Pluriversity_Boidin Cohen Grosfoguel

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The articles included in this volume of

Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociologyof Self-Knowledge

were presented at theconference entitled Quelles universités etquels universalismes demain en Europe? undialogue avec les Amériques

(Which Univer-sity and Universalism for Europe Tomor-row? A Dialogue with the Americas)organized by the Institute des Hautesd’Etudes de l’Amerique Latine (IHEAL)with the support of the Université de

Cergy-Pontoise and the Maison des Science

de l’Homme (MSH) in Paris on June 10-11,2010. The aim of the conference was tothink about what it could mean to decolo-nize the Westernized university and itsEurocentric knowledge structures. The arti-cles in this volume are, in one way oranother, decolonial interventions in therethinking and decolonization of academicknowledge production and Westernuniversity structures.

Capucine Boidin is a Lecturer in Anthropology at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l'Amérique latine (IHEAL),Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. Her research focuses on the anthropology and history of representations

of mestizaje, and the history and anthropology of wars. She has been a member of the editorial board of Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos since 2002. Most recently, she is the author of Guerre et métissage au Paraguay (2001-1767),PU Rennes, 2011. James Cohen is an Associate Professor (maître de conférences) in the Department of PoliticalScience at Université de Paris VIII, Saint-Denis, France. He is also Lecturer at the Institut des Hautes études del'Amérique Latine, Paris, and member of the editorial committee of Mouvements. Ramón Grosfoguel is Associ-ate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Senior Research Associate of theMaison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. He has published many articles and books on the political economyof the world-system and on Caribbean migrations to Western Europe and the United States.

I ntroduct i on: From Uni versi t y t o Pluri versi t y

A Decolonial Approach to the Present Crisis ofWestern Universities

Issue Co-Editors: Capucine Boidin, James Cohen and Ramón Grosfoguel

Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, France • Université de Paris VIII, France •

University of California at Berkeley––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

[email protected] • [email protected] • [email protected]

Abstract: This is a co-editors’ introduction to the 2011 special issue of Human Architecture: Journal of theSociology of Self-Knowledge, entitled “Decolonizing the University, Practicing Pluriversity,” includingpapers that were presented at the conference entitledQuelles universités et quels universalismes demain enEurope? un dialogue avec les Amériques (Which University and Universalism for Europe Tomorrow? ADialogue with the Americas) organized by the Institute des Hautes d’Etudes de l’Amerique Latine(IHEAL) with the support of the Université de Cergy-Pontoise and the Maison des Science del’Homme (MSH) in Paris on June 10-11, 2010. The aim of the conference was to think about what itcould mean to decolonize the Westernized university and its Eurocentric knowledge structures. Thearticles in this volume are, in one way or another, decolonial interventions in the rethinking and decol-onization of academic knowledge production and Western university structures.

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ISSN: 1540-5699. © Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press) and authors. All Rights Reserved.

HUMAN

ARCHITECTURE

Journal of theSociology of Self-

A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)



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The crisis that American and Europeanuniversities suffer today are not only theresult of pressures created by neoliberal-

ism, thefi

nancial crisis and global capital-ism (such as the “Bologna Process” inEurope, budget cuts in American universi-ties, state abandonment of its historicalpolicies of strong support to public educa-tion, etc.). This crisis also originates in theexhaustion of the present academic modelwith its origins in the universalism of theEnlightenment. The participants in theconference were in broad agreement thatthis type of universalism has beencomplicit with processes of not only classexploitation but also processes of racial,

gender, and sexual dehumanization.In fact, internal criticisms of Westernforms of knowledge are not new. But in thelast decade, the Kantian-Humboldtianmodel of university (including “science byand for science” detached from theology,the encyclopedic character of research, thefigure of the teacher-researcher and of theresearcher-student) has been widely ques-tioned and criticized by Asian, Latin-Amer-ican, North American and European post-colonial thinkers who call for decolonialsocial sciences and humanities. In particu-

