Academic colonialism and marginalization: on the contentious postcolonial–decolonial debate in Latin American Studies

ABSTRACT This article offers an overview of key debates that conditioned the reception of postcolonial and subaltern studies among Latin Americanist scholars. It begins by analysing the initial Latin American postcolonial debate, and it assesses the claims of academic colonialism and marginalization that were voiced in the course of the polemic. In particular, it considers how these arguments worked to distance Latin America from the wider, emerging field of postcolonial studies by highlighting the supposed incommensurability of the region’s colonial experience, and it foregrounds important misapprehensions about subaltern studies that conditioned the development of the Latin American Subaltern Studies group. It further traces how these claims paved the way for the emergence of Latin American decolonial scholarship, and it foregrounds key unresolved tensions that have shaped its development. By providing a detailed account of this contentious intellectual history, this article seeks to interrogate the foundations of Latin American decoloniality, and to contribute to a critical reassessment of that project.