The epistemic fights of the twenty-first century
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The epistemic fights of the twenty‑first century Boaventura de Sousa Santos: The end of the cognitive empire. The coming of age of epistemologies of the South. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2018, 376pp, $ 29.67 PB, $ 109.95 HB Leandro Rodriguez‑Medina1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
An extraordinary compilation of Sousa Santos’ theoretical and practical contributions, The End of the Cognitive Empire, is an addition to discussions about the epistemic foundations of social struggles across the globe. Divided into three parts, each is a profound reflection on how the knowledges questioning the North are articulated to advance an anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-colonial agenda. In the first part, “Postabyssal Epistemologies,” the author introduces the central concepts of the epistemologies of the south: • The abyssal lines, the ontological separation between metropolitan societies and
colonies;
• The sociologies of absences, political–epistemic vindication of non-Western
epistemologies, and presences, projection of such epistemologies as alternative worlds; the ecology of knowledges, • Recognition of the co-presence of forms of knowledge without the predominance of any in particular; • Intercultural translation, the work of convergence between different forms of knowledge as a source of understanding and action in conflicts; • And the artisanship of practices, the political work of articulating those multiple knowledges to produce subversive action. Highly critical of the epistemologies of the North, Sousa Santos illustrates the subversive nature of the epistemologies of the south in the three final chapters of this first section by reflecting on objectivity and the role of modern science in Chapter 2, the notion of author(ship) and the relationship between orality and writing in Chapter 3, and what a struggle is in Chapter 4. This last concept is fundamental to the argument of the book because the author proposes, as the main organizing * Leandro Rodriguez‑Medina [email protected] 1
Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
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dichotomy, the fight against three forms of domination–capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism. Thus, he conceives struggles as the actions that “transform any margin of freedom, however small, into an opportunity for liberation, while accepting the risks involved in such transformation” (65). With this definition, it is understood that actors on the dominated side of the abyssal line are embedded in actions ranging from small and everyday forms of resistance to large-scale socio-political changes. Moreover, in a nod to feminism and body studies, Sousa Santos recognizes that forms of domination, and, consequently, forms of resistance, are expressed through experience, the unification of life beyond the dichotomies imposed by the epistemologies of the North: mind/body, man/woman, society/nature. Therefore, the manifestation of struggles “may involve physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or religious dimensions” (79
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