outcomes which are socially desirable) and for the central tragedy (how
individuals can in striving to promote the public good generate unintended undesirable consequences). There are systemic forces
that are in operation in political economy and they exist independent of the wishful thinking of
participants in the political-economic nexus. Hoover doesn’t appear to recognize this fundamental point in political economy
and thus his effort to understand the development of modern political economy is flawed from the start. Let me focus on my criticism first and
then I will end highlighting aspects which I think the reader can benefit from in reading his book nevertheless. First, the selection of subjects is
bizarre from the beginning if we are going to talk about economic science and its relation to public policy
debates. Certainly Keynes and Hayek belong, but Laski has no claim whatsoever to being an original thinker in economics. He was a political
theorists and political activist and had little to nothing to say about technical economics. Keynes and Hayek, however, were first and
foremost skilled technical economists who utilized the knowledge they had gleaned from technical
economics to make policy relevant contributions. In short, it is on the basis of sound economic reasoning
245
that they were able to make policy relevant arguments to their contemporaries. But except for a paragraph here
or there, the technical economics of Keynes and Hayek are passed over in this book to focus instead on their political affiliations and political
influence (Keynes with the democratic center, Hayek with the hard right - Laski is given the hard left) and we
are treated to asserted
arguments about how personal psychology impacted their position. We are treated to these figures as
political theorists or rather political icons of movements that identified with them. This enables Hoover’s choice
of thinkers to have some coherence, though the reason for both Keynes’s and Hayek’s influence are going to get inadequate treatment as a
consequence. Second, Hoover is only apparently asking a question about the evolution of ideas and ideological influence. But a reader can
sense from the second paragraph of the preface where Hoover’s sympathies personally lay on the policy questions of the day. He laments that
the ideological pendulum has swung too far to the right and then he states plainly that “On a moment’s reflection, it is clear that governments
do good things, as well as bad. And markets likewise are Janus-faced, sometimes provident, other times the wastrel.” (p. xi) In other words,
Hoover has an answer to his question before he asks it. Political economy is to serve as a means for human betterment
within the context of democratic deliberation among citizens. These deliberations must be rational and
not prone to ideological excess if they are going to generate understanding among citizens of “the need
for a complex interweaving of institutions, processes, and constitutional safeguards so that the excesses
of any one institution may be limited, while its virtues are brought to the service of society.” (p. 270) Who,
the reader must ask, could ever be against limiting abuse and encouraging virtue? Nobody can be against the exercising of
wisdom, courage and public spiritedness in making political decisions. But in Hoover’s treatment both Laski and Hayek
are going to be found wanting in this regard because ideological theorizing in their name can be abused by politicians on the left and right - as
Hoover argues we have seen - and thus only Keynes is left to rationally mediate between the two extremes of socialism and libertarianism.
Overly ideological thinking is what causes problems in democratic deliberation, according to Hoover.
246
Coloniality Reinscribes Eurocentrism

Coloniality’s routing of all history through Western narratives reifies the
eurocentrism it claims to critique and makes alternatives impossible
(2012) 229–250 | DOI: 10.1163/156916412X651210]
With these developments human consciousness becomes enmeshed in a sense of time and history
that belongs to the project of progress constructed in the sixteenth century. Therefore, by the time Descartes
states his “Ego cogito sum,” his words mark the delimitation of thought under the Western racial economic
project of development of a world-system of economic power and its fitting or working knowledge. In
looking at the development of the racial difference, as traced by Quijano, one finds then two points of possible critical engagement with
Western Modern philosophy. On the one hand, the need for a critique of Western consciousness as situated by the temporality of a rationalist
instrumental project and delimitation of thought. This I take to be a critique that begins from Heidegger and works through deconstruction in
Western philosophy. The other position would be exterior to this Western project, namely, a thinking from
those lives, cultures, and histories discarded for the last five hundred years. My concern here is always with the
latter, as the path to a decolonial thinking. But here appears a profound difficulty, how would one think in light of discarded
consciousness if not out of a consciousness determined by the time line and sense of history that
sustain the Western Modern rationalist instrumental project? In order to understand this question and its problematic
implications better, I turn now back to Quijano’s analysis. In doing so I will be playing out some of the delimiting moments in Quijano’s analysis
in order to see the extent to which the very opening accomplished by his analysis is framed by the coloniality of time that I have been
discussing. However clear and historically and socio-politically accurate the analysis, Quijano’s discussion does not have a philosophical effect
yet. Both his negative and positive critiques are grounded on ideas that belong to the very project he
wants to challenge and undo. His discussion is based on a rationalist historical materialism (not a utopian
humanism), and the expectation that leads it is that of a progress that occurs out of history . We are speaking of
a change without a fundamental transformation, since the new configurations occur by constructing a
new rationalism, modernity, and history. This is a new modernity that still corresponds to ideas of progress
and history in the form of a dialectic movement of material historical progress. In his analysis the excluded and
exploited in their very being are always the product of the ego conquero, and therefore are ultimately
situated by the Western tradition as its other. Where this may be fitting in the sense of power and knowledge, the being of
those distinct lives and cultures is not the product of (genitive) Western modernity tout court. As a result of this adjudication of difference
to the system of power and knowledge that sustains the development of Western European and later North American modernity, the only
path beyond racism is through finding a transformation by recognizing a movement of history and
production. The progress that excludes must become a progress that liberates, a utopic progress as the engine
of dialectic history goes on. What is not put into question is the concept of progress, and the historical
materialism that is but an ever selfproducing manifestation of Western instrumental rationalism.
Quijano’s critique recognizes Western history as the origin of alterity and thereby situates all
questions of alterity under that historical development. The indigenous, the Afro-Caribbean, the
Islamic, the Chinese are but creations of the Western historical development and therefore may only
be critiqued through Western history. Every change and every possible unfolding must arise from, and
therefore pass by, necessity through the filter or engine of rationalist historical progress and dialectic production.
The problem is that such an analysis does not leave room for other possible configurations of identities, for
transformations, for dialogue beyond the constraints of the Western Modern project of progress and
the epistemic and existential requirements and limitations such a project imposes on all senses of
beings. If one thinks of the traditional North-South dependency, in following Quijano’s analysis any
liberating thought will have to repeat the journey north and thus will have to pass through a
transformation of the northern epistemic apparatus operative in the coloniality of power and
247
knowledge. This would mean that for Quijano any South-South dialogue between those excluded, oppressed,
and violently fragmented cultures is simply a myth, that is, since in every case the agents involved would be mere creations of
the Modern engine of progress. Inversely, this is why only through history, rationality, and progress would change occur. One may contrast this
position with that of philosophers of liberation like Enrique Dussel, for whom philosophy today requires a south-south dialogue in which the
excluded and discarded thought of the oppressed may engage in its own transmodern dialogue.35 We are speaking, here, of philosophical
dialogues that do not depend or refer to Western modernity for their occurrence and development. Such transmodernity, such thinking in
radical exteriority is an impossibility for Quijano.36 When Quijano does reach for a thinking that is Latin American he turns towards the
recognition of Latin America’s participation in the development of modernity: the utopian thought of Western Modern philosophy comes from
indigenous experiences that reach the other side of the Atlantic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and during the period of the
development of modernity in the West, during the enlightenment, the Americas are on par when not ahead of Europe (particularly with respect
to political revolution).37 Here the
indigenous appears only through its inscription into the history of Western
modernity, or in the form of the excluded, as one appeals to the American participation in Modern political revolutions that
ultimately used and excluded the indigenous by virtue of the criollo revolutions of the nineteenth century. Obviously neither of these are in
Quijano’s intentions, but they do show how the other is always a function of and reinscribed into a project of modernity, i.e. of its history,
rationalism, materialism, and production. This issue becomes also evident when one considers that when Quijano does reach beyond Western
history/time, he does so by appealing to Garcia Márquez’s writing as a “mythical” writing that articulates a sense of historical time diverse from
Western historical temporality. What is curious is that one
must move from the real to the mythic in order to engage
Latin American reality. This is because Quijano remains with a rationalist historical origination that, in
being recognized also delimits his critique, to the point that the only outside of the Western
coloniality of time is itself a version of the product (and thus within the parameters) of rationalist materialist
dialectic concepts and expectations inseparable from the coloniality of power and knowledge.
248
Framework – Policy Deliberation Solves
Limited deliberative forums like debate which discuss Latin American specific
policies prevent elite domination, develops agency, and promotes
epistemological equality
Baxter 10 (Jorge, Education Specialist, Department of Education and Culture in the Organization of
American States, Former Coordinator of the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic
Values and Practices at the OAS, PHD in International Comparative Education and Policy from University
of Maryland College Park, “Towards a Deliberative and Democratic Model of International Cooperation
in Education in Latin America”, Inter-American Journal of Education for Democracy, 3(2), 224-254,
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/ried/article/viewFile/1016/1307, Accessed: 7/30/13)OG
In the context of international¶ education cooperation and international¶ development in

