The "Lettered City" and the insurrection of subjugated knowledges in Latin America.

The "Lettered City" and the insurrection of subjugated knowledges in Latin America. Introduction In a recent interview, the Bolivian vice-president and intellectualfrom the Left, Alvaro Garcia Linera, accused sectors of the Indigenousmovement of being romantic because they claim a role for Indigenousworldviews in shaping the Bolivian state. Pointing to the five hundredyears of interaction and mingling between them, he denied that suchworldviews could be radically different from the dominant modern one:"En el fondo todos quieren ser modernos" (Deep inside,everyone wants to be modern) (Garcia Linera 2007:156-157). Thetransmutation transmutation/trans��mu��ta��tion/ (trans?mu-ta��shun)1. evolutionary change of one species into another.2. the change of one chemical element into another. of "cultural hybridity" into veiled denials ofradical differences is common and contributes to the strong tendency,even among sympathetic scholars, commentators and policy makers, todismiss an important pattern in contemporary Latin American socialmobilization, the ongoing challenge to the dominant regime of modernpower/knowledge. This dominant regime of power/knowledge establishes theepistemological and social conditions necessary for any action(discursive or otherwise) to be taken seriously as making "truthclaims" or as being reasonable, and thus traces the limits of whatis possible or even thinkable in politics and beyond. Yet, what liesoutside of these limits does not disappear just because it is not"within the true" (Foucault 1972:224). On the contrary,sometimes it pushes back and contests the very regime that shapes thelimits of what counts as possible. In this article, we present a work inprogress, a possible reading of certain developments in the LatinAmerican epistemic/political field that we understand as symptoms ofsuch pushing back. We speak of an "insurrection of subjugatedknowledges," that is, an insurrection of "knowledges that havebeen disqualified dis��qual��i��fy?tr.v. dis��qual��i��fied, dis��qual��i��fy��ing, dis��qual��i��fies1. a. To render unqualified or unfit.b. To declare unqualified or ineligible.2. as inadequate to their task" (Foucault1980:81-82). These knowledges are nowadays part of wider patterns ofsocial mobilization contesting neoliberal ne��o��lib��er��al��ism?n.A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth.ne rule but go beyond this tochallenge the very regime of power/knowledge that disqualifies them. The coming to power of Leftist parties and politicians has promptedpolitical analysts and commentators to speak of a "Left turn"in Latin America Latin America,the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. , albeit with qualifiers distinguishing betweendifferent kinds of "Lefts" (see Vol. 17 no. 4 of Journal ofDemocracy, 2006). Yet the generic label used to describe these processesoccludes the profoundly diverse societal visions and experiences thatunderlie them. For instance, Escobar distinguishes between threecoexisting and at times intermingled political projects in LatinAmerica: Alternative development, focused on food security, the satisfaction of needs and the well-being of the population [without contesting the overarching notions of progress or development]; alternative modernities, building on the counter-tendencies effected on development interventions by local groups and toward the contestation of global designs; and alternatives to modernity, as a more radical and visionary project of redefining and reconstructing local and regional worlds from the perspective of practices of cultural, economic, and ecological difference (Escobar In Press). We think it is useful to think of the three projects as beingexpressed through patterns of mobilization rather than through specificsocial movements This is a partial list of social movements. Abahlali baseMjondolo - South African shack dwellers' movement Animal rights movement Anti-consumerism Anti-war movement Anti-globalization movement Brights movement Civil rights movement . In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , the three projects might co-exist indiverse mixtures within the same social movement as tendencies that canbe traced in particular patterns of mobilization. In this sense, part ofour contention here is that the insurrection of subjugated knowledges isa central component of those patterns of mobilization expressing theproject of "alternatives to modernity." The emphasis on patterns of mobilization sets clear limits to thescope of our argument in this article. We are not interested here inmapping the degree to which the project of alternatives to modernityembodied by the insurrection of subjugated knowledges correlates withone or another social group, movement or governmental agenda, but ratherto signal its presence as one set of patterns of mobilization amongothers. Thus, our focus is not meant to deny the existence of the otherpatterns or projects; rather we mean to bring the insurrectionalpatterns associated with alternatives to modernity out of the shadowsthat those other projects, being much