What is Decoloniality?
Decoloniality refers to the logic, metaphysics, ontology and matrix of power created by the massive processes and aftermath of colonization and settler-colonialism. This matrix and its lasting effects and structures is called "coloniality." More plainly said, decoloniality is a way for us to re-learn the knowledge that has been pushed aside, forgotten, buried or discredited by the forces of modernity, settler-colonialism, and racial capitalism.
Decoloniality is not a means to reject the scientific, medical, social and ethical “advances” of the modern era tout court. It is, rather, a way to explore colonization, settler-colonialism, racial capitalism (particularly as it grew out, in full racializing force, with the enslavement of black Africans), modernity, and, most recently, neoliberalism and necrocapitalism and the ways in which they have displaced an array of modes of living, thinking and being in our natural world. Decoloniality reveals "the dark side of modernity" and how it is built "on the backs" of "others," others that modernity racializes, erases, and/or objectifies. Therefore, decoloniality is not a singular thing. It is a method and paradigm of restoration and reparation that depends on context, historical conditions, and geography. Therefore, as a method, it aspires to restore, elevate, renew, rediscover, and acknowledge and validate the the multiplicity of lives, live-experiences, culture and knowledge of indigenous people, people of color, and colonized people as well as to decenter hetero/cis-normativity, gender hierarchies and racial privilege.
Decolonial approaches, methods, and movements seek to disrupt colonial and settler-colonial logic and the seeming "naturalness" of racial capitalism. The methods and practices consider differences in ideas, social practices, histories, identities and beliefs as part of a myriad of means of “production of knowledge.” But also, we understand that producing knowledge and living it are not separate. We seek to learn and make visible the connections between knowledge, social practices and social action.