Latin America, where¶ there are
great asymmetries in power and¶ resources , it seems that this critique could¶ have some validity. However, rather than¶
concluding that deliberation and participation¶ should be reduced, one could conclude (as¶ is argued in this paper)
that they should¶ be enhanced and expanded . Those that¶ advocate for a “thicker” democratization in¶ the region would likely
advocate for a more¶ substantive approach to deliberation in policy¶ which establishes certain parameters
such¶ as “education is an intrinsic human right,”¶ and which would place an emphasis on¶ achieving quality education outcomes¶ for all as the
goal. This does not mean that¶ they would not advocate for deliberation but¶ rather would set parameters for deliberation¶ in order to
ensure that the outcomes do not¶ lead to “unjust” policy (e.g., a policy that¶ might promote more inequity in
education).¶ Those that advocate for a “thinner” approach¶ to democratization would tend to advocate¶ for a procedural approach to
deliberation in¶ education policy and would most likely place¶ emphasis on equal opportunity of access¶ to quality education.¶ Instability
critique: Education in Latin¶ America suffers from too much instability and¶ is too politicized. Increasing participation and¶ deliberation would
only further politicize the¶ situation and polarize those who advocate for¶ educational reform and those who block it.¶ The average term of a
minister of education¶ is one-and-a-half years; each time a new¶ minister comes to office, new policies are¶ passed which, according to
deliberative¶ democratic theory, would need to be reasoned¶ and debated with citizens. Deliberation in this¶ context would promote even
more instability¶ and would lead to further politicization of¶ education reform.¶ Response: Political instability and¶ lack of continuity in policy
reform are serious¶ limitations that to some degree are inherent¶ in democratic institutions and processes. The¶ reality is that if any education
reform is to¶ succeed in the long term, it needs more than¶ the efforts of governments or international¶ organizations. It needs the sustained
support¶ of stakeholders across sectors (public,¶ private, and civil society) and over time. It¶ has been argued that the main problem in¶ basic
education in Latin America is the lack¶ of a broad social consensus, recognizing¶ that there is a problem of equity and quality¶ in the provision
of education (Schiefelbein,¶ 1997). This lack of broad social consensus¶ is especially challenging where there is, as¶ noted in the critique, a lack
of continuity¶ in education reform. Reform in education¶ takes time , sometimes decades. Ensuring¶ continuity in education
reform policies is¶ therefore crucial, and this requires public¶ consensus. Deliberative forums convening¶ government,
private sector, and civil society¶ groups can contribute to developing this public¶ consensus and to
providing more continuity¶ in policy. Deliberative forums combined¶ with collaborative projects can
help promote¶ learning, distribute institutional memory,¶ support capacity-building efforts, and bring¶
more resources to bear on the education¶ reform process. Creating a space for citizens¶ to deliberate on the role of
education is¶ fundamental for promoting broad social¶ consensus around education reforms. In Latin¶ America, the most
innovative and successful¶ reforms have all created multiple and¶ continuous opportunities for diverse
groups¶ across the education sector and society to¶ provide input and to have opportunities for¶ meaningful collaborative action.
International¶ organizations, leveraging their regional and¶ international position, can contribute by¶ promoting policy dialogue and
collaborative¶ actions among ministries and also with key¶ stakeholders across sectors. The challenge¶ is to develop a better understanding of
how¶ deliberation can be used to promote more¶ collaborative as opposed to more adversarial¶ and partisan forms of politics. This is perhaps¶
one area which deliberative theorists need to¶ explore more.¶ 5. Power critique: The final critique relates¶ the possibility that increasing
deliberation¶ and participation can lead to increased¶ inequality. Fung and Wright (2003) note¶ that deliberation can turn into domination¶ in a
context where “participants in these¶ processes usually face each other from¶ unequal positions of power.” Every reform¶ in education
249
creates winners and losers, and¶ very few create “win-win” situations. Those¶ in power would have to submit to
the rules of¶ deliberation and relinquish “control” over the¶ various dimensions of democratic decisionmaking.¶ This is naïve and not politically¶
This is a valid critique¶ worth considering. Structural inequalities¶ and asymmetries of
feasible.¶ Response:
power in governments¶ and international institutions in Latin America¶ have facilitated domination by
elites in terms¶ of authority, power, and control in politics.¶ Asymmetries of power in international¶ cooperation in
education are also clear,¶ especially when powerful financial (World¶ Bank, IDB, IMF) or political (OAS, UNESCO)¶ organizations engage with
local stakeholders¶ and condition policy options with funding¶ or political support. What this paper has¶ argued is relevant again here: that
instead of¶ rejecting further democratization in the face¶ of these challenges, including the challenge¶
of elite “domination,” what is needed is more¶ and better democracy, defined in terms of its¶ breadth,
depth, range, and control. Finally,¶ dealing with elite domination in international¶ deliberative forums
will require conscious and¶ skilled facilitation on the part of international¶ organizations, which themselves are often¶ elitist
and hegemonic.¶ Final Thoughts: So What?¶ Perhaps the most critical question¶ that emerges in the argument for increased¶ democratization
and deliberation is simply:¶ So what? Does increased democratization and¶ deliberation actually lead to better outcomes¶ in education? More
empirical research on this¶ critical question is needed. However, experiments¶ in deliberative democracy in education
reform¶ in Brazil through the UNESCO and Ministry of¶ Education Coordinated Action Plan and Porto¶ Alegre‘s Citizen School, and also to
some degree¶ at the international level with the OAS pilot¶ experiment in developing a more democratic¶ model of international cooperation
from 2001-¶ 2005, have shown that deliberative processes¶ can enhance learning on the part of those¶
participating. Fung and Wright (2003) refer to¶ these experiments in deliberation as “schools¶ of democracy” because participants
exercise¶ their capacities of argument, planning, and¶ evaluation. Deliberation promotes joint
reflection¶ and consideration of others’ views. Citizens¶ who participate in deliberative forums
develop¶ competencies that are important not only for¶ active citizenship ( listening, communication,¶
problem-solving, conflict resolution, selfregulation skills ) but also crucial for managing¶ change and
school reform. Many of the same¶ skills that are developed through citizen¶ deliberation and
participation are also essential¶ for transforming school cultures, promoting¶ “learning organizations”
(Senge, 2000), fostering¶ communities of reflective practitioners (Schon,¶ 1991) and developing communities of
practice¶ (Wenger, 2001). There is evidence from some¶ research that democratic interactions can create¶ knowledge
that is more rigorous, precise, and¶ relevant than that produced in authoritarian¶ environments
(Jaramillo, 2005). Another¶ important aspect of enhancing deliberative¶ democracy and democratization is that it moves¶ from a focus on
individuals and their own¶ preferences towards more collective forms of¶ learning and collaboration.¶ Up to now, international organizations¶
have endorsed a “thin” version of democratization¶ that is content with formal and centralized¶ mechanisms of “representation” and “policy¶
dialogue.” If a new, more deliberative and¶ democratic model of cooperation in education in¶ the region were to emerge, what would it look¶
like?¶ First of all, a more deliberative and¶ democratic model of international cooperation in¶ education would
involve more direct and deeper¶ forms of participation from everyday citizens,¶ including teachers ,
students , and mesolevel¶ actors such as civil society organizations.¶
school directors, families,¶ school communities,
This participation would move beyond simple¶ consultation to more authentic forms of joint¶ decision-
making and deliberation. The model¶ would involve more accountability on the¶ part of international organizations in terms¶ of
transparency, and would require injecting¶ ethical reasoning into policies and programming .¶ In addition, a
new more democratic model of¶ international cooperation would expand the¶ range of policy options
available to countries¶ through devolution of authority, power, and¶ control, combined with oversight and horizontal¶ accountability
mechanisms. A more democratic¶ model of international cooperation would stress¶ valuing, systematizing,
and disseminating¶ local knowledge and innovation. Finally,¶ democratization and deliberation in
international¶ cooperation in education would lead to enhanced¶ learning and agency on the part of
participating¶ countries, groups, and individuals, and thus¶ contribute to better outcomes in terms of
quality¶ and equity in education at national and local¶ levels.
250
Globalization from Below Turns
Globalization from below– beginning from local and community level– solves
broader political change
Slater 04 (David. David Slater is Professor of Social and Political Geography at Loughborough
University. 2004. Geopolitics and¶ the Post-colonial¶ Rethinking North–South Relations. Blackwell
Publishing. )
Globalization from above can be thought of as another name for¶ neo-liberal globalization, a process that is founded on privatization,¶
competitiveness, deregulation, standardization and more profoundly¶ the commodification of social life. For Falk (1999) this kind of
globalization is predatory and homogenizing, whereas globalization from¶ below is associated with heterogeneity,
diversity and bottom-up participatory politics. This distinction can be helpful and avoids the
problems¶ associated with a full-blown denunciation of globalization in its entirety,¶ from which the
alternative tends towards a somewhat uncritical notion¶ of localization. It can be suggested that while a neo-liberal
globalization¶ from above promotes competitiveness, hierarchy, conformity and the¶ primacy of the cash nexus, globalization from
below can help expand the ethic of participatory democracy to a variety of spatial levels, not just¶ the
global but the supra-national, national, regional, local and community levels. It is not that more power
at one level of governance will¶ necessarily disempower people at other levels, but that the
empowerment¶ of local and national communities requires the extension of democratic¶ principles at
the global and supra-national levels. As Brecher et al. (2000)¶ constructively suggest, globalization from below
requires a framework¶ that recognizes this interdependence of spatial spheres or levels. It can¶ also be
suggested here that when globalization from above intersects¶ with globalization from below, the point of
maximum tension will tend¶ to locate itself at the national level – what I previously referred to as the¶
geopolitical pivot, where the pressures from above and below interact¶ with the most impact.
Counter hegemonic globalization means engaging the state and global

institutions while imagining new visions for the world based on concrete
solutions
Slater 04 (David. David Slater is Professor of Social and Political Geography at Loughborough
University. 2004. Geopolitics and¶ the Post-colonial¶ Rethinking North–South Relations. Blackwell
Publishing)
¶ The idea of a counter-hegemonic globalization, a globalization from¶ ¶ below that not only challenges
the neo-liberal doctrine of capitalist¶ ¶ expansion and a resurgent imperialism, but at the same time
offers an¶ ¶ alternative vision of how the world could be organized, also can be¶ ¶ viewed as offering
the possibility of a counter-geopolitics. A transnational project for global justice and participatory
democracy which¶ ¶ does not prioritize any one spatial level, and does not downgrade the¶ ¶ relevance
of the national level (Glassman 2001), offers a real alternative¶ ¶ to the current hegemony of neo-liberalism.
The actual practice of opposition has also been innovative, as the previous director of the World¶ ¶ Development Movement, Barry
Coates, has pointed out. Face-to-face¶ ¶ lobbying, alliance-building, the arrival in politicians’ mailboxes of thousands of letters, cards and emails
from the public, stories placed with¶ ¶ sympathetic journalists, working through trade union and
political party¶ structures, and the production of alternative proposals on world trade¶ and investment
done through international coordination via the internet,¶ all came together in a successful campaign
to block the MAI initiative¶ (see Green & Griffith 2002). A similar campaign is now underway251251 against the
251
attempt to revive the MAI initiative, which is linked to¶ another ongoing campaign against the GATS
proposal on the privatization of services (see WDM 2003). But also street protests and demonstrations are a key
part of the resistance movement, as was vitally clear¶ on 15 February 2003, when over 8 million
people marched on the streets¶ of the world’s five continents, protesting against the imminent
invasion¶ of Iraq.¶ The counter-geopolitics that I have invoked above is rooted in an¶ optimism of the
will that goes beyond national boundaries, that encompasses activists across borders, and provides a
new kind of globalization.¶ It is taken forward by grassroots activists, progressive NGOs, civil ¶ society
organizations, pressure groups and critical writers and intellectuals like Eduardo Galeano, Walden Bello, Vindana Shiva and Martin¶
Khor. An archipelago of resistances that engenders new spatialities of ¶ solidarity and hope for a more
emancipatory politics of the future.252252252
252
Mignolo Bad – Zapatistas
Mignolo’s coloniality framework is too blunt to understand the Zapatistas and

their hybrid political movement
Epple & Lindner 11, Angelika and Ulrike, both professors in the department of History, Philosophy
and Theology at the University of Bielefeld, “Foucault Hardly Came to Africa: Some notes on colonial and
postcolonial governmentality” Comparativ - Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende
Gesellschaftsforschung 21 (2011) Heft 1, S. 7–13.
The Zapatista discourse emerging from this interchange overtly showed its capacities to overcome
ethnocentrisms, exhibited in its programmatic call for “a world where many worlds fit”. However, the
notion of a persistent coloniality promotes a view on this “revolutionary” encounter that tends on the
one side to focus on centuries-old traditions of indigenous modes to produce meaning of the social
world and on the other side to deal with Marx- ism as an ideology contained in a Eurocentric
orthodoxy and therefore not considerable as a source of “decolonising” concepts for the indigenous
population. To formulate it trenchantly against the backdrop of postcolonial studies’ general claim to
represent an intellectual “movement beyond a relatively binaristic, fixed and stable mapping of power
relations between ‘colonizer / colonized’ and ‘center / periphery’” – quoted by Mignolo 9 – and their
declaration to “fight against essentialism”: the idea of coloniality orientates in Mignolo’s analysis of
zapatismo a perspective that privileges precisely the binary logic of an original mutual translation
between a homogenous and self-contained “Occidental” ideological system and Amerindian ways of
knowing and representing, preserved in traditions over the centuries, instead of a thorough
examination of the complex historical conditions that actually led to this liaison and were the result of
long-term permanent interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous social and cultural
spheres. As a consequence, Mignolo completely glosses over the “modern”, post-colonial (hyphen-
ated) elements in the culture and the thinking of the Mayan communities that joined the EZLN.
Among these decisive prerequisites for the emergence of zapatismo, orthodox Marxism played an
influential role. Zapatismo was a hybrid political formation with multiple levels of meaning. It was in the
1990s a movement that intertwined in the representation of its emancipatory project closely
indigenous imaginaries with Marxist ideology, liberation theology and nationalist narratives of
modern Mexican history. At a certain point in his essay, Mignolo remarks critically against a statement
made by Yvon LeBot that a definition of democracy by Subcomandante Marcos – quoted in the text –
has to remain basically meaningless for the interpreter who does not know the previous discourse of
the EZLN and of its Tojolabal Major Ana María. The same is true for the Zapatista discourse as well:
without a comprehension of the historicity of its elements, the understanding of zapatismo is severely
limited. And such a comprehension implies above all the arduous task to scrutinise historical
interactions of the concerned entities and their transformations. Mignolo applies his concept of
“border thinking” to the Zapatistas’ theoretical revolution: “border thinking emerges from the double
translation across the colonial difference”. Apparently, he underestimates the permeability of these
borders.
253
Mignolo Indicts – Alt Fails
Mignolo’s border theory will not lead to a better democratic world where
everyone is equal- it leads to a world without change- an impossibility beyond
history and time itself
Michaelsen and Shershow 7 (Scott Michaelsen and Scott Cutler Shershow, Professor of English
at Michigan State and Professor of English at UC Davis “Rethinking Border Thinking”,
[http://saq.dukejournals.org/content/106/1/39.full.pdf+html]
We also observe, finally, that Mignolo’s