more visible and obvious withinthe current regime of power/knowledge, cast upon them. Our goal here isthree-fold: foregrounding the insurrection of subjugated knowledgeswithin wider patterns of social mobilization; highlighting theconfiguration of power/knowledge that has been historically implicit in Adj. 1. implicit in - in the nature of something though not readily apparent; "shortcomings inherent in our approach"; "an underlying meaning"underlying, inherent dismissals of subjugated knowledges such as those expressed by GarciaLinera; and signaling both the promises and limitations of the effectsthat the insurrection of these knowledges might have in the contemporaryconfiguration of power/knowledge in Latin America. We begin with a brief discussion of a fundamental assumption ofthis paper that can be easily misunderstood, the idea that there issomething outside modernity. In the second section we discuss whatinsurrectional patterns of mobilization entail and how they relate tonon-modern knowledge-practices. We then move on to characterize theconfiguration of power/knowledge that these patterns of mobilization arechallenging. Next, we present some developments that we see asindications of how the dominant configuration of power/knowledge mightbe affected by insurrectional patterns of mobilization, as well as thelimits of this impact. In the conclusion, we address some challengesposed to those who want to study the insurrection of subjugatedknowledges. Modernity and its Outside Asserting that there is an outside to modernity is tricky andrequires first and foremost questioning modernity's own self-image,especially its self-constitution in opposition to "tradition."Anthropologists have made important contributions in this direction byshowing that so-called "traditional societies" have never beenisolated, unchanging, backward and outside of history--in short, thatthey have never been "traditional" in the terms set by themodern imagination (see Fabian 1983; Wolf 1997). However, while one sideof the dichotomy established by modernity to constitute itself has beencontested to the point of revealing it as imagination, the other side ofthe dichotomy has come to contain all of reality. In effect, attendingto the tropes that dominate in the academy nowadays, it seems that ifthere are no traditional societies, then we are all modern. A number ofproblems emerge from this move, among them the tacit acceptance ofmodernity's terms to conceive difference. This problem is evidentin the quick equation of any claim of non-modernity with an argumentabout traditionalism, which is in turn equated with an invitation toignore the real world of interactions and a thoroughly enmeshed present.With the parameters of the discussion set in such a way that thealternatives are either true modernity or unreal traditions, few canconceive of Verb 1. conceive of - form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case; "Can you conceive of him as the president?"envisage, ideate, imagine something real existing outside modernity. The consequence is that in throwing out the bath water of traditionthe baby of radical difference has been thrown out too, as revealed byGarcia Linera's denial that Indigenous worldviews can bringsomething substantially different to the reformulation of the Bolivianstate. In this way the original anthropological attempt at foregrounding"coevalness as the problematic simultaneity of different,conflicting, and contradictory forms of consciousness" (Fabian1983:146) has been subverted. Granted, nowadays dominant tropes ofmultiple or alternative modernities (see Gaonkar 2001; Kahn 2001) stillallow for the play of difference, but only within the bounds of amodernity defined in such a way as to mean everything contemporary ingeneral and nothing in particular. (1) The challenge, then, is torecover a meaningful understanding of modernity and its specificity;recognizing that there are other life-worlds (different from the modernone but certainly not traditional); and grasping the power dynamics andthe productivity of their mutual engagements. Some of this challenge has been taken up by a loosely connectedLatin American research program on modernity/coloniality and decolonialthought (MCD MCD Minor Civil DivisionMCD McDonalds (restaurant)Mcd Macedonian (linguistics)MCD Municipal Corporation of DelhiMCD Magnetic Circular DichroismMCD Mad Cow Disease ). Since the 1990s, a heterogeneous group of scholarslocated both in Latin America and the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. has been discussingthe constitutive constitutive/con��sti��tu��tive/ (kon-stich��u-tiv) produced constantly or in fixed amounts, regardless of environmental conditions or demand. relations between modernity and coloniality, on the onehand, and between these and non-modern societies, on the other hand (seeEscobar 2004; Mignolo 2007). Regarding the first point, it is useful torecall one aspect of Bruno Latour's argument that what he labelsthe two "Great Divides" central to the modern constitution areintrinsically connected: So the Internal Great Divide [between Nature and Culture] accounts for the External Great Divide [between Us and Them]: we [moderns] are the only ones who differentiate absolutely between Nature and Culture, between Science and Society, whereas in our eyes all the others--whether they are Chinese or Amerindians, Azande or Barouya--cannot really separate what is knowledge from what is society, what is sign from what is thing, what comes from Nature as it is from what their cultures require (Latour 1993:99). While Latour's overarching argument is that throughhybridizing practices the moderns constantly contradict the purifieddomains of Nature and Culture set up by the modern constitution, thecentrality of this divide as the ontological grounding of moderninstitutions (for example, representational politics, science and, moregenerally, the modern regime of truth) is hardly debatable) What thisresearch program, MCD, brings into this picture is the idea that thedivide between Nature and Culture and the divide between modern andnon-modern are historically co-emergent and co-sustaining. This meansthat the performance of a modern world in which the distinction betweenNature and Culture constitutes an ontological assumption necessarilyinvolves keeping at bay the threat posed to it by the existence ofworlds that do not operate on the same assumption. And this is done bydenying these worlds any real existence. For the moderns, these worldsjust exist as errors, mere beliefs, or romantic yearnings. (3) Here iswhere coloniality emerges as a constitutive element of modernity, forthe difference between moderns and non-moderns becomes in a modernistframework "colonial difference," a hierarchical relation inwhich the non-modern is subordinated to the modern. Which social groupactually stands for the modern can be historically variable (albeit notarbitrary); the invariable in��var��i��a��ble?adj.Not changing or subject to change; constant.in��vari��a��bil element is that the modern constitution,through the institutions it grounds, operates as the vector that orientsthose social groups' practices, making them supposedly superior tothose deemed non-modern. The subordination of non-modern worlds is often imposed initiallythrough openly violent means (i.e., military campaigns, persecution ofidolatries, forced schooling, forced displacement from"unproductive" lands and the like) and only later through moresubtle means of the kind that many analysts, building on Foucault(1991), characterize as governmentality. Thus, it is important to keepin mind that "[c]oercion and negotiations work hand in hand in theterrain of governmentality, with the former delivering the targetpopulations to the domain of the latter" (Ghosh 2006:526). This isespecially the case when the target population operates, at leastpartially, within a different regime of power/knowledge, for theirsubjectivities are not shaped (wholly or, in some cases, at all) by themodern governmental apparatus and its regime of power/knowledge(Foucault 1991:103). We will return later to this point in the contextof discussing the role of neoliberal governmentality in the insurrectionof subjugated knowledges, but we want to stress that we are not sayingthat those subjectivities are not affected by, or somehow in contactwith, the modern regime of power/knowledge. However, we also maintainthat this does not qualify them as being "within" this regimeeither. The dynamic relation generated between a modern/colonialgovernmental apparatus and its non-modern target is precisely one of theissues that the "decolonial thought" part of the MCD researchprogram addresses. Our work here is intended as a contribution to thisaspect of the program by building on the idea that there has always beenan exteriority ex��te��ri��or��i��ty?n.Outwardness; externality. to modernity/coloniality and that, in connection to this,there has always been knowledge otherwise, often linked with strugglesfor social transformation and social justice (Mignolo 2000; Dussel 2000;Escobar 2004b). Thus, in parallel to the critical traditions that haveattacked inequalities and injustice from within the epistemic ep��i��ste��mic?adj.Of, relating to, or involving knowledge; cognitive.[From Greek epistm bounds ofmodernity, there have always existed contestations emerging from otherregimes of power/knowledge exterior to the modern ratio. Felipe GuamanPoma Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, best known as Guaman Poma or Huaman Poma, (c. 1550 – after 1616) was an indigenous Peruvian who became disillusioned with the treatment of the native peoples of the Andes by the Spanish after conquest. de Ayala de Ayala may refer to: Adelardo L��pez de Ayala y Herrera (1828–1879), Spanish writer and politician Jaime Zobel de Ayala (born 1934), prominent Filipino businessman and photographer Juan de Ayala (1745–1797), Spanish naval officer ([1615] 2001) and Quintin Lame's (Castillo-Cardenas1987) manifestos are early examples in the written record of critiquesof domination from epistemologies based on different ontologicalassumptions than the modern one. Moreover, following Price, Fox Tree andNonini (this issue), we can think in similar ways of the wrongly labeledmessianic movements among Indigenous peoples; these