Gothic Sovereignty: Street Gangs and Statecraft in Honduras

Abstract

behoves him to acknowledge that white people are – like all of us – subject to epistemic blindness that shields options and possibilities from view (Mignolo 2011; Sousanis 2015). Indeed, Ailton observes the concentration of wealth and power means that the revolutionary politics that might have overthrown broken systems in the past ‘no longer makes sense today’ (5). Without questioning the urgent need for change as Ailton describes, there is an absence of acknowledgement that we are trapped, as he himself points out, in a world where it is ‘becoming impossible to orient ourselves toward treading lightly on the Earth’ (49) or resist forces which compel us not to. One might suggest that white people are not ‘horrified’ by the idea of a better world but rather struggle to imagine another world or politics. It is telling in this sense that a key prescription for overcomingWestern ways of thinking is in ‘dreaming’ as an institution; a form of radical imagination that is both experiential and shared – one cannot do this on one’s own. This book is a polemic on the ravages of Western modernity, global capitalism and consumerist delusions. There are passages of truly beautiful writing, especially Ailton’s personal reflections on the profundity of not only his own peoples’ knowledge but Indigenous knowledges globally. The central message of this book is that life is not something to make use of, but rather something beautiful and intricately relational.