dream of an absolutely unmediated democracy could exist at all only if
the two seemingly opposed actions ¶ of ruling and obeying could somehow take place, as the dictum itself
suggests, “at the same time.”33 We would thus have to imagine beings who both¶ obey and rule; and not
merely in turn, sometimes doing one and sometimes the other, but both at once. The beings capable
of this extraordinary ¶ simultaneity of ruling and obeying would thus somehow have extricated ¶
themselves from the problem of time itself, both philosophically and practically. By the same token, the democracy
constituted by the gathering of ¶ such beings would exist as if in a continuous present, capable of
neither ¶ improvement nor decline, and in fact closed off to new events in its own ¶ infinite and
absolute completion. Such a political vision is all the more ¶ unexpected in that, after all, Mignolo’s project
is otherwise an essentially ¶ historical one. Mignolo analyzes and celebrates, above all, a border thinking ¶
that emerges only after a historical confrontation and interaction of two ¶ radically different ways of
thinking and being; and as such, border thinking ¶ is something that must have been, at some particular
time and place, new. ¶ And yet the democracy that emerges from such border thinking apparently no
longer exists in time or history at all . In other words, Mignolo ¶ seems to envision a history that leads via a
particular necessary sequence ¶ of events to a particular telos—and then stops. This teleological vision ¶ simply
reinstalls in the future Mignolo’s arcadian vision of a “originally ¶ good” Amerindian voice. For us, as
for Derrida, on the contrary, democracy is always “to come,” something that can never be made absolutely
present ¶ once and for all—precisely because, as democracy, it must question and ¶ interrogate every
border, remaining infinitely incomplete and open: to the ¶ unforeseeable, to the future, and to the unexpected
arrival of the other. And ¶ this, indeed, will take time.
254
Mignolo Indicts – Contradictions
Mignolo contradicts himself- he claims that Native Americans are distinct and
yet the same as those who came across the sea and oppressed them
As we have observed, this whole elaborate theoretical machinery depends on a single fundamental claim:
that Amerindian systems of signification were so distinctively different as to escape the problems
Derrida ¶ described under the term logocentrism. Even on the surface of it, such a ¶ claim is founded in
a contradiction so simple and obvious as to have eluded ¶ Mignolo himself. On the one hand, Mignolo
argues above all that these ¶ colonial subjects, who were declared to be a people “without writing” by ¶ their colonial
conquerors (because they appeared to lack systems of phonetic or alphabetic inscription) in fact do possess a variety of
practices that ¶ can meaningfully be called “writing.” In this sense, the Amerindians were ¶ culturally the
same as their conquerors: their signifying systems were in no ¶ sense “primitive” and should not be
understood as merely the earlier stages ¶ of some alleged progression toward alphabetic writing. On the
other hand, ¶ Mignolo also argues that Amerindian signifying practices were in fact distinctively different
from European ones, for their “writing” was neither a ¶ phonetic representation of speech nor understood as a privileged realm of ¶
memory and authority in the Western manner. Mignolo is thus trying, as ¶ it were, to have his difference and deny it
too. He insists that Amerindians did have writing, yet imagines the writing they had as one that
escapes all ¶ of writing’s problems and that exists in the form of an untamed “voice” not ¶ yet
contaminated by the letter.The first half of this self-contradictory argument also merely echoes a ¶
traditional anthropological critique of “evolutionary” Eurocentric conceptions of culture. True enough,
both the Renaissance colonialists and ¶ humanists whom Mignolo discusses, and later thinkers such as Rousseau
¶ and Hegel, always assume that alphabetic writing is the inevitable telos of ¶ human cultural progress. The
other contributors to Writing without Words¶ frequently join Mignolo (and Derrida) in rightly critiquing such assumptions. For example,
Elizabeth Hill Boone, the coeditor of the volume, ¶ deplores how “the denial of pictographic writing systems as ‘real writing’ ¶ has generally
been accompanied by an insidious pejorative tone.”8 Boone, ¶ however, enlists Derrida’s critique of logocentrism as an ally in reclaiming ¶ the
pictographic systems of pre-Columbian as legitimate forms of “writing.” What Boone calls the “semasiographic” writing systems of
Mesoamerica do not primarily rely on a phonetic representation of speech and ¶ are “characterized by a high proportion of visual description,”
but nevertheless, “like other iconic systems they also use some arbitrary conventions,” and “phonetic elements may be present—especially in
personal ¶ names and place names” (18). As Derrida himself always argues, no
system ¶ of writing is either purely phonetic
or purely pictographic; and “‘phonetic’ and ‘nonphonetic’ are . . . never pure qualities of certain
systems of ¶ writing, they are the abstract characteristics of typical elements, more or ¶ less numerous
and dominant within all systems of signification in general” ¶ (Grammatology, 89). No departure from
Derrida is therefore necessary to ¶ join Mignolo and his collaborators in this volume in simply
concluding ¶ that, during the period of colonization, “the materiality and the ideology ¶ of Amerindian
semiotic interactions were intermingled with or replaced ¶ by the materiality and ideology of Western
reading and writing cultures” ¶ (Darker, 76) and that, in other words, European colonialists misinterpreted
¶ Amerindian practices in the light of their own cultural presuppositions, ¶ and imposed Western
conceptions of writing on colonial subjects as part ¶ of a broader process of cultural and political
subjugation.¶ But the second half of Mignolo’s self-contradictory double claim—that ¶ Amerindian
systems of signification escape the problems of logocentrism—by no means follows from this
conclusion. Consider, for example, ¶ how Boone suggests that one advantage of semasiographic systems is that ¶ “Aztec (Nahuatl-
speaking) scribes from Central Mexico could . . . read the Mixtec histories of southern Oaxaca, giving them voice in their own language” (19).
And she concludes:¶ One
thing shared by all these indigenous New World systems is that ¶ they give
accountability. Because they are permanent, or relatively so, ¶ they functioned for their societies to
255
document and to establish ideas. ¶ As records, they are memory that can be inspected by others. The ¶
hieroglyphic text and the pictorial-iconic presentation could be read ¶ or interpreted by many people
other than their creator. (22, emphases ¶ original)¶ One must join Boone here in highlighting, as definitive
characteristics of ¶ any of these New World systems of inscription, the functions of accountability, memory, and
interpretability. Such characteristics would pertain in ¶ even the relatively extreme case of the Peruvian quipus, insofar as their patterns
of knots and cords functioned, in any sense, to record or document ¶ information (and even if, as some have claimed, these were no more than
¶ personal mnemonic devices). Similarly, Peter L. van der Loo, discussing in ¶ the same volume a pre-Columbian pictorial manuscript known as
the Borgia Group, explains that “these manuscripts can be read as text. Because
the message is put down in a pictorial
mode, the actual spoken text may differ ¶ from reader to reader, but the main content of the message
will remain the ¶ same to all.”9 As described here, this nonphonetic “writing” nevertheless ¶ is said to
be linked to some semiotic “message” or “content” that both ¶ precedes and survives its inscription,
that is reproducible as “voice” or ¶ “reading” in its wake, and that thus anchors or limits the varied
readings or ¶ voicing of the inscribed signs. Is this, too, merely a Eurocentric misreading ¶ of pre-
Columbian practices? Or is there, rather, no other way to “read” or ¶ to “write” except as a
perpetually unfinished process of deferred presence? ¶ What else could this “content” or “voice” be than what Derrida
calls the ¶ “trace,” the “arche-writing” that is “before the letter” not in some historical ¶ or evolutionary sense but, rather, as the mark of a
consciousness and an ¶ “experience” lived only in signs and in time, and therefore
in an interminable process of self-
differing and self-deferring? As soon as there is, in any ¶ sense, record, account, or document, as soon
as inscription of any kind offers ¶ itself as at once a supplement and a substitute for a memory that
already ¶ supplements and substitutes for the trace, one is already, as these ethnographic descriptions
themselves clearly attest, within the strange economy ¶ of what Derrida famously calls difference. But
Mignolo himself, as we have already observed, wants both to re-claim these New World practices as
“writing” and to free them from all ¶ such economies. In The Darker Side, Mignolo observes repeatedly that
it ¶ is possible to have “writing without books,” pointing to, for example, the ¶ graphic inscriptions on the walls of
temples in ancient Egypt and ancient ¶ Mesoamerica. He fails to acknowledge that such observations have always
accompanied the very discourses whose ethnocentric biases he wants to ¶ expose. For example, Hegel,
whose Aesthetics is perhaps the supreme European statement of an “evolutionary” approach to
language, observes in ¶ this same text that Egyptian temples “can be regarded like the pages of a ¶
book.”10 Mignolo’s specific observations also remain suspended between ¶ the two rather different
arguments that we have already summarized. He ¶ suggests that Amerindians possessed sophisticated
writing practices that ¶ were misunderstood by their conquerors, but then goes on to claim—or ¶ at
least to hint— that the Amerindians grasped the very relation between ¶ presence and representation
in a manner somehow radically different from ¶ Europeans
256
Mignolo Indicts – False Binary
The binaries which Mignolo bases his theories on are false- if they were true
Native American communities would have no hierarchies, no oppositions at all
and nothing can ever be privileged
Notwithstanding this apparently obvious problem, Mignolo follows ¶ Quijano closely here. Though he never says so with much
emphasis, ¶ Mignolo comprehends Amerindian “gnosis” as fundamentally different ¶ from a Western or
European one, precisely because it is grounded in a ¶ logic of complementarity rather than dualism or
binarity: “The Sun and the ¶ Moon, in Amerindian categories of thought are not opposite, contrary or ¶
contradictory; they are complementary. To extend deconstruction beyond ¶ Western metaphysics or
to assume that there is nothing else than Western ¶ metaphysics will be a move similar to colonizing
global designs” (Local, ¶ 326).19 We first note that the division of the world into binarity (Europe) and ¶ complementarity (its
others, including Amerindia) runs uncomfortably ¶ close to the long history of the romanticization of the
other.20 In particular, ¶ it seems a mere variation on the anthropological distinction between societies
premised on individuality and difference, and those grounded in ¶ community or cooperation.21 The introduction of
such an old, essentialist ¶ binary into Mignolo’s text should give any reader pause.¶ If Mignolo were
correct, however, this would mean that Amerindian ¶ logic is fundamentally nonhierarchical and
nonexclusive and that Amerindian gnosis involves no structural oppositions at all. Such gnosis would ¶
have, then, no inflections, no hierarchies, and no values of any kind. No ¶ term or concept could ever
be privileged; each would be deemed necessary ¶ to its other—supplying its lack, and “completing” the other, rather than ¶ opposing it.22
But this completion would necessarily imply a higher order ¶ of synthesis: if “man” is not privileged
over “woman,” for instance, and ¶ such terms are instead complementary, then they would
necessarily find ¶ their completion in some higher, perhaps neo-Platonic, “third sex” concept, ¶ or,
perhaps, “life” or “human being.” But then, by the same logic, even the ¶ “human being” would
necessarily be judged as complementary with regard ¶ to that which is “animal” or “inanimate,” and so
forth, endlessly foreclosing ¶ inflection and hierarchy. In every possible register (race, culture, class, ¶
caste, gender, sex, age, or the like), difference would undergo no valuation. ¶ There would be
differences, perhaps, but they would exist in “peaceful ¶ coexistence” rather than “violent
hierarchy.”23 At the limit of this thought, ¶ the “citizen” and the “stranger” would necessarily be
thought in complementary fashion, disenabling the very possibility of the state and sovereignty, all
basic structures of governance, and indeed, all modes of thinking ¶ and decision making that begin from
systematic discrimination. We must ¶ conclude, therefore, that the positing of radical
complementarity implies a ¶ withdrawal from the political decision in general, into an alternative,
arcadian ¶ space in which nothing ever need be decided. But as Derrida writes: “We ¶ know what always have
been the practical (particularly political) effects of ¶ immediately jumping beyond oppositions, and of
protests in the simple ¶ form of neither this nor that” (Positions, 41). In other words, complementarity, rather
than fundamentally opposing binarity, leaves every available ¶ term for discrimination in place,
“preventing any means of intervening in ¶ the field effectively” (Derrida, Positions, 41).
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Mignolo Indicts – No Solvency
Mignolo assumes preexisting binaries and dichotomies which don’t exist- this
guts solvency
From this welter of definition,we observe, first, that for Mignolo border ¶ thinking emerges out of an assumed
dichotomy. That is, Mignolo postulates the existence of at least two languages, ways of reasoning, ways
of ¶ interpreting the world and, in short, at least two radically different modes of ¶ being and knowing.
One has been suppressed or subordinated by the work ¶ of “the colonial difference.” Then, with the
emergence of border thinking, ¶ the subordinated term of the dichotomy comes forward and,
alternately or ¶ simultaneously, absorbs, displaces, battles, or incorporates the master term in ¶ order
to fashion something unprecedented and new.¶ The problems with such formulations, at once figural
and conceptual, ¶ begin with their initial premise. That which is “dichotomous” has been cut ¶ and
divided, split in two, or forked and branched, and implies an original ¶ point of origin—an original
wholeness—rather than two separate origins ¶ (see OED, s.vv. “dichotomous,” “dicho-”). In the context of the colonial ¶
situation, the idea of dichotomy would thus imply an original relatedness, ¶ even though such relational identities were forged
within a context of deeply ¶ asymmetrical power relations. By using this term, Mignolo thus comes ¶ dangerously close to suggesting a
counterthesis to his own, and to aligning himself with something like Anne Norton’s analysis of the
“incompleteness” of any particular identity: “Hegel’s account of the dependence of ¶ the identity of
the master on the servant draws attention to another sense in ¶ which each identity is partial. Each
identity is dependent on those against ¶ which it defines itself.”12 Mignolo himself, however, claims that his
project ¶ “is no longer conceivable in Hegel’s dialectics” (Darker, 67), and he might ¶ well be pleased to be thus understood as radically
“outside” the Western ¶ philosophic tradition. But to imagine something fundamentally “notHegelian” is to imagine
differences that are not in relation, and a world constituted by monad-like cultures whose status is
simply to be different ¶ as such. This would be, in Rodolphe Gasché’s words, an attempt to think ¶ the “absolutely
singular,” which “from the standpoint of thinking is a thoroughly idiosyncratic notion that resists the
universalizing bent of thought” ¶ and which “does not fit any of the classical definitions of
philosophy.”13 Thus ¶ Mignolo posits a so-called “dichotomy” in which, however, two entities at ¶ once
confront one another historically and yet lack any original relation. This ¶ sheer assertion of radical
difference not only positions his project outside ¶ philosophy but also disenables the very possibility of
critical thought. Mignolo’s other conceptual metaphors share a similar incongruity. ¶ Mignolo claims
that “subaltern reason” absorbs or incorporates hegemonic ¶ forms of knowledge, formulations that
imply a certain fusion or combination. He also claims, however, that those hegemonic forms have been ¶
displaced by the subaltern term in order to make room for it. The two terms ¶ also engage in battle,
something that implies struggle and conflict without ¶ any necessary implication of their final
combination (a “battle” might ¶ logically result, for instance, in one or the other term’s obliteration or ¶ destruction). As we will eventually show, this unstable
fibrillation among ¶ this set of metaphors exposes Mignolo’s project to one or more readings ¶ that
directly contradict his avowed intentions. Now, just as Mignolo claims, in The Darker Side of the Renaissance, that ¶
Amerindian signifying practices are radically distinct from European ones, ¶ so in Global
Histories/Local Designs he suggests, more broadly, that a “modern¶ (Western) epistemology” is
absolutely closed off to its other, and unable ¶ to recognize Amerindian “alternatives” (Local, 9, emphasis original). A
¶ brief detour here through the thought of sociologist Anibal Quijano will ¶ be helpful in further assessing this
258
claim.14 Mignolo often acknowledges ¶ his debt to Quijano, whose problematic opening moves are reproduced and ¶ amplified in Mignolo’s text. Quijano’s notion of
the “coloniality of power” ¶ describes “social relations within the last five hundred years of historical ¶
capitalism” (27)15 and includes a set of four institutions: “the capitalist ¶ enterprise” proper, “the
bourgeois family,” “the nation-state,” and “Eurocentrism” (545).16 The last of these institutions, Eurocentrism, is defined by ¶ Quijano in
terms of two of its “nuclear elements,” “evolution and dualism,” ¶ which produce “race” as a basic category for purposes of classification and ¶ domination (542). As Delgado de Torres
tellingly explains, the coloniality ¶ of power defines “a set of social relations between colonizer and colonized ¶ that are internal to Europe itself” (“Reformulating,” 27; emphasis added). Or, as
Quijano puts it, a “binary, dualist perspective” is “particular to Eurocentrism” (“Coloniality,” 542; emphasis added).17
259
Modernity Good – Radical Enlightenment
Modernity provides resources for emancipation and a radical critique of colonialism—

