Decoloniality and the Spectre of Modernity: Notes for a Theoretical Critique

Abstract

This article examines a thesis that has become a common currency in Latin American critical thought, namely that ‘coloniality’ is constitutive of modernity. This proposition rests on a reifying conception of modernity as a Eurocentric civilisational project which, I contend, is theoretically flawed and politically pernicious. I will trace this conceptualisation of modernity and some of the problems it involves in recent works of Arturo Escobar and Walter Mignolo. I argue that modernity is better understood as a politico-theoretical toolkit that, while having no immanent ideological content, is vital to the analysis and critique of (neo)colonialism and imperialism.