Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents s critical reflections about ethical critique in critical discourse analysis (CDA). It discusses the continuous effects of power structures from colonial knowledge and a “paradoxical space” these structures provoke in Latin American academia, focusing on the coloniality of being as it concerns inequality in the university setting. The book argues that the relations between coloniality of power, of knowledge, and of being are constantly in action, and a critical and reflective understanding of this paradoxical space is necessary to find opportunities to subvert the systems of power and knowledge by way of ethics. It discusses the overcoming of coloniality paradigms, especially in terms of an imposed Eurocentric knowledge, which has been naturalized as universal. The book explains the potential impacts of social practices over subjective agency, in social and interpersonal relationships and in policies regarding labor, education and healthcare.