their homogenizing view of the enlightenment undermines its liberatory potential
Leventhal 2007 (Robert, German Studies (Department of Modern Languages and Literatures), College of
William and Mary, Review of Enlightenment Contested, http://www.h-
net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13250)
With this book, Jonathan Israel continues the exploration of the philosophical origins of modernity he began with Radical Enlightenment (2001).
In that work, he argued that despite recent efforts to pluralize and variegate the European Enlightenment, or to view it solely in sociological or
social-historical terms and categories, we should instead view the European Enlightenment "as a single highly integrated intellectual and
cultural movement" (p. vi). Moreover, the
intellectual core or backbone of what is for Israel the "true" Enlightenment, the
Radical Enlightenment, was Baruch Spinoza and Spinozism. While the classical literature in the field--one thinks of Paul Hazard, Ernst
Cassirer, and Peter Gay--had acknowledged Spinoza's strong eighteenth-century presence, Israel made a convincing case that it was actually
Spinoza and the academics, writers, and critics who followed him who were the real challengers of
ecclesiastical authority,
pre-ordained social hierarchies, religious intolerance, and the restriction of expression. Spinoza and
Spinozists were the unabashed proponents of the core values of Enlightenment, such as democracy, human freedom, equality, and justice.
Spinoza, in other words, not Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire, Isaac Newton, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Moses Mendelssohn, or Immanuel
Kant, is for Israel the true source of our "modernity."¶ In the preface, Israel asks: "Was the Enlightenment in essence a social or an intellectual
phenomenon?" He answers that "it was both, and ... physical reality and the life of the mind must be seen to be genuinely interacting in a kind
of dialectic" (p. v). Precious little of this dialectic is included in the book, however, and the argument suggests the Enlightenment was primarily
a philosophical phenomenon: "it was philosophers who were chiefly responsible for propagating the concepts of toleration, equality,
democratic republicanism, individual freedom, and liberty of expression and the press, the batch of ideas identified as the principal cause of the
near overthrow of authority, tradition, monarchy, faith, and privilege. Hence, philosophers specifically had caused the revolution" (p. vii).¶ In
order to give the argument adequate profile, I must jump to the end of the book, to the postscript where Israelenumerates what he
views as the enduring, core values of the Enlightenment: 1) philosophical reason as the criterion of
what is true; 2) rejection of supernatural agency (divine providence); 3) equality of all mankind (racial and sexual
equality); 4) secular universalism in ethics anchored in equality and stressing equity, justice, and
charity; 5) comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought; 6) personal liberty of lifestyle between consenting adults, safeguarding the
dignity and freedom of the unmarried and homosexuals; 7) freedom of expression, political criticism, and the press in the
public sphere; and 8) democratic republicanism. In Israel's account roughly seventy French, Dutch, German, Italian, and British academics,
writers, philosophers, scholars, and critics active between 1660 and 1750 espoused these views and constituted what he calls the Radical
Enlightenment. The vast diversity of these figures and their sources notwithstanding, Israel urges that "the only kind of philosophy that could
coherently integrate and hold together such a far-reaching value-condominium in the social, moral and political spheres, as well as in
'philosophy,' was the monist, hylozoic systems of the Radical Enlightenment labelled 'Spinozist' in the 'long' eighteenth century" (p. 867). Much
of the book is concerned with showing how Spinoza and Spinozism informed these thinkers of the Radical Enlightenment, and, in turn, how
these core values both sprang from and reflected Spinoza's basic philosophy. The most important figures in Israel's story, besides Spinoza
himself, of course, are Pierre Bayle, Jean Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, Henri Boulainvilliers (although his aristocratic republicanism
place him slightly outside of the Radical Enlightenment), Denis Diderot, Paolo Doria, Johann Christian Edelmann, Jean Meslier, César Chesneau
du Marsais, Franciscus van den Enden, Adriaen Koerbagh, Johann Georg Wachter, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron
d'Holbach, Julien Offray de la Mettrie, Johann Lorenz Schmidt, Bernard de Mandeville, Friedrich Wilhelm Stosch, Simon Tyssot de Patot, John
Toland, Giambattista Vico, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Radicati di Passerano.¶ Instead of proceeding through each phase of the argument,
interrogating individual interpretations, and examining Israel's demanding and minute documentation at each turn, which would explode the
boundaries of a review in terms of sheer volume, I would rather like to ask some questions regarding the overall trajectory of the book, what I
see to be the underlying research interest and point of the book, and finally what I believe to be truly at stake, methodologically and
theoretically, in the writing of this book. In addition to the incredible erudition and skill of presenting a coherent thesis over eight hundred
pages, Israel does not conceal his hermeneutical concerns. I believe there are three distinct, yet related, claims that Israel is making with this
book beyond the fundamental argument stated above.¶ First, as already mentioned with reference to Radical Enlightenment,
Enlightenment Contested is an attempt to shore up the idea that there are essentially two
Enlightenments, a "moderate mainstream" Enlightenment, which was morally, socially, and politically conservative, and apologetic if not
outright supportive of absolutistic monarchy, and, on the other hand, the Radical Enlightenment. The Radical Enlightenment was
responsible for, first and foremost, the emergence of liberal modernity in the eighteenth century and
its rejection of ecclesiastical authority, its strict differentiation between truth and belief, philosophy
and religion, its insistence on human equality regardless of race, gender, and class, and its demand for
260
the absolute freedom of expression in the public sphere. Secondly, Enlightenment Contested is a not-so-
implicit critique of modern trends in cultural history, cultural studies, "new social history," and sociology of knowledge.
Focused not on the institutions, settings, milieux, written media, cultural contexts, or socioeconomic and political structures of the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Israel is unapologetic about doing "high" intellectual history, a history of ideas, or Ideengeschichte.
His argumentation seeks at every turn to show how Spinozism and spinozistic ideas, diffused and disseminated, repeatedly surface in the texts
of Radical Enlightenment thinkers and threaten the existing sociopolitical and sociocultural order and how Spinoza and Spinozism represent the
single most significant rupture with tradition and pave the way for the revolutions of the second half of the eighteenth century, not to mention
our own democratic values, ideals, and aspirations even today.¶ Around 1969, historical thinkers such as Quentin Skinner, J.G.A. Pocock, and
John Dunn took the linguistic turn, asking how political languages worked in an effort to understand not the ideas themselves but how
discourse functioned, making the discussion of ideas richer and more grounded in the political and social transformations of the time.[1] With
the work of the 1970s and 1980s, the importance of the textual and linguistic context of ideas had been firmly established. In Germany,
Reinhard Koselleck had insisted on and developed a highly useful history of the semantics of terms and concepts, historical-critical
Begriffsgeschichte as opposed to traditional Geistesgeschichte.[2] The central idea was that key ideas were crafted and propagated amid the
"cut and thrust" of political, social, and economic history. The Cambridge School and the work in historical semantics taking place in Germany
had a great deal in common. Increasingly, however, a new sociocultural
history emerged that questioned even these more
progressive and newly established forms of intellectual history, the history of political "languages," and
Begriffsgeschichte. Israel cites in particular the work of Roger Chartier, who argued that the most profound changes in the ways of being "were
not the result of clear and distinct thoughts" (p. 21), but instead a basic, determining set of "real" social structures lay at the root of these new,
bold ideas.[3] Robert Darnton's "new social history" is equally criticized as a "diffusionist" method that unwittingly ends up supporting "the
Postmodern campaign to discredit traditional methods of historical criticism and marginalize, and cast a negative light on, the Enlightenment
itself" (p. 22).[4] Contrary to this tendency, Israel argues that "to integrate intellectual history effectively with social, cultural, and political
history ... it seems likely that what is really needed is nothing like a 'cultural sociology,' but rather a new reformed intellectual history presiding
over a two-way traffic, or dialectic of ideas and social reality" (p. 23). Israel proposes that we look carefully at "contemporary controversies" to
see, on the ground, what mattered to whom and why. "Contemporary controversies" are the pivot, the means to grasp the real relationship
between the social sphere and ideas (p. 25).¶ For Israel, therefore, publicintellectual controversies are the key. Israel's
"controversialist technique" is focused on the broad mass of Enlightenment controversies to see "how structures of belief and
sensibility in society interact dialectically with the evolution of philosophical ideas" (p. 26). I am taking aim at
a crucial distinction between "new reformed intellectual history presiding over a two-way traffic, or dialectic of ideas and social reality," and the
"controversialist technique," which examines the intricacies of intellectual debate and exchange and never truly examines how such
controversies are situated, informed by, and responding to social, economic, and political structures. Indeed, for Israel, intellectual history does
"preside" over a "two-way traffic, or dialectic of ideas and social reality." The problem is either that Israel assumes we already have the other
piece of this traffic or dialectic (which would obviously be fully undialectical), or he fails, in many instances, to mediate effectively between the
diffusion and dissemination of Spinoza and Radical Enlightenment, on the one hand, and the social and cultural institutions as well as the
political forces at work in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, on the other. To be fair, Israel's account of the eclipse of the reign
of Louis XIV and the liberalization aperture that occurred in the period of 1715-40 (pp. 699-709) does provide some of this mediation, but this is
the only instance where I genuinely felt he succeeded in bridging the two parts of his proposed "dialectic" between ideas and social reality. The
radical writings that circulated clandestinely in the period before 1715 at that point became diffused widely in French society.¶ The most
interesting and intellectually
satisfying chapters are those in part 4 of the book, "The Party of Humanity" (pp. 545-692). In five
chapters, Israel adroitly traces
the concept of equality from Book 3 of Spinoza's Ethics (1677) to the eighteenth-century
transformation of conceptions of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, colonialism and empire,
Islam, and Orientalism. These sections are in my view exemplary for their nuanced and balanced approach, their sensitivity to the
context of the texts, and their engagement with issues relevant to us today. The Radical Enlightenment is shown to have rejected the entire
system of social pressures and theological pretexts and became truly emancipatory in the sphere of gender and relations between the sexes.
The "erotic revolution, entailing a whole new culture of desire, voluptuousness, and pleasure" (p. 585) becomes manifest in such writers as
Adriaen Beverland, Jean-Frederic Bernard, André-François Boureau-Deslandes, d'Argens, La Mettrie, Diderot, and Étienne Gabriel Morelly.
Without original sin, sexual relations are simply part of nature and integral to it. Although Israel acknowledges that sexual life must then be
"ordered," and "classified" in an entirely new fashion, and that research into sexuality then becomes "a new kind of investigation" (p. 587), the
investigations of Michel Foucault, Lynn Hunt, and others who have explored the regimens of sexual knowledge and relations in this arena are
strangely absent.¶ Next, empire became integral to national identity in the period 1680-1720. The
Radical Enlightenment
launched a powerful critique not merely of empire and its colonial aspirations. Bayle and other "spinozists"
consistently professed and deployed the principle of universal moral respect for different cultures and different civilizations. Different human
societies might stand at strikingly different levels of civilization and technology, but this variety does not entail, for the radical writers, a moral
or legal hierarchy of races, cultures, or civilizations (p. 603). Many of these
writers in fact condemned slavery in all of its
guises and advanced a nascent form of powerful anti-imperial and anti-colonialist thinking.¶ Finally,
chapters 24 and 25 look at the ways the Radical Enlightenment rethought Islam and the Orient. While it clearly did not condone
the fanatical side of Islam, the Radical Enlightenment praised the intellectual coherence, consistency, and
conformity to justice in Muhammad's teachings. Finally, with respect to the Orient, Chinese culture, and civilization in particular, Israel
successfully documents the Radical Enlightenment's enthusiasm for classical Chinese philosophy in the writings of Isaac Vossius (1618-89), who
extolled the virtues of Chinese civilization, science, and technology, Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis de Saint-Evremond (1613-1703), and
261
Sir William Temple (1628-99), both of whom were acquainted with Spinoza. They represent an instance of "Spinozism before Spinoza." But it
was again Bayle who made the most specific connection between Chinese thinking and philosophy and the work of Spinoza. According to Bayle,
Spinozism pervades the thought of Cabbalists, Sufis, and the Chinese.¶ Also interesting to many readers will be Israel's critique of the
postmodernist attack on the Enlightenment, and his critical remarks against Alasdair McIntyre and Charles Taylor in particular.[5]
This attack states that the Enlightenment was unsuccessful in being able to construct or to establish "a viable secular
morality independent of theology and traditional metaphysics" (p. 808). According to Israel, however, this result stems from a
failure to distinguish moderate mainstream and Radical Enlightenment (p. 808). Thinkers and writers such as
Spinoza, Bayle, Du Marsais, Diderot, d'Argens, Claude Adrien Helvetius, d'Holbach, and Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat de Condorcet, who
followed Spinoza and Bayle "in adopting a fully secular and universalist ethic based exclusively on the 'common good,' equity, and equality" (p.
808) essentially make the postmodernist critique beside the point. In Israel's view, postmodernism and postcolonialism
have
targeted an obsolete and truncated view of Enlightenment and have not responded adequately to the
claims and arguments of Radical Enlightenment. There might be many sources of such a universalist secular ethic and such
sources might not have originated in the West, but the Radical Enlightenment of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
was the "instance," according to Israel, in western civilization where this radical model of full equality and
absolute freedom of expression, in which the unrelenting critique of existing church and political
authority, sexual roles, gender differences, empire, and colonialism was first fully articulated. As
such, it represents the cornerstone of modernity . But it is not simply that postmodernism and postcolonialism
attack a fundamentally outmoded and truncated Enlightenment. Israel claims that they actually share in the responsibility for
the failure of Enlightenment; that through their confusion and negligence in understanding the true
origins of the Radical Enlightenment they actually contribute to its demise. He sees this as a failure of
philosophy and the humanities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to teach about the specific origins and
nature of modern ideas concerning democracy, equality, individual freedom, full toleration, liberty of
expression, and anti-colonialism.¶
262
Perm – Border Epistemology
Rejection alone is bad—we must create border epistemologies and promote

