Critical Theory After the Rise of the Global South

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boike Rehbein
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Global South

THE DYNAMICS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL DECOLONISATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TOWARDS EPISTEMIC FREEDOM

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Global South ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Knowledge Domain ◽  
Normative Foundation ◽  
Conceptual Study

The problem of the 21st century in the knowledge domain is best rendered as the ‘epistemic line’. It cascades directly from William E B Dubois’s ‘colour line’ which haunted the 20th century and provoked epic struggles for political decolonisation. The connection between the ‘colour line’ and the ‘epistemic line’ is in the racist denial of the humanity of those who became targets of enslavement and colonisation. The denial of humanity automatically disqualified one from epistemic virtue. This conceptual study, therefore explores in an overview format, how Africa in particular and the rest of the Global South in general became victims of genocides, epistemicides, linguicides, and culturecides. It delves deeper into the perennial problems of ontological exiling of the colonised from their languages, cultures, names, and even from themselves while at the same time highlighting how the colonised refused to succumb to the ‘silences’ and fought for epistemic freedom. The article introduces such useful analytical concepts as ‘epistemic freedom’ as opposed to ‘academic freedom’; ‘provincialisation’; ‘deprovincialisation’; ‘epistemological decolonisation’; ‘intellectual extroversion’; and ‘epistemic dependence’. It ends with an outline of five-ways-forward in the African struggles for epistemic freedom predicated on (i) return to the base/locus of enunciation; (ii) shifting the geo-and bio-of knowledge/moving the centre; (iii) decolonising the normative foundation of critical theory; (iv) rethinking thinking itself; and finally (v) learning to unlearn in order to relearn.

scholarly journals Privileging the Decolonial Critical Theory in studying wa Thiong’o’s literary works

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-120
Author(s):  
Brian Sibanda
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
North American ◽  
Global South ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Impaired Vision ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Post Colonialism

Literary theories are the lens in which reality is created and viewed. If an incorrect or limited lens in used, then they impact on vision hence the corrective lenses are used to correct impaired vision. The literary works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o have been comfortably viewed from Marxist, Nationalist and Post-colonialist lens. It is the argument of this paper that though these literary theories do shed clarity on the works of wa Thiong’o, they limit the span of what we see that is outside their frames. The paper privileges the Decolonial Critical Theory, a theory located in the Global South, as the most appropriate lens to visibilise the decolonial thoughts and philosophy of wa Thiong’o. The appropriateness of the Decolonial Critical Theory is that it provides a critical lens outside the Euro- North American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. The argument expanded here is that essentialisms and fundamentalisms like Marxism, Nationalism and Post-colonialism are limited in the critique of wa Thiong’o as they do not take coloniality and decoloniality into account. Undoubtedly, wa Thiong’o has been many things politically and philosophically, but decoloniality as a philosophy is the organising idea and overarching line of his thought. Like decoloniality itself, wa Thiong’o has developed, journeyed and passed through different ideological and philosophical liaisons to arrive at his present decolonial consciousness and activism hence Decolonial Critical Theory is a betting lens in looking at this journey.

Critical Theory and Semiotics: Contributions from Latin America to a Marxist Discussion

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-150
Author(s):  
Stefan Gandler
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Global South ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Senior Faculty ◽  
Human Culture

Abstract How is it possible to understand a specific cultural determination of human praxis, especially the productive and consumptive one, without falling into ethnologising human subjects in their everyday forms of reproduction, or construct biological fixations? The former senior faculty of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Bolívar Echeverría (Riobamba, Ecuador 1941-Mexico City 2010), who does not limit human culture to its “elevated” forms and bases his analysis in the precise manner of material reproduction, finds an adequate image of this relationship between freedom and tradition, between individuality and a historically- and geographically-determined collectivity. This image lies in human languages, their innumerable speech acts and in a science that studies the relation of interdependence among them: semiotics. Starting from that concrete philosophical problem, retaking Saussure’s conceptual proposals and confronting them philosophically with Marx’s and Echeverría’s theories, we try to construct a basis for a critical epistemological contribution from the Global South, overcoming in that way one of the most powerful and destructive rests of the old colonial processes: “intellectual” Eurocentrism

scholarly journals The limits of Amy Allen's analysis of gender subordination in The Politics of Our Selves

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Yara Frateschi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Global South ◽  
Main Thesis

In this article, I argue that Amy Allen’s approach of gender issues in The Politics of Our Selves is precarious and partial insofar as it is focused on an analysis of subjection aiming to explain “how subordinated individuals come to be psychically invested in and attached to their subornation” 2. Although this is an undeniable aspect of gender subordination, it does not tackle the complexity of its symbolic and material causes. My main thesis is that Allen does not offer the best model for feminist Critical Theory in light of the complexities of capitalist societies, much less to the feminist struggles in the Global South, deeply marked by poverty, social inequality, racism and all sorts of violence against women.***Os limites da análise de Amy Allen sobre a subordinação de gênero em The Politics of Our Selves***Neste artigo, argumento que a abordagem de Amy Allen a respeito da questão de gênero em The Politics of Our Selves é precária e parcial na medida em que é focada em uma análise da sujeição que visa explicar “como indivíduos subordinados se tornam psiquicamente atados à sua própria subordinação”. Embora este seja um aspecto inegável da subordinação de gênero, não expressa a complexidade das suas causas materiais e simbólicas. A minha tese central é a de que Allen não oferece o melhor modelo para a Teoria Crítica feminista à luz das complexidades das sociedades capitalistas, muito menos, ouso dizer, para as lutas feministas no Sul Global, profundamente marcado pela pobreza, pela desigualdade social, pelo racismo e outros tipos de violência contra a mulher.

scholarly journals Rooting metropolitan planning in critical theory and participatory practices: A university planning experience in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraldo Costa ◽  
Heloisa Costa ◽  
Roberto Monte-Mór
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Global South ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Master Plans ◽  
Metropolitan Planning ◽  
University Planning ◽  
Participatory Practices ◽  
Belo Horizonte

The paper aims at contributing to the discussion about planning theory and participatory practices in the Global South by focusing on a planning experience for the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, led by faculty, researchers and students at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, between 2009 and 2019. The initiative unveils the University autonomy in designing and carrying out the metropolitan analyses and planning proposals, in adopting theoretical principles and methodologies and, in developing an outreach programme tightly linked to education and research, resulting in significant improvements in planning education, innovations in planning methodology and the potential for rooting radical planning practices in the metropolitan context. First, objects and subjects of the experience are introduced, together with the three phases of the process: the drafting of a metropolitan plan known as the Integrated Development Master Plan for the RMBH; the Metropolitan Macro-Zoning; and the review of municipal Master Plans within RMBH. Secondly, the trajectory and influences of Brazilian urban and metropolitan planning are reviewed to the extent that they fed into the experience. The discussion of municipal planning processes leads to an assessment of the experience’s main achievements. The concluding section offers some thoughts on rooting metropolitan and urban planning in critical theory and participatory practices, as a means to contribute to discussions of planning practices in the Global South.

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