On Coloniality and Decoloniality

The objectives of this special issue are: (1) to contribute to and advance the production of the  international body of knowledge on coloniality and decoloniality; (2) to promote the international exchange and collaboration between scholars and intellectual activists in the Americas, Africa, Eurasia and Oceania who are engaged in the praxis of decolonizing research, teaching and/or activism, and (3) to commemorate the work of the distinguished Peruvian sociologist and intellectual activist Aníbal Quijano (1928 to 2018) who has made an incalculable contribution to the existing body of critical theory and praxis on coloniality and decoloniality and to the ongoing struggle to decolonize the existing world order.

Scope and Focus: As Aníbal Quijano makes clear in his early writing on the subject, coloniality is the most general form of domination and exploitation in the world today and there is a largely invisible global colonial matrix of power that underlies the existing capitalist world system. As Walter Mignolo writes, “Quijano introduced the key and ground breaking concept of coloniality…at the end of the Cold War and the beginning of neoliberal global dreams of final victory.”  Since then, decolonial thinking and praxis have evolved from Quijano’s foundational concepts of coloniality and the colonial matrix of power. These concepts have been employed to critically analyze and challenge the manifold forms of Anglo Eurocentric/western hegemony and forms of social discrimination and domination (based on race, hetero-patriarchy, sexuality, homophobia, ethnicity, etc.) that have evolved over the last 500 years since the Anglo European conquest and colonization of the Americas and the subsequent expansion of this colonial hegemony and forms of social discrimination to  the rest of the world. As Quijano contended and Mignolo has advanced, coloniality is “the darker side of Western modernity” which has served as a meta-narrative and imaginary of salvation, enlightenment and progress that masks the historical crimes carried out against humanity by the agents and forces of Western hegemony, colonialism and the contemporary global colonial matrix of power.

Decoloniality has existed since the conquest and colonization of the Americas. It includes all forms of resistance to coloniality and to the prevailing global colonial matrix of power embedded in the capitalist world system. As Walsh indicates: “Decoloniality denotes ways of thinking, knowing, being and doing that began with, but also precede, the colonial enterprise and invasion. It implies the recognition and undoing of the hierarchical structures of race, gender, hetero-patriarchy, and class that continue to control life, knowledge, spirituality and thought, structures that are clearly intertwined with and constitutive of global capitalism and Western modernity.” Mignolo adds that decoloniality is not “a lineal point of arrival or enlightenment” rather “decoloniality seeks to make visible, open up, and advance radically distinct perspectives and positionalities that displace Western rationality as the only framework and possibility of existence, analysis and thought.”

Themes, Issues, Questions and Cases: Since the scope of Quijano’s vision and concepts transcended the Americas, to promote transnational and interregional exchange, we seek theoretically informed empirical case studies of coloniality and decoloniality not only in the Americas, but also in Africa, Eurasia, and/or Oceania by scholars and intellectual activists who have engaged in (action) research. We welcome manuscripts that include photos (at least 300 dpi) of art, people and events that are illustrative of decoloniality.

Manuscripts should address and offer findings on one or more of the following themes, issues, and questions that relate to coloniality and decoloniality. The list of topics is suggestive and not exclusive:

• Global coloniality and planetary decoloniality
• Decoloniality and racism
• Decolonial feminism
• Decoloniality and gender, race and class
• Decoloniality and Marxism/socialism
• Decoloniality and transmodernity
• Decoloniality and different forms of colonialism (e.g., settler colonialism, exploitation colonialism, surrogate colonialism, internal colonialism, neocolonialism, postcolonialism, etc.)
• Decoloniality and the modern world capitalist order/system
• Decoloniality and delinking
• Decoloniality and de-westernization
• Decolonial epistemology and epistemic justice
• Decoloniality and epistemologies of the South
• Decoloniality and alternative worldviews of good living (e.g., ubuntu, buen vivir or sumak kawsay, African socialism)
• Decoloniality, indigeneity and indigenous movements The coloniality and decoloniality of nature
• Decolonizing universities and/or education
• Decolonial pedagogy(ies)
• Decolonial research methods

SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS

To avoid duplication of content, please contact the issue editors to let them know of your interest in submitting and your proposed topic. We encourage submission as soon as possible, preferably by Nov. 1, 2020 but this call will remain open as long as it is posted on the LAP web site.

Manuscripts should be no longer than 8,000 words of paginated, double-spaced 12 point text with 1 inch margins, including notes and references, using the LAP Style Guidelines available at  www.latinamericanperspectives.com under the “Submit” tab where the review process is also described.   Manuscripts should be consistent with the LAP Mission Statement available on the web site under the “About” tab.

Manucripts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If you do not write in English with near native fluency, please submit in your first language.  LAP will translate manuscripts accepted in languages other than English. If you are not submitting in English, please indicate if you will have difficulty reading reviews and/or correspondence from the LAP office in English.

Please feel free to contact the issue editors with questions pertaining to the issue but all manuscripts should be submitted directly to the LAP office, not to the issue editors. A manuscript is not considered submitted until it has been received by the LAP office.  You should receive acknowledgment of receipt of your manuscript within a few days.  If you do not receive an acknowledgment from LAP after one week, please send a follow-up inquiry to be sure your submission arrived.

E-mail Submissions: send to lap@ucr.edu
Subject Line: Author name – Manuscript for Decoloniality issue
Please attach your manuscript as a Word Document (doc or docx)
Include: Abstract (100 words), 5 Keywords, and a separate cover page with short author affiliations (less than 130 words) and complete contact information (e-mail, postal address, telephone).

Postal correspondence may be sent to:

Managing Editor, Latin American Perspectives
P.O. Box 5703
Riverside, California 92517-5703

For an article with more than one author, provide contact information for all authors but designate one person as the Corresponding Author who will receive correspondence from the LAP office.  If any contact information changes while your manuscript is under consideration, please send the updated information to LAP promptly.

Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Authors should not submit a manuscript that has been previously published in English in identical or substantially similar form nor should they simultaneously submit it or a substantially similar manuscript to another journal in English.  LAP will consider manuscripts that have been published in another language, usually with updating.  Prior publication should be noted, along with the publication information.

Issue editor contact information:
Richard L Harris, Professor Emeritus of Global Studies
California State University Monterey Bay

Email: rharris@csumb.edu; Cell Phone: 925-963-7991

Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor and Director in the Department of Leadership and Transformation, University of South Africa/Visiting Professor, Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of Johannesburg

Email: sjndlovugatsheni@gmail.com