ABSTRACT
The epistemologies of the South involve a whole raft of diversified knowledges born of non-conformity, grounding the struggles against colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism, guided by the idea that another world is possible. The knowledge born in the struggle is the knowledge that simultaneously sustains the struggle against oppression, by providing it with intense and autochthonous meaning, and guaranteeing that it will not be easily abandoned. It involves a deep awareness of unjust suffering, of the arbitrariness of power, and of frustrated expectations. Epistemological decolonization is a central theme in the epistemologies of the South. Since the colonial relationship affects both colonized and colonizers, understanding the possibilities of decolonization involve decolonizing both the colonizer’s knowledge and the knowledge of the colonized. The epistemologies of the South form a vast landscape of post-abyssal knowledges, methodologies, and pedagogies whose major aim is to substantiate the claim for a radical democratization of knowledge, a cognitive democracy without which social justice is impossible.