were politicalmovements contesting the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. but articulated according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. anotherlogic. Of course, as these authors have pointed out, from theperspective of modernity these critiques and these movements lackedproper rationality and goals and, thus, they could not count as real andvalid politics, hence their lack of visibility as properly political. Aswe will see, and not surprisingly, the insurrectional patterns ofmobilization we want to focus on here contest this forced invisibility,among other things. Social Mobilization and the Insurrection of Subjugated Knowledges From the late 1980s onwards, a long brewing return of"difference" has become increasingly visible in Latin America,first through a politics squarely based on identity, such as Indigenousand Afro-descendant peoples' movements as well as women's andgay/lesbian movements, and later in a more expansive politics ofautonomy including these movements but also movements of peasants,pauperized urban dwellers and unemployed workers (Alvarez, Dagnino andEscobar 1998; Warren and Jackson 2002; Assies et al. 2000; Postero andZamosc 2004; Chatterton 2005, Esteva 2001, Zibechi 2005). The politicsof identity of the "new social movements The term new social movements (NSM) refers to a plethora of social movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a post-industrial economy) which depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm. " was key inilluminating how "culture" and "politics" areintermingled in struggles that, while addressing very practical concernsof survival, are also "over meanings" (Alvarez, Dagnino andEscobar 1998; Edelman 2001). The increasing focus on issues of autonomythat many social movements have privileged makes it even more evidentthat while culture is politicized, what stands for the political isculturally specific, making the Latin American political field a spaceradicalized by the emerging visibility of previously disregardedsubjectivities and knowledges (Alvarez, Dagnino and Escobar 1998). Ineffect, in many (but not all) cases, the struggle for autonomy bringsforward the possibility and plausibility of a politics other than theone conceived within the narrow, yet until recently insurmountable,limits of modernity. This is especially the case with those strugglesthat express themselves through insurrectional patterns of mobilization. These patterns of mobilization have been especially visible in theZapatista uprising of 1994 (see Esteva 2001; Higgins 2004), theArgentinean revolt of 2001 (Zibechi 2003) and the Bolivian revolts of2003 and 2004 (Gomez 2004; Mamani Ramirez 2005). But they are alsodistinguishable among other patterns present in more durable processesof social organizing and mobilization like those of the movement ofunemployed workers and sectors of the movement of recovered factories inArgentina, the movements of landless land��less?adj.Owning or having no land.landless��ness n.Adj. 1. peasants in Brazil and Paraguay,sectors of the Indigenous movements in Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile, andthe Peace Community of San Jose San Jose, city, United StatesSan Jose(sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. de Apartado and the Process of Blackcommunities in Colombia, to mention a few. In spite of the significantdifferences across these uprisings and movements, we can identify somecommonalities that tend to be present when patterns of mobilizationembodying the insurrection of subjugated knowledges emerge. These are:a) a politicization and defense of social and cultural differenceslinked to the notions of autonomy and territory, and b) a form ofpolitical action that is non-statist, eschews the logic ofrepresentation, and favors a logic that we might call relational. Like the "grounded utopianism u��to��pi��an��ismalso U��to��pi��an��ism ?n.The ideals or principles of a utopian; idealistic and impractical social theory.utopianism1. " discussed by Price, FoxTree and Nonini (this issue), these insurrectional patterns ofmobilization emerge in relatively autonomous places where the presenceof the state and of capital is weak or distant, either because theynever fully reached these places (as in some rural areas) or becausethey have renounced their presence in the wake of neoliberal reforms orin pursuit of better profits (as in urban slums and abandoned industrialtowns). In any case, the point is that neither the state nor capitalfully organizes the life of peoples in these places, which thus becometerritories where the shape of social life and reproduction is to ahigher degree than in other places in control of their inhabitants. (4)Each place has its own singularities and therefore every constitutedterritory is different, a difference that is, in some cases, consciouslyembraced and defended against new attempts to control or intervene inthem, either by the state or capital (Escobar 2001). It is when thishappens that what we call insurrectional patterns of mobilization startto become distinguishable from other patterns. For example, thoseembodying these insurrectional