multiple standpoints
Mignolo 10 (Walter, Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University, The communal
and the decolonial, Turbulence, 4/16/2010)
The communal is not grounded on the idea of the ‘common’, nor that of the ‘commune’, although the latter has been taken up in Bolivia of late
– notably, not by Aymara and Quechua intellectuals, but by members of the criolla or mestiza population. The
communal is something
else. It derives from forms of social organisation that existed prior to the Incas and Aztecs, and also from
the Incas’ and Aztecs’ experiences of their 500-year relative survival, first under Spanish colonial rule and later
under independent nation states. To be done justice, it must be understood not as a leftwing project (in the European
sense), but as a de-colonial one.¶ De-coloniality is akin to de-Westernisation, which was a strong
element of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and remains an active ideological element in East and Southeast Asia. De-
Westernisation is neither left nor right: it questions Occidentalism, racism, a totalitarian and unilateral
globality and an imperialist epistemology. The difference is that de-coloniality frontally questions the
capitalist economy, whereas de-Westernisation only questions who controls capitalism – the West or ‘emerging’ economies. Félix Patzi
Paco is a controversial figure in Bolivia, but an important voice in the current process of thinking and working toward a pluri-national state.
Many criollo and mestizo intellectuals suspect that he works towards the hegemony of the Aymara people. They argue that his
project is
not pluri-national: first, its aim is to reverse the white (mestiza/criolla) hegemony ; and second, it ignores
the many nations that currently exist in the state of Bolivia, including other indigenous nations, as
well as organised peasant communities. The objection cannot easily be dismissed, for it comes not from the right-wing of the
low lands, but from many leftist voices (generally whites, by South American standards) who are seriously engaged in the construction of a
pluri-national state. This suggests a serious tension between the left, with its ingrained European traditions, and de-colonial indigenous voices,
which have a long history of confrontation with European traditions. This tension
has everything to do with the differing
genealogies of thought and practice from which concepts like ‘the commons’ and ‘the communal’ originate.¶
Patzi Paco’s proposal, published in 2004, aims at a re-conceptualisation of a ‘communal system’ as an alternative to the liberal system. For Patzi
Paco, sistema liberal refers to what subsists from the advent of the modern/colonial state in Bolivia (and other regions of the non-Western
world), through the republics resulting from independence from Spain (controlled by an elite of criollos and mestizos), up until the election of
Morales in December of 2005.¶ One of his motivations was to redress the image of indigenous nations
prevailing among social scientists, in Bolivia as elsewhere. He sought instead to provide a vision of indigenous societies and
nations that comes from the history, knowledges and memories of indigenous people themselves. As a sociologist, he is not rejecting
the social scientific disciplines, and particularly not sociology, but rather inverting his role in their
discourse. Instead of listening to the dictates of sociology, he uses sociology to communicate and organise his
argument. The result is a clear case of border epistemology: the ability to speak from more than one
system of knowledge. This is important because the social sciences have been instrumental in producing the
marginalised conception of the indigenous. Being able to speak in and from both systems of knowledge
and language is not a rejection of one in favour of the other, but an act of pluralising epistemologies.¶
Patzi Paco’s main objection to disciplinary studies of indigenous nations is that they limit their
investigations to the common culture, the language and the territorial space. What is usually bypassed or ignored,
then, is what for him is the ‘core’ of communal organisation – in the case of the Andes, the ayllu, which we will examine later. In
other words, most of what we know about the Aymara and Quechua in Bolivia concerns their ‘context’ or ‘environment’ (entorno), rather than
the ‘core’ of their socio-economic organisation. This is a critical distinction that Patzi Paco extends to the uses of identity made by indigenistas
(pro-indigenous non-indigenous) and indianistas (indigenous engaged in a form of identity politics, identifying with indigeneity through clothes,
long hair and rituals). Both indigenistas and indianistas operate at the level of the entorno, rather than that of the two
basic, core nodes of the communal system: economic and political organisation. When they refer to the ayllu, it is as ‘territorial
geographic organisation’ (which is a state conception), rather than to the communal systems of economic and political management.
263
Perm – CHAT
Perm solves best—EACH contradictions spurs better solutions and new

epistemologies
51)OG
It is, in today’s world, necessary for indigenous and Western knowledge¶ systems to co-exist. By co-
existence I mean, in particular, a situation where¶ the hegemonic knowledge system talks to the dominated one
and acknowl-¶ edges the urgency of addressing issues that the dominant epistemology¶ seems unable
or unwilling to tackle. Its superiority complex must be dis-¶ banded in the quest for a sustainable future. Concomitantly, indigenous¶
knowledges should be given space, or rather they must create and demand¶ space, to query hegemonic epistemology.¶ All societies are
hybrid, in one sense or the other, in line with Homi¶ K. Bhabha’s cultural hybridity thesis (Bhabha, 1994, 1996) where dif-¶ ferent cultures
and knowledge systems operate in the same space. There¶ is some sort of dialectic here where the one feeds into the other, but¶ there is also a
tension and an asymmetry that needs to be addressed. In¶ Bhabha’s thinking, the idea of a third space is something that is gener-¶ ated, but
not necessarily, caused by what preceded it. The
third space is,¶ in my understanding, a space which generates new
possibilities by ques-¶ tioning entrenched categorizations of knowledge systems and cultures¶ and
opens up new avenues with, and this is important to underline, a¶ counter-hegemonic strategy. In a post-
colonial situation where the colo-¶ nizer “presents a normalising, hegemonic practice, the hybrid strategy¶ opens up a third space of/for
rearticulation of negotiation and meaning”¶ (Meredith 1998, p. 3).¶ Bhabha’s third space is a contested terrain and has been critiqued for¶ its
presumed lack of historical and political embeddedness. While Bhab-¶ ha’s third space is conceptually and theoretically interesting, one should¶
be wary of being too optimistic given the long history of economic and¶ epistemic subjugation. The epistemological dimension of colonialism¶
should not be underrated and should not be thought of in the past tense.¶ The inherent danger of such a space is the perpetuation of
imbalance and¶ asymmetry between the knowledge systems—between the dichotomized¶ space of Self and Other within the third space.
When exploring the third¶ space one has to acknowledge that all indigenous knowledges are subju-¶ gated knowledges, and that the issue of
power is central in discussing and¶ analyzing the power relationships between indigenous knowledges and¶ so-called Western science and
epistemology. There is a question of nego-¶ tiation here, but the question is how much can be negotiated when the¶ power relationship
between the knowledge systems is so skewed and when¶ there is an issue of domination and subjugation. There is a concern that¶ indigenous
knowledges are appropriated by the North to serve North’s¶ own purposes or interests, and that they are made to fit the paradigms¶ of
Western epistemology. As Agrawal (2005) states: “those who possess¶ indigenous knowledge have not possessed much power to influence
what¶ is done with their knowledge” (p. 380).¶ In many ways, the third space is reminiscent of Freire’s (1970) concept¶ of dialogue where
conscientization is the ultimate goal. Freire’s concept¶ of dialogue potentially provides the foundation for a re-imagining of the¶ teacher-
student relationship in this new space. A third space that transcends¶ the teacher-student relationship onto a more trans-personal level
indicates¶ some sort of undogmatic, non-entrenched space where both potential nos-¶ talgic claims of indigenous authenticity, Western
pretensions of superiority,¶ and the inherent contradictions (referred to earlier) in both knowledge sys-¶ tems can be interrogated for new
negotiations.¶ Louis R. Botha (2011), who tries to articulate a way of knowing beyond¶ “the grasp of my Western consciousness,” (p. 43)
employs:¶ Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as a conceptual frame-¶ work within which mixed methods can be employed to negotiate
more¶ appropriate knowledge-making relations and practices between the¶ epistemologically divergent ways of knowing of indigenous and
West-¶ ern knowledge communities (p. 2).¶ Third generation cultural-historical
activity theory (CHAT) (Engestrom,¶ 1987, 2001) is
relevant when analyzing contradictions within and between¶ the two activity systems of indigenous
knowledges and Western knowl-¶ edge. In CHAT, contradictions are viewed as central sources of change
and¶ development. According to Yrjo Engestrom (2001), “contradictions gener-¶ ate disturbances and conflicts,
but also innovative attempts to change the¶ activity” (p. 137). CHAT is an object-oriented change methodology, so it¶ is
therefore essential to analyze contradictions in relation to the object of¶ activity. A crucial object of activity in which Western knowledge
systems¶ and indigenous knowledge systems interact is, for example, to combat HIV/¶ AIDS. Relevant questions to ask in order to focus on
contradictions within¶ and between these two interacting activity systems working to combat¶ HIV/AIDS arc, for example: How has the activity
system’s relation with¶ the object been developed over time? What are the theoretical ideas and¶ tools that have shaped the activity?¶ Making
use of the cultural-historical activity theory may be seen as a¶ way of operationalizing Bhabha’s third space in which indigenous peoples¶ can
name and practice their knowledge-making processes and state where¶ and how they would relate to Western knowledge. It is a space to
undermine¶ “the position of power that dominant Western knowledge traditions have¶ assumed vis-a-vis indigenous knowledge making” and
to expose “how the¶ local and spiritual nature of indigenous knowledges differentiate them from¶ modern, Western knowledges” (Botha 2011,
264
p. 2).¶ This space then becomes a potentially shared object of activity as shown¶ in Figure 3.3. Potentially
shared objectives are
objects of activity or problems¶ that motivate collaboration between activity systems. As Anne Edwards,¶ Harry Daniels,
Tony Gallagher, Jane Leadbettcr, and Paul Warmington¶ (2009) explain:¶ CHAT alerts us to the impact of sharing problems
or tasks between¶ systems. It was developed to recognize that participants from different¶ systems bring
different attributes to work on a common object or prob-¶ lem, which, in turn, is likely to lead to an
expansion of the object and¶ systemic learning within the collaborating systems (p. 91).¶ The model is in line
with Scmali and Kinchcloe’s (1999) notion that¶ indigenous knowledges are subjugated knowledges that “can be employed¶ as a constellation
of concepts that challenge the invisible cultural assump-¶ tions embedded in all aspects of schooling and knowledge production”¶ (p. 32).¶
CHAT is used as a framework for decolonizing knowledge-making by¶ challenging some of the dominating knowledge
traditions that hegemon-¶ ize Western epistemology by claiming universality. Botha (2011) asks¶ “how we can consciously and deliberately
integrate the diverse ontologi-¶ cal, epistemological and axiological positions implicit in the project of¶ bringing together indigenous and
Western knowledges” (p. 6). CHAT¶ is a tool to mobilize differences between knowledge systems “for the¶ ultimate purpose of bringing the
divergent ways of knowing together¶ in a conscious and critical manner” (p. 2). CHAT represents a space, a¶ potentially shared object of
activity, where indigenous peoples can name¶ and practice their knowledge-making processes, and relate them to West-¶ ern knowledge.
Concomitantly, CHAT
is a way of “demonstrating how¶ Western research can redefine its relationship to
people from indigenous/¶ marginalised contexts” (p. 2). ¶ On a micro level it implies creating dia-¶ logues across traditional
barriers and knowledge systems by breaking¶ down the skewed power relationships and redistributing power. More-¶ over, such dialogues
imply participation (within the redistributive power¶ framework) and open up spaces for sustainable change.¶ According to Engestrom (2001)
two interacting activity systems consti-¶ tute the minimal model for activity theory. CHAT can trace the complex¶ interactions between
indigenous knowledges and Western knowledge¶ without losing sight of the many ways in which these knowledges are¶ construed, or of the
possibility for new and diverse understandings¶ to emerge.¶ The upper part of the triangle shows how a group of people uses tools to¶ pursue
an objective. The use of tools and signs demonstrate the intentional-¶ ity of human actions, while at the same time tracing a cultural trajectory
of¶ the tool users. This means that the nature of a system’s activity influences,¶ and is influenced by, the tools it has developed in response to
its object¶ orientation. The lower part of the triangle shows the division of labor, and¶ that the activity of this community is regulated by rules.¶
The starting point in a collaborative activity is the partnership between¶ actors and institutions working towards a shared objective. In our con-
¶ text, a dialogue working towards a shared objective rakes place between ¶ proponents of the hegemonic Western knowledge system and
proponents of¶ indigenous knowledges, for

