ABSTRACT
The need to examine knowledge production in relation to location and subject position is a consolidated trend in several theoretical approaches. In fact, this is a well-known postulate within the sociology of knowledge and its acceptance does not necessarily imply a critical standpoint. Perhaps the novelty of the past decades has been the great visibility and usage of frameworks that put emphasis on (a) the inquiry of the relationships between knowledge production and politics; (b) the inquiry of the relationships among locations, subject positions, and power; and (c) how taxonomies are functional and inherent to the exercise of domination. This is a trend well epitomized by the classic work of Edward Said on Orientalism (Said 1979) and by the many interpretations and debates that came to be known under the umbrella label of postcolonialism and others such as the geopolitics of knowledge (Mignolo 2001).