lar, the Latin American and US Latino criti-cal intellectuals, who prefer to refer tothemselves as decolonial rather than post-colonial, are questioning the epistemicEurocentrism and even the epistemicracism and sexism that guide academicpractices and knowledge production inWesternized universities. They use theseterms in critical reference to theories thatare (1) based on European traditions andproduced nearly always by European orEuro-American men

who are the only onesaccepted as capable of reaching universal-ity, and (2) truly foundational to the canonof the disciplines in the Westernizeduniversity’s institutions of social sciencesand the humanities. Moreover, they ques-tion the intention of total encyclopedicknowledge, in particular anthropological

knowledge, which is a process of knowingabout “Others” that never fully acknowl-edges these “Others” as thinking and

knowledge-producing subjects.Such criticism does not necessarily leadto a narrow relativism and/or to the rejec-tion of all research-making claims of universality. On the contrary, the mostinteresting dimension of Latin Americanand US Latino thinkers’ latest reflections isthat they underline the necessity of aprocess of universal thinking, built ondialogue between researchers from diverseepistemic horizons. This is what some LatinAmerican decolonial intellectuals, follow-ing the Latin American philosopher of

liberation, Enrique Dussel, has character-ized as transmodernity

. The latter refers to

pluri-versalism

as opposed to uni-versalism

.It is striking to note that the reforms

proposed by the Bologna Process and the budget cuts to universities in the Americasdo not address the internal and externalcritiques of the university outlined above.On the contrary, they reinforce theacademic world’s disenchantment withtraditional forms of knowledge productionin the social sciences and humanities.

Yet the potential for the renewal of

American and European universities isconsiderable. One important path torenewal would involve opening the univer-sity resolutely to inter-epistemic dialogueswith a view to building a new university,following what Boaventura de SousaSantos has called an “ecology of knowl-edges.” Far from limiting itself to a weakrelativism by default, or to “micro-narra-tives,” the decolonial proposal would be tosearch for universal knowledge as pluriver-sal knowledge, but through horizontaldialogues among different traditions of thought, or in Dussel’s terms transmoder-nity as pluriversalism. The construction of “pluriverses” of meaning by taking seri-ously the knowledge production of “non-Western” critical traditions and genealo-gies of thought would imply a refounding



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of the Western university. There are socialscientists and humanists in many parts of the world who, because of epistemic

racism/sexism, are silenced or ignored orinferiorized by the canon of Western maletradition of thought, that is, the founda-tional authors of all the major disciplines inWesternized universities. Reforming theuniversity with the aim of creating a lessprovincial and more open critical cosmo-politan pluriversalism would involve aradical re-founding of our ways of thinkingand a transcendence of our disciplinarydivisions.

The conference began a dialogue withother traditions of thought, particularly

among Latin American, North Americanand European thinkers. It also includedexperiences such as those of the indigenousuniversities in the Americas. As wasobserved by several speakers, one of themain effects of neoliberalism has been themarket-oriented university where researchpriorities and funding are based on marketneeds. As a result, the US model of thecorporate university has been elevated tothe status of a model since the 1970s. LatinAmerica rapidly adopted this model andcaused it to multiply into hundreds of

private institutions during the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. In other words,analyzing and discussing the academicchanges that have occurred in the Americasand in Europe for the last decades shouldenable us to get a more profound under-standing of the situation we find ourselvesin today and to better rethink the universityof tomorrow. The Bologna-inspired reformsof universities in the European Communityare in many ways attempts at imitating thecorporate neoliberal university model of the United States and, increasingly, GreatBritain.