example, to combat HIV/AIDS. The dialogue¶ or negotiations may take the
“solution” of the challenge a step further and¶ lead to proposals for a new strategy/new solutions that
are based on other¶ contested, contradictory, and alternative proposals. Often such dialogue may¶ create
contradictions, and it is therefore urgent to situate the dialogue in¶ a context where both parties, particularly Western hegemonic knowledge,¶
have to yield to create power equity. By identifying contradictions, in our¶ case within and between Western and indigenous knowledge
systems in the¶ activity systems, the participants are aided in focusing on the root causes of¶ the problem and thereby aided in creating
solutions based on these contra-¶ dictions. As noted, contradictions are crucial for the development of activity ¶ systems (Engestrom) and
involve what he terms expansive learning (Fig. 3.4¶ below). It means questioning and reflecting on the current situation, which¶ may lead to
new learning and the development of new forms of knowledge.¶ As mentioned above the expansive learning cycle starts with
individuals¶ questioning the present situation or context and is expanded to collective¶ movements or new
solutions . An initially simple idea is transformed into a¶ more complex one and is being implemented, but is again being contested¶ or
interrogated, and new practices are being consolidated and revised. It¶ creates a third space, which intends to undermine “the position of
power¶ that dominant Western knowledge traditions have assumed vis-a-vis indig-¶ enous knowledge making, and how the local and spiritual
nature of indig-¶ enous knowledges differentiate them from modern, Western knowledges”¶ (Botha 2011, p. 2).¶ The model is in line with
Scmali and Kinchcloc’s (1999) notion of indig-¶ enous knowledges as subjugated knowledge that “can be employed as a¶ constellation of
concepts that challenge the invisible cultural assumptions¶ embedded in all aspects of schooling and knowledge production” (p. 32).¶ CHAT is
used as a framework for decolonizing knowledge-making by¶ challenging some of the dominating knowledge traditions that hegemonize¶
Western epistemology by claiming universality.¶ Such a space means the unraveling of myths of fixed indigenous knowl-¶ edges and identities
and underlining the dynamism of these knowledges.¶ At the same time there
are commonalities between the various
indigenous¶ knowledges in terms of the relationship between the Self and the world,¶ which “provides
us with fascinating new ways of making sense of reali-¶ ties and compelling topics for intercultural
conversations” (Kincheloe and¶ Steinberg, 2008, p. 14).
265
Perm – Decolonial Love
Perm do both: A love for all people, revolutionaries, and reformists, is the only
way to deconstruct colonialism. Decolonial love calls us to a higher place,
outside the guise of colonialism.
Willsea 12 [JEN WILLSEA, Member, Board of Advisors at Resource GenerationSenior Associate at Interaction
Institute for Social Change, Member, Board of Directors at RESIST, Inc., Individual Giving Officer at Facing History
and Ourselves, Grassroots Fundraiser at Peace Action West, Searching for DeColonial Love,
http://interactioninstitute.org/blog/2012/12/07/searching-for-decolonial-love/,]
The conquistador’s mind is a permanent feature of how we think about ourselves and others, Díaz says. It explains why folks of color often see
their own group as human, but are not so sure about other folks of color. It explains why so many people in the U.S. are suspicious that Obama
isn’t really American. I’m reminded of john powell’s argument in Racing to Justice that the “problematic and isolated white self” is the lens
through which we see and is preventing us from living into a truly inclusive America. This is NOT to say that white people themselves are the
problem, but that this
conquistador’s mind is the frame operating within each of us (and in our institutions and
structures). I think Díaz and powell would agree that we
must see that colonial idea of self and others, name it, and
find another way, all of us, to become more dynamically interconnected. Díaz says that cultivating decolonial
love will get us there .¶ How can we cultivate decolonial love? Díaz says that there is no telling which practices will prove liberatory for
the future, so we must proliferate strategies to see what works. Here are a few Díaz calls out: ¶ Cultivate the Martí Mind, named for José Martí.
As progressives we judge each other’s authenticity all the time. This is so not helpful. We must stop seeing each other through
the conquistador’s mind and instead, have as much love for other groups as we have for our own.¶
Practice “racial anarchist calisthenics.” Drawing on James Scott’s concept of “anarchist calisthenics,” we must practice breaking the
little rules of society and exercise the muscles of resistance – because we are practicing society’s rules
all the time without thinking about it.¶ Say white. White supremacy is the great silence of our world,
and in it is embedded much of what ails us as a planet. White supremacy’s greatest trick is that it has convinced people that, if it exists at all, it
exists always in other people, never in us. We must practice saying white.¶ Study and emulate the 3rd world feminist writers of the 1980s,
including Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler. They write/wrote brilliantly about how power and oppression work and there are
threads of hope in their work we should look to. Without knowing it, each
of us nurses a head of the many-headed hydra
of power. Even if we chop all the heads off and raze the structures of oppression, the hydra lives
within us. We must realize that we are fundamentally comprised of the oppressions we resist,
understand how that has shaped us and how we love .¶ BAM! Díaz drove the point home that we progressives are too
often too quick to act from our conquistador’s mind. I could not agree more. We should take to heart Díaz’s advice that we learn to tolerate
other people’s contradictionsand our own, and that we embrace simultaneity as a value. Because practicing decolonial love calls us
all to a higher and harder place – loving ourselves, loving those we love to judge , and cultivating a
way of being and loving that is not rooted in colonialism, but freedom.
266
Perm – Do Both
Perm do both: To move beyond individual struggles and embrace the fight
against colonialism as whole is to create a world of political possibility.
Tapia 2K11 [Ruby C. Tapia, doctoral candidate in the department of ethnic studies at the University of
California, San Diego and is currently completing a dissertation on the racialized construction of maternity in
popular visual culture, What's Love Got to Do with It?: Consciousness, Politics and Knowledge Production in Chela,
Sandoval's Methodology of the Oppressed, Methodology of the Oppressed by Chela Sandoval, American Quarterly,
Vol. 53, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 733-743]
CHELA SANDOVAL'S METHODOLOGY OF THE OPPRESSED IS, TO USE BALDWIN'S ¶ analogy, the outsider who has entered the gates of some of
the most ¶ apparently incongruous methodological and theoretical positions, ¶ defamiliarizing their tenets in order to illuminate their dialogic
origins, ¶ their possibilities for co-articulation, and the potential for their "occu- ¶ pants" to discard the robes muffling radical cultural critique,
suffocat- ¶ Ruby C. Tapia is a doctoral candidate in the department of ethnic studies at the ¶ University of California, San Diego. She is currently
completing a dissertation on the ¶ racialized construction of maternity in popular visual culture. ¶ American Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 4 (December
2001) © 2001 American Studies Association ¶ 733 ¶ This content downloaded from 206.76.84.110 on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:39:49 PM¶ All use
subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions734 AMERICAN QUARTERLY ¶ ing social transformation. In this brilliantly innovative work, Sandoval ¶
demands that (all) intellectuals interested in democratizing power trust ¶ their nakedness enough to venture into new political, theoretical ¶
territories, to explode (inter)disciplinary and identificatory boundaries, ¶ to listen to and participate in conversations heretofore largely
inaudible ¶ across borders of subjectivity. If this characterization of Sandoval's ¶ work seems abstract, if its imagery discomforts, then it has
been ¶ effectively inspired by the word and spirit of a most rigorous, practical ¶ and practice-able political science: Sandoval's science
of love. ¶ Molded with material from such apparently "different" knowledges ¶ as those put forth by Frederic Jameson,
Gloria Anzaldia, and Roland ¶ Barthes, Methodology of the Oppressed feels through and across ¶ material and theoretical
histories of first world powers and third world ¶ struggles, carving a path toward what Sandoval outlines in part
four as ¶ "a hermeneutics of love in the postmodern world." Stirred in part by ¶ Roland Barthes' meditations on love in
Incidents, The Pleasure of the ¶ Text, and A Lover's Discourse, Sandoval re-members these texts' ¶ connections to the decolonial theory of
Frantz Fanon, Jacques Derrida, ¶ and Emma Perez, among others, as well as their applicability to ¶ contemporary predicaments of culture,
subjectivity, and politics. She
¶ weaves together the theoretical narratives presented by each of the ¶ thinkers
that she engages to construct not another narrative but a ¶ manner of story-telling and theory-making that
attempts to take ¶ seriously and move always beyond the repertoire of intellectual and ¶ political
possibility articulated in individual bodies of critical theory , ¶ whether they be post-structuralist, post-modern, post-
colonial or strict ¶ identity-based bodies. Even as Sandoval calls attention to the weak- ¶ nesses and would-be despairing moments inherent in
the theoretical ¶ formulations that she engages, her
analyses are immanently productive ¶ because they challenge the racialized
"apartheid of theoretical domains" (chapter 3), (per)forming new terms, new possibilities, new ¶ alliances in intellectual being and
importantly, social movement. ¶ Without a doubt, the love in Sandoval's Methodology has everything to ¶ do with social
movement. It is love as social movement that is, ¶ ultimately, her object of study. It is love as social movement that ¶ inspires the dialogue
she transcribes and furthers between intellectuals ¶ (such as Frederic Jameson and Gloria Anzaldtia) whose interests and ¶ formulations are
widely perceived to be divergent, at best, and incom- ¶ patible at worst. ¶ What Sandoval's location at the nexus of ethnic studies, women's ¶
studies, cultural studies, and American studies compels her to demon- ¶ strate is that intellectual-activists in these fields have never not spoken
¶ of one another, even though their alliances with or divergence from ¶ certain ideological positions mean that, as individuals, they (may) have ¶
never been perceived to be speaking to or with one another. They have ¶ never not been implicated in or effected by one another's
theorizations, ¶ just as they have never not, any of them, performed their knowledges ¶ from embodied locations or with bodily effects. Thus,
Sandoval's ¶ Methodology importantly incorporates Cherrie Moraga's notion of ¶ theory in the flesh, "reclaim[ing] that theory from the halls of
the ¶ academy where it has been intercepted and domesticated" (7), and re- ¶ membering its origins in the intellectual and political
insurrections of ¶ oppressed peoples. Beyond pointing out that "the
new modes of critical ¶ theory and philosophy, the
new modes of reading and analysis that have ¶ emerged during the U.S. post-World War II period are
fundamentally ¶ linked to the voices of subordinated peoples" (8). Sandoval draws out ¶ these links, holding together-
through moments of tension and har- ¶ mony-the decolonizing possibilities of critical theory as practiced by ¶ both dominant "Western" and
traditionally liminal intellectuals. ¶
267
Perm – Gender/Intersectionality
The permutation solves – processes of decolonization and gendered analysis
intersect
Freya Schiwy, Ph.D. 2002, Duke University, DECOLONIZATION AND THE QUESTION OF SUBJECTIVITY
Gender, race, and binary thinking. Cultural Studies Volume 21, Issue 2-3, 2007 Special Issue:
Globalization and the De-Colonial Option
Gender has been paramount to the process of Decolonization. In Latin America, indigenous
intellectuals such as Fausto Reinaga have held forth the idea of gender complementarity as an
illustration of the colonial difference, that is, as an element that distinguishes Aymara gender relations
from western patriarchy. While for Reinaga gender complementarity is a reality, for Mariá Eugenia
Choque Quispe gender complementarity is an ideal that the colonial experience itself has
compromised (1998, p. 12). For many indigenous women, questioning gender paradigms in the process
of decolonization has helped to constitute indigenous cultures as dynamic practices that are in need
of re-invention rather than offering a return to an idealized past (Cervone 1998, Mujeres Indi´genas
de la CONAIE 1994). Documentary and fiction videos, directed and produced by members of
indigenous communities frequently cast women as the guardians of tradition; they enact the
transmission of social memory and perform gender complementarity on screen. At the same time,
videomakers foster debates over the links between gender and the colonial subalternization of
knowledge. For some indigenous videomakers gender complementarity itself has become a metaphor
for thinking decolonized relations between indigenous communities and national society (Schiwy 2002).
Social memory and subalternized knowledge is embodied and transmitted in gendered ways but the
enactment and representation of such links between knowledge and the female body in the discourse
of decolonization has been a central point of debate not only for indigenous movements in Latin
America. In postcolonial discussions focused on India and Northern Africa, scholars such as Partha
Chatterjee asked whether decolonization mustn’t ‘include within it a struggle against the false
essentialism of home/world, spiritual/material, feminine/masculine propagated by nationalist
ideology. While¶ gender concepts are clearly crucial to decolonization, the heterosexual model¶ through
which complementarity is thought affirms Andean duality and hides¶ those subjectivities and forms of
desire that would challenge binary thinking¶ itself. Indeed, as, the literary critic Michael Horswell argues,
the Andean¶ gender binary is itself a modern/colonial construct.
268
Perm – Global Movements
The affirmative engages in cultural translation—the permutation is a necessary

