Walter
D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh. On
Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Duke University Press, 2018. 304pp. ISBN
978-0-8223-7109-0.
https://www.dukeupress.edu/on-decoloniality
Duke University Press's new series on
decoloniality, of which Mignolo and Walsh's text is
the first product, aims "to interconnect perspectives, expressions, thought,
struggles, processes, and practices of decoloniality that are emerging in and
from different corners of the globe" (1). Counter to the order of the subtitle,
the opening volume is organized so as to emphasize the centrality of praxis in
decolonial thought and work. After the co-written introduction, the first section,
by Walsh, focuses on "Decoloniality in/as Praxis," discussing
examples of decolonial praxes in different locations, while the second, by Mignolo, theorizes
and historicizes decoloniality and "The Decolonial Option." The book is closed
by a conversation between both co-authors, collecting final (as for now)
thoughts. The chapters have many intratextual
references, showing intricate relations between the ideas and the praxes discussed
in different parts of the text.
Written in a reflective style, it should invite the reader into the conversation
and the praxis of decoloniality. However, the theoretical section builds
heavily on Mignolo's field of semiotics, which could trouble the accessibility
of the argument for uninitiated readers.
Central
to Walsh and Mignolo's approach to decoloniality is the emphasis on
relationality, conceptualized through "vincularidad."
Walsh and Mignolo learned the term from "Andean
Indigenous thinkers, including Nina Pacari, Fernando Huanacuni Mamani, and Félix Patzi Paco" (1); its use makes visible the genealogy of On Decoloniality's project. "Vincularidad" names the relations between all living beings
and the land. In the North American context, this belief is often referred to via
the Lakota concept of mitákuye oyás'iŋ,
commonly translated as "all our relations." In this spirit, the aim of both
this volume and the following texts in the series is to offer insights garnered
from local, specific praxes and analytics, which could relate to or correlate with praxes and analytics in
other locations, rather than claiming universal applicability of its terms. Mignolo
and Walsh want a discussion of "pluriversal
decoloniality and decolonial
pluriversality" (2) – that
is to say, multiple decolonial approaches from multiple locations through
multiple conceptual frames, enacted through embodied ways of knowing rather
than the "dislocated, disembodied, and disengaged abstraction" of Western
so-called universals (3).
Buried in the middle of section II, chapter 6 ("The Conceptual Triad")
is a statement by Mignolo that gets to the heart of On Coloniality's argument and purpose:
Liberation
is through thinking and being otherwise. Liberation is not something to be
attained; it is a process of letting something go, namely, the flows of energy
that keep you attached to the colonial matrix of power, whether you are in the
camp of those who sanction or the camp of those sanctioned. (148)
Similar to the current conversation in American Indian/First Nations
studies, the emphasis of On Decoloniality's
project is on something akin to resurgence, termed "re-existence" by Walsh and
the organizing theme of her section. "Re-existence" centers a strengthening of
Indigenous practice and praxis over a focus on decolonization. Rather than fixating
on what the (settler) colonial needs in order to be convinced of Indigenous
freedom, the aim is to achieve liberation through strengthening Indigenous
existence and re-existence. The goal is not "decolonization," a point that is
both an end and a new beginning, often mandated by a state which still exists
within colonial terms (both Walsh and Mignolo refer to African countries as
still having been built on colonial terms rather than by Indigenous government
structures and/or geographical organization and consequently doomed to fail in
their decolonial promise). Rather, as in the quote above, "decoloniality" is a
continual process of "delinking" (see Mignolo's earlier work) from the
"colonial matrix of power" and "relinking" to Indigenous ways of knowing and structuring
the world. Decolonization is action; theory is made through action or "embodied
practice" (35). This, so far as the "colonial matrix of power" exists in its
global encompassing structures, is a daily assignment, a way of being, a way of
knowing, a constant struggle against cooptation and for Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Walsh, in her section,
offers examples of decolonial praxes less known to English language readers.
She discusses "Amawtay Wasi
(House of Wisdom), the Intercultural University of Indigenous Nationalities and
Peoples of Ecuador" (69) which failed in its decolonial purpose to be
recognized by the state as a university and was eventually closed by the state.
This case study is contrasted with "Mexico's Universidad de la Tierra
(University of the Earth)," which never aimed for state recognition (72).
Contrary to Amawaytay Wasi,
"Unitierra" as it is known, is conceptualized "not from but with Indigenous struggles and postulates of knowledge, in
conversation with other forms of critical thought and liberation-based theory
and praxis" (73). This learning through "deschooling"
(73), or learning entirely without the Western-style institutions of learning,
is decoloniality in action.
