Proponents of a decolonial “option” or “turn” have developed the concepts of “coloniality of power/being/knowledge” and “decoloniality.” In so doing, many advance the claim that these frameworks improve on, complete, or serve as an alternative “option” to earlier conceptions of decolonization, where the latter is understood as the emancipation of colonized subjects from structures of colonial and imperial domination. In this essay, I critically assess some of this theoretical architecture, by way of a critique of the very specific version of decolonial thought developed under this rubric by the Argentinian (US-based) semiotician and philosopher Walter Mignolo. My contention is that Mignolo's focus on the epistemic dimensions of decolonization often serves instead to distort or flatten the worthwhile inheritances of anticolonial material practices and analyses. Mignolo would likely respond that he is seeking to supplement and extend the latter projects of decolonization into a more epistemic register where they have not (sufficiently) gone before. By contrast, I aim to show how Mignolo frequently diminishes and/or displaces some of the more compelling dimensions of anticolonial thought and decolonization that have been traced in recent historiography and in fields such as Indigenous and settler-colonial studies. I call this tendency Mignolo's “epistemic politics.” As a counterpoint, I briefly propose an alternative for political theorists of decolonization, what I call “worldly anticolonialism.”
The essay proceeds as follows. The first section briefly justifies my focus on Mignolo. The second section situates unfamiliar readers by summarizing the central propositions of Mignolo's version of the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality (MCD) research program. A key through-line in my interpretation is that Mignolo's account of “coloniality” and proposed “decolonial option” aims primarily at “epistemic decolonization,” motivated by his account of the epistemic shortcomings of previous strands of anticolonial projects.
The third section then shows how Mignolo misdescribes key historical trajectories and inheritances of anticolonialism. In effect, he flattens the structural and normative complexity and force of these various fields of thought and practice. The analysis of “decoloniality” as distinct from a more political conception of decolonization loses much of its underlying rationale in view of (what I hope to establish as) the exaggerated and distorted character of Mignolo's critiques of histories of anticolonial thought and practice.
The fourth section then draws on work in Indigenous and settler-colonial studies to show how Mignolo's notion of coloniality also obscures central features of the power relations constitutive of settler colonialism in the Americas. In doing so, they undercut a more targeted and specific analysis of (1) the structural and social reproduction of settler colonia
Scholars have interpreted Marx's conception of political change within the framework of his critique of capitalist society in myriad ways. Three main interpretations have prevailed in Marx scholarship in the last few decades with regard to his conception of political change under capitalism. The first interpretation, which is epitomized by Althusser's (1965) division of Marx's intellectual development into an early and late period, claims that his earlier philosophical and radical democratic analyses give place to a more scientific conception of capitalist society (see Cantin, 2003). The philosophical and ideological interests of the Young Marx, which provides “a radical-democratic interpretation” (Habermas, 1989, p. 126), according to this understanding, are superseded by the scientific and materialistic analyses of the Old Marx. Whereas the Young Marx entertains the possibility of achieving human emancipation through radical democratic politics, they highlight “the incompatibility of such writings with the historical insights and doctrines of the mature Marx” (Krancberg, 1982, p. 23). From the second half of the 19th century, they claim, Marx no longer pays attention to those political concepts and philosophical questions influenced by Aristotle, Rousseau, and Hegel, but is rather interested in providing a scientific analysis and critique of the capitalist mode of production for revolutionary communist politics.
The second and third groups of scholars directly oppose this division of Marx into an early and late period through the Althusserian concept of epistemological break, although their emphases on the development of his conception of political change under capitalism diverge significantly. The main argument of the second group (Avineri, 1968; Draper, 1974; Femia, 1993; Fromm, 1961; Grollios, 2011; Springborg, 1984a, 1984b) is that Marx's earlier notion of democracy as the locus of human freedom is to a large extent encompassed by his later understanding of communism. They stress that “in his Critique of Hegel, what Marx terms ‘democracy’ is not fundamentally different from what he will later call ‘communism’” (Femia, 1993, p. 70). Rather than finding an epistemological break in Marx's earlier and later writings, they claim that “in spite of certain changes in concepts, in mood, in language” (Fromm, 1961, p. 79), the mid-1840s onward, Marx uses very similar terms with his earlier account of democracy to describe what communism would look like after the overthrow of capitalist society. They go as far as to maintain that “the Communist Manifesto is immanent in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right” (Avineri, 1968, p. 34). Thus, there occurs only a change in the terminology he employs during this period “in the direction of defining consistent democr
As the world was hit by COVID-19, care workers were once again recognized as key workers in society, whose primary responsibility is to ensure the survival and well-being of people. Care work is defined as a set of “economic activities in the home, market, community, and state that fit loosely under the rubric of human services” (Folbre, 2006, pp. 11–12). Although care work is frequently performed within households as an unpaid form of labor and is not monetized, the pandemic has revealed a shortage of care supplies and an increasing demand for care. Despite its importance, care work remains one of the lowest-paying occupations in the global capitalist economy. Furthermore, recent studies have indicated that women, both in and outside the formal workforce, continue to bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work (Chopra & Zambelli, 2017; Güney-Frahm, 2020; Power, 2020).
Given these complexities and contradictions, this article aims to contribute to the adequate recognition of such an essential and ineliminable form of work. Feminist scholars and care theorists have attempted to reframe care as an explicitly political idea (Held, 2018; Kittay, 1999; Noddings, 1984; Robinson, 2010; Ruddick, 1980; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993). Previous research about care work has commonly been raised from an enduring critique that the notions of public sphere and citizenship have been plagued by a misogynized democracy deficit.
The first section characterizes care work as an essential maintenance activity that stems from human vulnerability. Then the second section shows how both vulnerability and care work are “feminized” and therefore “interiorised” by “imagined invulnerability,” a dominant patriarchal mentality, logic, norm, and discipline of liberal capitalism. The third section, however, argues that care should be a collective concern of all citizens, moving it out of the private sphere and into the realm of politics, by interpreting the Arendtian understanding of “the political” and “public life.” Not only is care already a political issue, but it should also be developed as a sense of citizenship, which this article shall call political care. This is achieved by combining ecofeminist philosophy with the republican understanding of politics and power, so that care work is no longer gendered but seen as a universal interest for all citizens in society. To this end, the article proposes an institution of compulsory care service, given its emphasis on both degendering care work and fostering active citizenship.
First and foremost, as humans, we are inherently vulnerable beings. Vulnerability is a defining aspect of our existence and is an inseparable part of what it means to be human. It stems from our corporeality and mortality and encompasses our universal susceptibility to hun
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：