vehicle to widen movements to a global scale and connect across geographical
and ideological divides
But this also means that there

is a dire need for what Santos has called a¶ theory of translation—one that
propitiates mutual understanding and intelligibility among movements brought together into
networks but with worldviews, life¶ worlds and conceptions that are often different and at odds with
each other, if¶ not plainly incommensurable.54 How can mutual learning and transformation¶ among subaltern practices be promoted?
This is increasingly recognised as an¶ important element for advancing counter-hegemonic globalisation (for instance,¶ by the world network of social movements
that emerged from the World Social¶ Forum process). If
it is true that many of the subaltern movements of today are¶
movements of knowledges that have been marginalised and excluded, does this¶ not amount in some
fashion to a situation of ‘transnational third worlds of¶ peoples and knowledges’,55 whose articulation
might usher in new types of¶ counter-hegemonic agency? No longer conceived as a classificatory
feature¶ within the modern epistemic order, these ‘third worlds of peoples and knowledges’ could
function as the basis for a theory of translation that, while¶ respecting the diversity and multiplicity of
movements (albeit questioning their¶ particular identities), would enable increasing intelligibility of experiences¶ among
existing worlds and knowleges, thus making possible a higher level of¶ articulation of ‘worlds and
knowledges otherwise’. As Santos put it:¶ such a process includes articulating struggles and resistances, as
well as promoting¶ ever more comprehensive and consistent alternatives … an enormous effort of¶
mutual recognition, dialogue, and debate will be required to carry out the¶ task … Such a task entails
a wide exercise in translation to enlarge reciprocal¶ intelligibility without destroying the identity of
what is translated. The point is to¶ create, in every movement or NGO, in every practice or strategy, in every
discourse¶ or knowledge, a contact zone that may render it porous and hence permeable to¶ other
NGOs, practices, strategies, discourses and knowledges. The exercise of¶ translation aims to identify
and potentiate what is common in the diversity of the¶ counter-hegemonic drive.56 269¶
269
Practicality Turn
The alt alone fails devolves into endless reflection and navel-gazing—only
practical political solutions can solve the epistemology critique (—prefer this
evidence, it is from a leader in epistemic criticism)
Gordon 4 (Lewis, Professor of Philosophy at University of Connecticut, Fanon and Development: A

Philosophical Look, http://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/4-3.pdf)
Democracy and Development: Irene Gendzier
Although Sylvia Wynter qualified her conclusions by reminding us that we should work through
epistemological categories and ‘not merely economic’ ones, her discussion so focuses on the
question of conceptual conditions that it is difficult to determine how those economic considerations
configure in the analysis. Irene Gendzier, author of one of the early studies of Fanon’s life and thought, took on this task, in addition to elaborating its political dimensions as well, in her 1995 history of the field of development studies,
Development against Democracy: Manipulating Political Change in the Third World. Gendzier first points out that development studies emerged in elite, First World universities as an attempt to offer their vision of modernisation over the Marxist ones of the U.S.S.R., Communist China,
and Cuba. Their model was resolute: A capitalist economy and elite (oligarchical) democracy. We see here the normative telos writ large: The United States. Although Gendzier does not present this as a theodicean argument, those elements are unmistakable. The initial phase of
development studies granted the United States the status of utopia, which means that both its contradictions and those that emerge from its application abroad must be functions of the limitations of the people who manifest them. In effect, Gendzier’s study is an empirical validation of
much of Wynter’s and Fanon’s arguments. The record of those development policies is universally bad, although there seems to be no example that could meet any test of falsification that would convince, say, members of the Council for Foreign Relations, many of whom are from the
neoliberal and conservative wings of the North American academic elite. Gendzier uses an apt term to describe the work such policies have done: maldevelopment. Here is her assessment of their record:¶ For many, terms like Development and Modernization have lost their meaning.
They have become code words. They refer to policies pursued by governments and international agencies that enrich ruling elites and technocrats, while the masses are told to await the benefits of the ‘trickle down’ effect. For many, Development and Modernization are terms that refer
to a politics of reform designed to preserve the status quo while promising to alter it. And for many social scientists, those who have rationalized the interests of governments committed to such policies are accom- plices in deception (Gendzier 1995:2).¶ North American and European
development studies set the foundations for U.S. policies that supported antidemocratic regimes for the sake of preserving the economic hegemony of American business elites, and the supposed dilemma emerged, in many countries under the yoke of First World developmental
dictates, of whether to reduce social inequalities, which often led to economic decline on the one hand, or increase economic prosperity, which often led to social inequalities on the other. The problem, of course, is that this is a false dilemma since no nation attempts either pole in a
vacuum. How other countries respond to a nation’s social and economic policy will impact its outcome. It is not, in other words, as though any nation truly functions as a self-supporting island anymore. A good example is the small Caribbean island of Antigua. To ‘normalise’ relations
with the United States, that island was forced to create immigration laws that would stimulate the formation of an underclass, which U.S. advisors claimed would create a cheap labour base to stimulate economic investment and an increase in production and prosperity. There is now
such a class in Antigua, but there has, in fact, been a decline in prosperity. The reason is obvious: There was not an infrastructure of capital in need of such a labour force in the first place. The island of Antigua has a good education base, which makes the type of labour suitable for its
economy to be one of a trained professional class linked in with the tourist economy and other high-leveled service-oriented professions such as banking and trade, all of which, save tourism, the United States does not associate within a predominantly black country. The creation of an
underclass without an education or social-welfare system to provide training and economic relief, conjoined with an absence of investments from abroad, has created a politically and economically noxious situation, and the quality of life in Anti- gua now faces decline.8 This story is no
doubt a familiar one in nations with very modest prosperity as in Africa.¶ There has been a set of critical responses to development theory, the most influential of which has been those by theorists of dependency.9 The obvious situation of epistemological dependence emerges from the
United States as the standard of development, both economic and cultural. The economic consequence is a function of the international institutions that form usury relationships with countries that are structurally in a condition of serfdom, where they depend on loans that it is no
longer possible to believe they can even pay back. Fanon would add, however, that we should bear in mind that in the case of many African countries who received such loans, the situation might have been different had those funds been spent on infrastructural resources instead of as a
source of wealth for neocolonial elites. That European and American banks hold accounts for leaders who have, in effect, robbed their countries and have left their citizens in near perpetual debt to the World Bank reveals the gravity of Fanon’s warnings of forty years past. An additional
Fanonian warning has also been updated by sociologist Paget Henry, who warns us that the epistemological struggle also includes fighting ‘to save the sciences from extreme commodification and instrumentalisation’ (Henry 2002–2003:51).¶ To these criticisms, Gendzier poses the
The critics of development have pointed out what is wrong with development studies,
following consideration.
particularly its project of modernisation, but their shortcoming is that many of them have not presented
alternative conceptions of how to respond to the problems that plague most of Africa and much of the Third
World. Think, for example, of Wynter’s call for a new epistemic order. Calling for it is not identical with
creating it. This is one of the ironic aspects of the epistemological project. Although it is a necessary
reflection, it is an impractical call for a practical response.
270
Reform Good
Their monolithic view of modernity is bad—it ignores the emancipatory nature
it has for new social movements
Domingues 9 (Jose, Rio de Janeiro University Research Institute, Global Modernization, `Coloniality'
and a Critical Sociology for Contemporary Latin America, Theory Culture Society 2009 26: 112, 2009)
The opening of identities and the very emergence of ethnic movements,¶ which the state can no longer prevent, is
part and parcel of the third¶ phase of modernity, as much as it is the result of a couple of decades of¶ ethnic militancy.
Formerly a peasant identity and working-class movements,¶ along with a leftist as well as middle-class nationalism
within the developmental¶ framework, were the nodal points of identity formation. This does¶ not mean that ethnic
identities were not important: they just tended to be¶ neither rationalized nor politicized as they often (though not always) are¶ today. Social
movements, in this regard, are now quite plural and depend¶ on network mechanisms to organize themselves internally as well as to¶ weave
alliances (Domingues, 2007: ch. 5, 2008: ch. 3). Modernity is, moreover, a two-pronged phenomenon; this is why we¶
must maintain an ambivalent relation towards it. It has at its core some¶ entrenched systems of
domination: capitalism, the bureaucratic state and¶ patriarchy, as well as racism. While the two former are intrinsic to¶ modernity, the
latter may entertain a more contingent relation to it, regardless¶ of how close-knit they have been
since its inception. But modernity also¶ has some key imaginary elements – emancipatory – which
have furnished ¶ its horizon of expectations across the planet: freedom, equality and solidarity ,¶ with
responsibility playing a more discreet though rather important¶ part (Domingues, 2006). It is quite likely, as Marx
argued in his immanent¶ critique, that they cannot be realized in modernity, and therefore need a ¶ different type of society in which they
would be sublated, including of course¶ ‘coloniality’, a historical feature of the birth and expansion of modernity,¶ however that is
conceptualized. It may be also that perspectives that bring¶ into contemporary modern discussions elements
from other civilizational¶ sources can provide new elements of criticism – for instance by insisting¶ on the community moment of
democracy, such as is the case in Bolivia today.¶ In any case, an opening of citizenship and to some extent its transformation¶
as well as a re-structuration of the nation stands at the core of all these¶ movements and their ‘epistemic’ proposals. New
principles of thinking and systematic theorizing can be proposed¶ by ‘border thinking’ constructions
rooted in indigenous peoples’ movements,¶ reaching maturation in various forms of (hopefully not dichotomous) ‘another¶ thinking’. But other
movements and their own brand of ‘border thinking’ –¶ race-oriented movements, workers’, women’s and
environmental movements¶ or whatever – stand on an equal footing with ethnically based social
movements,¶ especially in countries in which those are by far the minority. We¶ are far beyond the days when working-class movements
could demand an¶ absolutely central position in social change. It is not reasonable that we¶ should expect other partial
movements to take their place. This is certainly¶ not the Zapatistas’ perspective. Such movements
become really threatening¶ when they weave broad alliances and when more encompassing issues –¶
such as the traditional left banner of nationalization or the more recent one,¶ taken up again, though transformed and
democratically radicalized, of¶ citizenship – are pursued to their completion. Such modernizing moves,¶ from which take different
directions, will inevitably develop through modernity,¶ albeit not necessarily within it should radical social change come about.¶ While
neoliberalism reiterates modern systems of domination (especially¶ capitalism and bureaucratic state power, with low-intensity democracy),¶
those democratic moves may remain within modernity (although widening¶ its democratic horizons, at the imaginary level
and institutionally) or point¶ beyond it, in any case being informed by and having to engage with it –¶ even if
their constitution as collective subjectivities centrally includes other¶ civilizational elements. This is in some part happening right
now, when some¶ of those movements take the telos contained in the horizon of expectations¶ of
modernity and lend new specificities to older traditions stemming from¶ liberal and socialist thought, creatively transforming them to a
large extent,¶ while the same is happening to indigenous traditions, which have by now¶ been radically modernized themselves.
271
Rejection Turn
Turn – Forcing the affirmative to accept decoloniality is the monolithic ideology

