From Postcolonial to Decolonial Thought

Research record

Postcolonial thought and decolonial thought are interrelated, but not identical. Said, Spivak, Bhabha and Subaltern Studies primarily raise questions of colonial representation, discourse, subjectivity, the archive and nation-building; The Latin American modernity/coloniality tradition asks—why do colonial patterns of classifying power, knowledge, economy, race, gender, nature and humanity persist even after colonial rule has formally ended? The first condition for this distinction is the discipline of terminology. colonialism can be a historical form of rule, a system of territorial domination, extraction, law, military, bureaucracy and political sovereignty. coloniality is the concept of long-lived power-patterns derived from domination, which can be reproduced in institutions, labour, knowledge, classification and aspiration despite formal independence. Aníbal Quijano’s concept of “coloniality of power” reads the modern world-system as a combined structure of race-organized social classification, labor control and Eurocentric knowledge. In this view, “modernity” is not just a story of emancipation, science or progress; its construction not separate from conquest, slavery, extraction and racial ordering. The basic assertion of this chapter is that the idea of ​​coloniality is useful for showing the difference between formal empire termination and domination termination. political independence is necessary, but hierarchy of knowledge, racialized/civilizational classification, extractive economy, developmental norm and cultural inferiority can endure. Quijano’s main contribution is to see power not in one axis, but in interrelated areas: social classification, labour/control of resources, authority, sex/gender relations, subjectivity/knowledge. Although parts of his framework were modified by later thinkers, this multi-domain analysis forms the basis of the decolonial method. The modernity/coloniality formula says that Europe's modern self-image and the colonial world are not separate histories. History remains incomplete if the prosperity, knowledge institutions and political forms of the “modern” center are read apart from colonial extraction, plantation, slavery, conquest, racial hierarchy and global labor division.

Structured debate

Pūrvapakṣa

Premise 1: The concept of coloniality is highly broad. If capitalism, racism, patriarchy, epistemology, nature, subjectivity, state, technology are all part of coloniality, then the concept appears to explain everything and does not really explain anything in particular. Premise 2: The modernity/coloniality formula may underestimate the internal plurality of modernity. Within Europe, class conflict, feminist struggle, abolitionism, socialist critique, religious dissent and anti-imperial thought are also part of modern history. Premise 3: Making Latin American genealogy a global template risks a new intellectual universalism. Iberian conquest, Atlantic slavery, settler colonialism, British India, Ottoman legacy, African indirect rule and state formation in Nepal are separate histories. Premise 4: Applying the framework of centrality of race to a caste-like hierarchy can erase the religious, matrimonial, occupational, regional and political specificity of caste. Premise 5: “epistemic disobedience” can turn into anti-expertise or anti-science rhetoric against evidence-based discipline. Local standpoint in vaccine, climate, medicine or engineering is not enough.

Uttarapakṣa

Answer 1: The criticism of the concept being broad is fair; So the “coloniality” label is mechanism-specific. Tell me in each claim—which classification, which institution, which historical continuity, which material effect? This discipline reduces concept inflation. Answer 2: The use of modernity/coloniality is not to deny all the achievements of modernity, but to examine its asymmetrical conditions. the language of rights was used to criticize colonial rule; This dialectic should be included in the framework. Answer 3: Latin American genealogy should not be hidden. concept travel be as a comparative hypothesis, not a “same history” claim. South Asian case local archive and revise by categories. Answer 4: Relation comparison can be made by rejecting caste-race equivalence: hereditary classification, labor segmentation, endogamy, stigma, state enumeration, mobility barriers—how similar/dissimilar, show with evidence. Answer 5: epistemic disobedience science-not contradiction. It should be used to check the authority's monopoly; Experiment, replication, statistical reasoning and expert scrutiny, where appropriate, will be of absolute importance in claim validation.

Parallel conclusion

The transition from postcolonial thought to decoloniality is not simply to abandon the question of discourse and return to the question of material power; representation, world-system, race, labour, being, gender, nature and knowledge in a complex matrix. Quijano's coloniality of power establishes an important distinction between the termination of formal colonialism and the persistence of domination patterns. But it is imperative to keep his Latin American genealogy clear. The modernity/coloniality formula challenges the triumphalist story of modern progress, but not license to repeal all achievements of modern science, rights or democratic institutions. Criticism be differentiated. Mignolok gives useful language against border thinking and epistemic disobedience epistemic monopoly; The best form of that is disciplined inclusion of source/knower plurality, not evidence-contradiction.

Section index

1. Problem and scope · 14 source passages
2. Central thesis · 14 source passages
3. Major arguments · 18 source passages
4. Pūrvapakṣa · 14 source passages
5. Uttarapakṣa · 14 source passages
6. Indian philosophical dialogue · 15 source passages
7. Mithila’s parallel perspective · 15 source passages
8. Contemporary applications · 16 source passages
9. Chapter conclusion · 12 source passages
10. Chapter bibliography · 37 source passages

Cite this record

Gajendra Thakur. “From Postcolonial to Decolonial Thought.” Videha Digital Research Archive: Mithila–Vajji–Anga. Videha — https://www.videha.co.in/ · ISSN 2229-547X · GitHub mirror: https://videha-ejournal.github.io/videha/ · Digital Research Archives on GitHub: https://github.com/videha-ejournal. https://videha-ejournal.github.io/mithila-vajji-anga/records/idea/philosophy-v2-72/