Decolonization as an archetypal transgression of domination from a philosophical, intercultural, critical and liberating praxis

Abstract

In discussions of the need to “rethink” thought in Latin America, we encounter the possibility of alternative ways of conceptualizing criticism. If we frame it within the parameters of liberation philosophy, in a decolonizing vein, it amounts to a transgression of the archetypes that constitute domination—a transgression that entails the empowerment of ancestral categories within discursive apparatuses and the redress of the vilifications suffered by symbols, signifiers, and meanings in the sociolinguistic structuring of indigenous peoples. To avoid falling into the abyss of what is denied by the capitalist world system, intellectual, technological, and cultural endeavors have remained in an instrumental mimetic assimilation, seemingly integrated into the model of the “world-system of human survival par excellence.” This is why a subversive counter-movement is necessary to demystify the denial of economic positions that have been excluded from universal culture. Rediscovering and reconstructing the categories of an independent mode of thought—through which we can weave the utopian consciousness of liberation—requires a regeneration of the semantic, semiotic, and linguistic stereotypes of domination. And although it may seem a risky undertaking, it encourages the positioning of absences and the emergences of non-being in dialogues capable of challenging the epistemicides that correlate with and justify the genocides and ecocides perpetrated by the military and cultural forces of neocolonial domination.