From Domination to “Buen Vivir” : Latin America and Contested Globalizations

Abstract

It has been claimed that “[t]he decolonization of knowledge is [...] one of the most important intellectual challenges of our times” (Pratt, 2008, p. 460). In that regard, this chapter is an attempt to explore the meanings of “the decolonization of knowledge,” especially in the context of this volume’ principal theme “globalization, social justice, and the university” and, above all, from the perspective of an academic who has been deeply influenced by “Buen Vi vir,” described as “an ethics aimed at the collective well-being and not merely that of the individual” (Acosta, 2011, p. 52). Implicit here is the need to rethink the role of the university as a center of knowledge while academics struggle to make sense of globalization and its effects on the quality of life throughout the world. Moreover, it is important to be mindful of what some refer to as the “geopolitics of knowledge” (Dussel, 2008; Mignolo, 2008; Walsh, 2012) and the “global hegemony” of Western European thought (Quijano, 2008) that constitute the very foundation of higher education in the United States and elsewhere. Thus, it has been argued that

[i]t is no longer possible, or at least it is not unproblematic to “think” from the canon of Western philosophy, even when part of the canon is critical of modernity. To do so means to reproduce the blind epistemic ethnocen-trism that makes difficult, if not impossible, any political philosophy of inclusion.

A version of this chapter was originally written in Spanish and titled, De la dominacion al buen vivir: America Latina como proyecto civilizatorio “otro”; it was published as a chapter in Mario Campana, ed. America Latina. Los proximos 200 anos. Barcelona: CECAL, 2010 (pp. 144–77).