of the West
Maldonado-Torres 2K7 [Nelson, Professor in Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers,
'ON THE COLONIALITY OF BEING', Cultural Studies, 21:2, 240]
Decolonization and ‘des-gener-accioń’, different from authenticity, are not¶ based on the anticipation of death, but on the aperture of one’s
self to the¶ racialized other to the point of substitution.¶ 67¶ Substitution occurs when one’s¶ identity is teleologically suspended and when one
offers one’s life to the task of¶ achieving decolonial justice: that is, a justice oriented by the trans-ontological¶ dimension of the human.
Decolonial justice opposes the preferential option for¶ imperial Man by the preferential option for the damne´ or condemned of the¶ earth.
Such justice is inspired by a form of love which is also decolonial.¶ ‘Decolonial love’ ! a concept coined and developed by the Chicana theorist¶
Chela Sandoval ! gives priority to the trans-ontological over the claims of¶ ontology.¶ 68¶ Decolonization and ‘des-gener-accioń’ are the active
products of¶ decoloniallove and justice. They aim to restore the logics of the gift through a¶ decolonial politics of receptive generosity.¶
would have to be understood according
69¶ In order to be consistent, the discourse of decolonization and ‘des-generaccioń’
to the very logics that they open. They cannot take the form of a new imperial universal.
Decolonization ¶ itself, the whole discourse around it, is a gift itself, an invitation to engage in¶ dialogue. For decolonization,
concepts need to be conceived as invitations to¶ dialogue and not as impositions. They are expressions of the
availability of the¶ subject to engage in dialogue and the desire for exchange. Decolonization in¶ this respect aspires to
break with
monologic modernity. It aims to foment¶ transmodernity, a concept which also becomes an invitation that has to be¶
understood in relation to the decolonial paradox of giving and receiving.¶ 70¶ Transmodernity is an
invitation to think modernity/coloniality critically from¶ different epistemic positions and according to the manifold experiences of¶
subjects who suffer different dimensions of the coloniality of Being.¶ Transmodernity involves radical dialogical ethics ! to initiate a dialogue¶
between humans and those considered subhumans ! and the formulation of a¶ decolonial and critical cosmopolitanism.¶ 71¶
272
Science Good
Science and technology are good – they benefit all societies
The reason for interrogating the truth claims of Western science is not to¶ undermine its importance and
merits, but to put its self-proclaimed supe-¶ rior position globally in perspective. Scientific discoveries
and technological¶ change have in many ways been a blessing in the sense that these discover-¶ ies
have made life more manageable and easier for millions of people, viz.¶ discoveries in medicine,
agriculture, transport, and information technology, to mention just a few. There is no reason to reject
or de-emphasize¶ the merits of modern science and technology. Science and technology are very
important aspects of modern society and societies in the South. They permeate, in one way or
another, almost every society on earth and are in¶ many ways indispensable.
273
Total Rejection Turn
The alternative’s totalizing stance recreates the privilege they critique: focus on
coloniality obscures socio-economic differences that undergird everyday forms
of violence.
Browitt 2004 (Jeff, Head of International Studies Program, Cultural Studies Group at University of
Technology-Sydney,
http://www.class.uh.edu/mcl/faculty/zimmerman/lacasa/Estudios%20Culturales%20Articles/Jeff%20Br
owitt.pdf)
I would like to complete this unavoidably selective and admittedly reductive view of Latin American cultural studies by briefly mentioning
Walter Mignolo’s valuable work on “colonial difference,” but also his entrapment in a specious politics of
location. In The Darker Side of the Renaissance (1995) and more recently Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges,
and Border Thinking (2000), Mignolo, at one stage also a member of the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group, is keen to problematise what
he regards as the self- validating narrative of European modernity, which obscures the fact that its unfolding was based on coloniality: the
plundering of “New World” wealth and the concomitant European act of self- definition as “civilization” through positing the colonial other as
“savage.” To counter this historical tendency, Mignolo posits “colonial difference” and “border thinking” in which the “restitution of subaltern
knowledge is taking place” and where “colonial difference is the space [...] in which global designs have to be adapted, adopted, rejected,
integrated, or ignored” (Mignolo, Local Histories ix).
In an earlier article in which he responds to Peter Hulme’s criticism of his privileging an epistemology of location, Mignolo elaborates on what
he regards as the dilemma of historical thinking, even in such a perceptive subaltern historian as Dipesh Chakrabarty: “The basis of [the]
‘Chakrabarty dilemma’ is that writing subaltern ‘histories’ means to remain in an epistemically subaltern position in the domain of cultures of
scholarship. This is because one of the invisible places in which the coloniality of power operates is the domain of epistemology” (Mignolo, “I
Am” 241). In other words, the institutional location of much history writing already
compromises what can be said by the very methodological and philosophical assumptions of “professional” historiography. As an example of
such blindness, Mignolo stresses the exclusion of the voice of the indigene in Gordon Brotherston’s discussion of Amerindian knowledge of a
system of writing. For Mignolo:
Amerindians themselves have nothing to say, as they have not been invited to participate in a debate in which they themselves are objects of
consideration. That is the epistemic colonial difference from whence emerged Amerindians in the sixteenth century, Chicano/as as in the US
today, and white, mestizo, and immigrant Creole intellectuals like Kusch, Dussel, and myself. “Voices from the margins” are voices from and
dealing with the colonial epistemic difference. (241)
In Local Histories/Global Designs, he
elaborates on this colonial difference from the point of view of a sensual, lived
experience related to territory: “the sensibilities of geohistorical locations have to do with a sense of territoriality [...] and includes
language, food, smells, landscape, climate, and all the basic signs that link the body to one or several places” (Mignolo, Local Histories 191). It is
hard to argue with this sort of claim, but
how each person experiences those sensibilities will also be crucially
related to socio-economic position . Mignolo unfortunately collapses the distance between Amerindians
and “white, mestizo, and immigrant Creole intellectuals like Kusch, Dussel” and himself, seemingly oblivious to the
obvious objection that there is also a world of class, status and ethnic differences between the
lettered intellectual able to participate in, indeed make a living out of engaging in Euro-Latin American
cultural debates. Here the politics of location is reduced to an abstract macro-geo-cultural category –
“Latin America” – now reconstituted, not as the now largely discredited US area studies, but as the
site of “colonial difference,” in which the privileged interlocutors (once more) are the lettered Creole
intelligentsia. There is more than a ring of truth therefore to Peter Hulme’s remark that “birth certificates matter more here than
intellectual credentials” (Hulme 225). Mignolo rebels against what he regards as the subordination of Latin American intellectuals vis-à-vis
metropolitan centers of learning, but though
such one-way traffic of knowledge does exist, it may matter much
less for those whose own difference is lived in and against the postcolonial, peripheral nation –
women, subordinate social classes, ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples – than for the postcolonial
national intelligentsia itself.
274
Unstrategic Essentialism Turn
Multiple modernities exist within Latin America. There’s a stark difference

between the violence towards the Andean nations and the violence towards
countries of the Southern Cone. Homogenization doesn’t take into account
unique cultural differences.
Salvatore 10 [Ricardo D. Salvatore, History professor, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, The Postcolonial
in Latin America and the Concept of Coloniality: A Historian’s Point of View, Vol. 8, No. 1, Fall 2010, 332-
348, www.ncsu.edu/project/acontracorriente, Pgs. 341-342]
Similar types of modernity could be observed at the time in ¶ certain cities and regions of southern
Brazil and the central valley of ¶ Chile, but not in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, where changes in land ¶
tenure, race relations, and political culture were slower to develop and ¶ more limited in scope. One
must acknowledge, though, that among ¶ these effects there was a cultural amnesia about indigenous
peoples and ¶ a marginalization of Creole subjects. The peoples inhabiting the interior ¶ or the
backlands of these modern nations were racialized and construed ¶ as incapable of self-government and
civilized sociability. Nonetheless, it ¶ would not be inaccurate to argue that the colonial was less
evident in ¶ the terrain of the social and in cultural forms in Argentina than it was in ¶ Bolivia, Peru, or
Ecuador. In the first decades of the 20th century, as ¶ foreign observers (business prospectors, scholars,
missionaries, and ¶ tourists) pointed out, the Andean nations had retained more visible ¶ marks of
“coloniality” than the countries of the Southern Cone. The ¶ persistence of aristocratic privilege,
landlord despotism, labor servitude, ¶ and open forms of racism in the highlands of Bolivia, Peru, and
Ecuador ¶ were a constant and sad reminder that these places had been the ¶ experimental workshops
of Spanish colonialism. It was in these ¶ territories where foreign observers found that the wars of ¶
independence, liberalism, and later positivism had produced almost no ¶ change in the condition, life
style, and self-awareness of indigenous peoples. ¶ Thus, from a historical point of view, the term
“coloniality” appears as describing an undifferentiated continuity of forms of ¶ governmentality,
subalternity, and marginalization of native knowledges proper of Spanish and Portuguese colonization
in the ¶ Americas. (Many historians have referred to this persistence of the colonial past in the present
with the term “the colonial heritage.”) We need to challenge this homogeneization of a long-term
persistence of ¶ the colonial. It is better to speak of different degrees of coloniality, in ¶ order to take
into account the profound transformations experienced by ¶ certain regions and cities within the most
progressive republics of South ¶ America. At the time of the first Centenary of independence, South ¶
America appeared as highly differentiated in terms of economic ¶ achievement, democratic sociability,
political stability, and educational ¶ progress. Maybe in the Argentine northwest (Salta, Jujuy, Tucuman,
¶ Santiago del Estero, Catamarca), the degree of residual coloniality was ¶ similar or comparable to that
of regions in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, ¶ but this was certainly not the case for the Argentine Litoral
(Buenos ¶ Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and southern Córdoba)
275

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UTNIF 2013 (De)Coloniality

1NC – Generic – Long

Coloniality naturalizes a non-ethics of death and generalizes the condition of

The alternative is the definitive rejection of epistemic privilege and total

And we must decolonize debate practice itself—Education based on Western

unknowingly striving to control and ‘tame’¶ education through evidence-based education. An

1NC Specific Links

Cuba Disaster 1NC Link

identity", "national development", and "national sovereignty" that produced an illusion of

The concept of “valuing culture” is inherently Eurocentric—they privilege

Economic engagement relies on the orientalist subjugation of Latin American

Link – Aid/Danish Universities

In attempting to provide aid, the affirmative explicitly reflects its colonial

The colonial nature of this proposition becomes clear when

Coloniality and body-politics is the darker, missing side of biopolitics

Link – Black/White Binary

Link – Cartesian Dualism

Link – Cartesian Dualism

Colonialism produced a universal viewpoint from which the lives of colonized

the T -in-o map." Space

Link – Cuba – Racism

Link – Cuba – Racism

Link – Cuba – Racism

Cuba is still smothered in anti-black racism

Link – Economic Engagement

Foreign economic engagement in Latin America has led to under development

the richest country (the US) has fifteen

economically developed today.

Link – Economic Engagement

14 In other words, America’s economic¶

Link – Economic Engagement

The aff’s promotion of economic engagement is indicative of a larger colonial

Link – Economic Engagement

Economic engagement reproduces the rhetoric of modernity which positions

Link – Economic Engagement/Development

The Affirmative’s management by extraction is part and parcel of a long history

Agriculture and energy investments are conducted by expulsion– trade

A challenging of colonial thought should precede gender-conscious knowledge—

modernity/coloniality, capitalism and states invoke a kind of heteronormativity that is left

animals were differentiated since the conquest and

Consequently, though sexually colonized females’ lack

. What has been

¶ The civilizing transformation

One can recognize the

. In using the term “coloniality” I

Western epistemology is reflected even in the seemingly-objective sciences—

Link – Generic/Middle East Terror/Oil

Coloniality articulates the suppression of basic human rights in order to have

history radical alternatives to modernity are not a

historically foreclosed possibility one

refracting modernity through the lens of coloniality engage in a questioning of the

character of modernity, a conception of eurocentrism as the knowledge form of modernity/coloniality

that the proper analytical unit of

being as the ontological dimension of colonialty, on both sides of the encounter;

Eurocentrism, as the knowledge model of the European

¶ ¶ coloniality is the site of enunciation that

the single most prominent vehicle of coloniality today seems to be

Using Western knowledge practices or ideas to understand Latin America

Grosfoguel 9 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley, Decolonizing Western Uni-versalisms:

Link – Generic Policy

Link – Generic Policy

Attempts to integrate and modernize destroy Latin American identity in favor of

Heidegger’s theory of Dasein disregards colonized subjects, and at best marks

Maldonado-Torres 7 (Nelson, Professor Comparative Literature at Rutgers, "ON THE COLONIALITY