Another
key concept to the praxis and theory Walsh and Mignolo discuss is that of
"modernity/coloniality," a "compound expression" which conveys the notion that
"there is no modernity without coloniality" and which functions in this text as
the shorthand for the "colonial matrix of power" (4). Mignolo, in his
section, offers a history of the
construction of the "colonial matrix of power" (a concept coined by Aníbal Quijano; those familiar with Mignolo's work will
recognize Quijano, who has been at the center of Mignolo's work since the
1990s) and of how languaging ("enunciation") is the true regulator of power: Mignolo
argues that the way the world is known directly correlates to the way the world
is owned and controlled. Specifically, Western naming and mapping are what
establish Western pronunciations of ownership and control. The historical
evidence used to ground this assertion is that other peoples had traveled the
world and made maps before the 1500s, but it was Europe's claims to knowledge
and the spreading of a European version of knowledge through maps and written
accounts that made it possible for European settlers to "discover" the lands
and waters and, thus, to claim them for themselves. The decolonial response to
this epistemic colonialism (which, in this argument, is the precursor of all
colonial power), is something Mignolo calls "epistemic reconstitution," which
he defines as "to delink from the CMP [colonial matrix of power] in order to
re-link and to re-exist" (227, 229). This re-constitution and re-existence
should be grounded in the local knowledge and worldview, resist the power of
modernity/coloniality's epistemology, and so necessarily be pluriversal,
depending on location. Mignolo's section moves
through a lot of history and a lot of places to be able to make and support its
claims about the historical development of the colonial matrix of power;
consequently, it lacks nuance in some places and could irk a reader with
in-depth knowledge of some of these particular moments, places, or histories.
Speaking about praxes and analytics based in the location of
its authors as intellectuals from (Mignolo) or based in (Walsh) Central and
South America, the book's/series' argument has a geographically global scope
and, historically, goes back to the origination of the human. This introductory
volume addresses some other worldviews but is fairly limited in its discussion
of North American thinkers, despite its focus on "the Americas" – referred
to as "Abya Yala" by Walsh,
"the name that the Kuna-Tule people
(of the lands now known as Panama and Colombia) gave to the 'Americas' before
the colonial invasion") (21). Aside from a quick reference to Glen Coulthard's
work on the politics of recognition in Canada, Leanne Simpson is the only other
North American Indigenous thinker with whom this volume engages. That said, the
organization of the book, theorizing through praxis and focusing on
resurgence/re-existence, recalls Winona LaDuke's work,
as well as many others currently practicing and writing about Indigenous
resurgence practices in what is currently referred to as North America. With
the theoretical and structural connections seemingly so present, and both
authors' obvious connections to North America (Mignolo is Argentinian but works
at Duke University in North Carolina, U.S., and Walsh is American but works at
the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador), one might wonder why the
authors chose not to spend a bit more time and space on the peoples of that
geographical area. Throughout their writing, Mignolo
and Walsh repeat the important claim (seated in the theory and practice they
discuss) that they do not want to represent all Indigenous peoples and
knowledges, but that they instead start from their localities, in Central and
South America, to make larger claims that could be true more generally, without
claiming universality. Referencing Leanne Simpson's work on resurgence sets up
the option to a clear parallel between this work and the North American
Indigenous theories and praxes on resurgence: from theorists like Sium and Ritskes and many others
to lived resurgence, like the annual Canoe Journey in the U.S. Pacific
Northwest or the centering of Indigenous language learning in many First
Nations. Walsh and Mignolo's praxis and theoretical framework offer a localized
approach to decoloniality that can only deepen the understanding of the need
for Native resurgence and re-existence in all their particularities and makes
another opening for international Indigenous nation-to-nation relations beyond
the nations in what is currently considered North America. Perhaps the
following books in the series will take up some of the leads presented here.
As the first book in the Decoloniality
series, it sets the tone and terms; it opens the conversation on decoloniality
that is relevant globally as the Right rises and the colonial matrix of power
is only strengthened through global capitalism. On Decoloniality brings important insights to the fore from
locations not as well-known by English-reading theorists who might not concentrate
on colonial language areas other than English. This work's focus on
re-existence and decoloniality as a verb (rather than decolonization as an end
goal) is timely also for those working in Native American and First Nations
studies, as Walsh and Mignolo offer a plurality of options for relating,
learning, and sharing in the work of decoloniality.
Laura Maria de
Vos, University of Washington