In one way or another the conferencepapers published in this volume discusscritiques of Eurocentric knowledge and of the universities (or other, related institu-tions such as museums) that have gener-

ated it, and explore initiatives to fightepistemic coloniality in several countries inEurope (the Netherlands, Great Britain,

Germany Denmark) as well as in the Amer-icas (Bolivia and the U.S.).Regarding the Bologna university

agenda in Europe, the intervention of Boaventura de Sousa Santos in this volumeis fundamental for understanding thecontemporary structures of the university.De Sousa formulates a series of what hecalls “strong questions” about the contem-porary European university in the contextof the Bologna Process. These are questionsthat, in his words, “go to the roots of thehistorical identity and vocation of the

university in order to question … whetherthe university, as we know it, indeed has afuture” (p. 8). The aim is to determine, forexample, whether the European universitycan successfully reinvent itself as a center of knowledge in a globalizing society inwhich there will be many other centers aswell; whether there will be room for “criti-cal, heterodox, non-marketable knowl-edge,” respectful of cultural diversity, inthe university of the future; whether thescenario of a growing gap between“central” and “peripheral” universities can

be avoided; whether market imperativescan be relativized as a criterion for success-ful research and whether the needs of soci-ety—in particular those not reducible tomarket needs—can be taken suf ficientlyinto account; and, whether the universitycan become the site of the refounding of “anew idea of universalism on a new, inter-cultural basis.” A decade after the begin-ning of the Bologna Process, De Souzaobserves that these strong questions havereceived only weak answers to date but heimagines a future scenario in which stron-ger answers can be provided and theuniversity can “rebuild its humanistic idealin a new internationalist, solidary andintercultural way” (p. 13).

In the context of the Bologna Process of neoliberal European university reform,



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Manuela Boatcã argues that the Germanauthorities have recently promoted an“Excellence Initiative” which has defined

as one key objective the promotion of areastudies. To the extent that such initiativesconstitute a more modestly funded imita-tion of existing US programs and sharetheir af finity with evolutionist moderniza-tion theories and their instrumental func-tion in orienting elite strategy, they operateas a vector of “re-Westernization” of theGerman university. However, these initia-tives may also in some particular casesopen up new spaces for the development of critical approaches to migration studiesand ethnic and racial studies, from a more

subaltern perspective, with openings tocritical gender studies and attention tominority politics.

In the Danish university, outlooks onthe countries of the South and issues of development are strongly conditioned byhegemonic perspectives marked by coloni-ality. Although, in an era of neoliberaluniversity reform, decolonial critique of dominant forms and institutions of knowl-edge is a marginal pursuit, Julia Suárez-Krabbe draws on the experience of thecollective Andar Descolonizando

, based at

Roskilde University, to suggest some waysin which decolonizing critique can betrained on the university institution itself and its “position within global articulationsof power.” Such critical work, aiming inparticular at epistemic racism, can beaccomplished through what she calls, withphilosopher Nelson Maldonado-Torres,“epistemic coyotismo

”—that is, introducinginto the discussion theories and perspec-tives that are generally excluded fromacademia and causing them to be recog-nized at least, if not openly accepted andseeking decolonizing forms of collabora-tion with social movements in the South.

On the basis of direct experience in theDutch university system, Kwame Nimakoanalyses the ways in which knowledgeabout ethnic minorities—so-called “minor-

ity research”—has been hegemonized bydominant elites who view minorities asproblem populations and seek to manage

minority problems in such a way as tominimize them and never question theirown domination nor the historical heritageof colonialism and slavery. This forcedDutch minority groups to search for criticalthinking and knowledge productionoutside the university structures. Nimakodescribes several initiatives undertaken—mainly outside the university—by minor-ity groups to re-examine race and ethnicrelations and the history of slavery andabolition, including the National Platformon the Legacy of Slavery, the National Insti-

tute for the study of Dutch Slavery and itsLegacy (NiNsee), the Black EuropeSummer School, etc.

The domination of Eurocentric socialsciences in the Dutch university is reflectedin the reproduction of ideological myths inits knowledge production. Sandew Hiraexamines certain dominant historicalnarratives regarding slavery and abolitionproduced and disseminated in the Dutchuniversity and Dutch governmental insti-tutions by colonial social scientists andhistorians. He denounces their ideological

and non-scientific approaches and inparticular their strong tendency to under-state or deny the oppressive character of slavery and the responsibility of Dutchruling classes in its promotion, while alsomystifying the historical factors thatexplain why abolition took place.

Drawing inspiration from Patricia HillCollins’ critique of the “Eurocentric, mas-culinist knowledge-validation process,”Stephen Small examines various ways inwhich universities, both in Britain and theUnited States, have long suppressed criticalinquiry into the history of empire, slaveryand the slave trade. Parallel to this critique,he examines museums and other memorialsites devoted to slavery in Britain and theU.S., including a small number of initia-tives that challenge hegemonic accounts



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and draw attention to the agency and theresistance of slaves.

He further drawsattention to initiatives within academic

institutions in the U.S., Britain and otherparts of Europe to challenge dominantaccounts of slavery and its legacy.

Contrary to Western European univer-sities, ethnic studies and gender studies inthe United States emerged from social pres-sures from below as part of the legacy of thecivil rights struggles. This is why they arecentres of critical thinking inside theUnited States’ Westernized university.Ramón Grosfoguel examines the formationof ethnic and racial studies programs in theUnited States as a form of epistemic insur-

gency against epistemic racism/sexism. Hedevelops an epistemic and institutionalcritique to the Westernized university aswell as a critical view of the dilemmasethnic studies confront today.

Taking ethnic studies as a decolonialproject in the sense of “a southern episte-mological space within a northern setting,”Nelson Maldonado-Torres develops a radi-cal critique of the humanities—and itscrisis—today. He uses the decolonial epis-temic revolt of ethnic studies as a point of departure for thinking about ways to

decolonize the humanities. He calls for seri-ous consideration of the experiences andepistemic perspectives of racialized colo-nial subjects traditionally ignored by thehumanities in order to address its presentcrisis centred in Eurocentric knowledgeproduction irrelevant to the present demo-graphic shifts in the United States. Heshows the parallels of the racial logic thathave excluded colonial subjects and theneoliberal logic that today justifies huge budget cuts in the humanities. He arguesthat: “The temptation for the humanitieswould be to show that they are the deposi-tories of a better form of whiteness (with-out ever calling it that, or recognizing it assuch) than the one that is putting thehumanities at the level of ‘unproductive’people of color” (p. 98).

Drawing on his anthropological fieldwork in Bolivia in the midst of profoundsocial and political change, Anders Burman

examines various interlocutors’ attitudestowards knowledge, and in particular theimportant differences between “hegemonictheories of knowledge and indigenousepistemologies, between propositional andnon-propositional knowledge, betweenknowledge of

the world and knowledgefrom within

the world, or between repre-sentationalist and relational ways of know-ing” (p. 111). He stresses that there is “noabsolute dividing line,” no “clear-cutdichotomies after almost 500 years of asym-metric and colonial intermingling of episte-

mologies and knowledge systems fromdifferent traditions” (Ibid.). Yet he notes:“Relational ways of knowing and indige-nous traditions of thought continue to besystematically treated as inferior but theyare still present and are currently makingthemselves felt at the university” (Ibid.).

Maria Paula Meneses, speaking as aMozambican researcher living and work-ing in Portugal, examines the differenttypes of knowledge about the history of thecolonial relationship and the independencemovement produced in the two countries.

She observes that (at least) two separatenarratives coexist and render dif ficult anypossibility of mutual recognition. Colonial-ism involved much forgetting and silenc-ing; the dominant Eurocentric perspectiveon colonial history needs to be questionedand problematized. This does not contra-dict a critical questioning of the of ficialpost-colonial narrative of the independentMozambican state, whose state- andnation-building function has caused it tosilence the diversity of memories generated by the interaction between colonizers andcolonized and to justify the repression of those who questioned the of ficial version of history. Public narratives, of ficial or other-wise, that construct or reconstruct memo-ries are inevitably in competition with eachother and reflect power relations. But the



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full plurality of memory does not receivepublic attention; it must be dug out byactivist researchers who are able to distin-

guish among different subjective view-points and produce knowledge with a fullunderstanding of the complex relationsamong conflicting historical legacies.

Each essay of this volume in its ownways constitutes a contribution to thegrowing literature on the crisis of theuniversity today. Our hope is that the deco-lonial focus of the collection will representa contribution to present struggles, for thedecolonization not only of the Westernizeduniversity but also of the world at large.

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