patterns ask little or nothing from thestate. Rather they tend to disassociate dis��as��so��ci��ate?tr.v. dis��as��so��ci��at��ed, dis��as��so��ci��at��ing, dis��as��so��ci��atesTo remove from association; dissociate.dis themselves from the modern stateand the capitalist market and assert the sovereignity to organize theirown existence. In some cases, the corollary of this rejection of themodern-state is the idea that a polity hospitable to radical autonomyrequires a reconfiguration of the state-form to a point that would makeit other than modern (see Esteva 2001). The rejection of the modern state and capitalist market asorganizing vectors of social life also expresses a rejection ofrepresentation as the overarching logic for politics. In effect, asZibechi (2005) argues, the legitimacy of the state rests on the claim ofbeing the ultimate representation and suture suture/su��ture/ (soo��cher)1. sutura.2. a stitch or series of stitches made to secure apposition of the edges of a surgical or traumatic wound.3. to apply such stitches.4. of a fragmented socialbody. Thus, representation "operates in the absence of socialties." Similarly, the legitimacy claimed for the capitalist marketby neoliberal ideologues like Hayek (1973) is that, through pricing, itprovides the perfect representational mechanism to sort out thecompeting interests of individuals. Closely related to these conceptionsof the political is the idea that the necessary dispersion produced bythe inherent diversity of perspectives in human society can be overcomeby appealing to a supposedly unified reality. Here is where modernpolitics also functions as a politics of truth. In effect, although notin theory, the claim that the state or the market constitutes the sutureof a fragmented society is related to a claim that they operate on thebasis of true knowledge produced by expert institutions, that is, thattheir actions respond to an accurate representation of a single andundisputable reality which of necessity overcomes differences. By contrast, the presence of strong social ties, forged throughcommunal life within the territory, provides an alternative vectorthrough which the social can be realized. For example, the formerBolivian minister of education and Indigenous intellectual Felix Patzisees in the communal system, which still constitutes the basis ofAymaras' and Quechuas' ayllu economies, a basis for theconstruction of present-day alternatives to the neoliberal system, andto modern politics in general. A central characteristic of the communalsystem is that it tends to avoid concentration of power or the emergenceof a power that can position itself in a relation of exteriority to thecommunity (Patzi 2004:181). (5) Thus, even though the communal systemdoes not imply a complete lack of hierarchies and internalstratification, it can nevertheless be contrasted with the state-formassociated with modern politics. For instance, while modern politicsaddresses the internal differences of society through overarchinginstitutions that are based on the principle of representation and standas an external power to the society they govern, communal politicsaddresses differences through institutions that are based on theprinciple of relationality and operate by delegating tasks rather thanpower (see Patzi 2004; Zibechi 2006). Moreton-Robinson explains that in Indigenous cultural domains"relationality means that one experiences the self as part ofothers and that others are part of the self" (2000:16). Whenpolitical, economic and intellectual institutions such as communalassemblies, communal labor, communal rituals, and the delegation oftasks embody this principle, they tend to operate by ceaselesslyco-adjusting internal differences through consensus which can then betranslated into directives given to delegates that "command byobeying" the assemblies. In this way the separation between societyand its political, economic, and intellectual "organs" isforestalled. This is precisely what the communal system and theinsurrectional patterns of mobilization share in common. The effort tosustain and/or generate institutions that foster communal bonds andavert the emergence of powers exterior to the community, all the whileattending to everyday needs, is evident in a variety of settingsincluding the Zapatistas' autonomous Mayan communities in Chiapas,Mexico (Earle and Simonelli 2005; Stahler-Sholk 2007); the recoveredfactories and neighborhood organizations of unemployed workers inArgentina (Fernandez 2006; Neuhaus and Calello 2006); many of the ruraland urban grassroots organizations It may never be fully completed or, depending on its its nature, it may be that it can never be completed. However, new and revised entries in the list are always welcome. that supported the coming to power ofEvo Morales Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born October 26, 1959 in Orinoca, Oruro), popularly known as Evo (IPA: [ˈeβ̞o]in Bolivia (Mamani Ramirez 2005; Zibechi 2006); and Blackcommunities in the Colombian pacific region (Escobar In Press), tomention a few. In a way, we can say that what the insurrectionalpatterns of mobilization are doing in these settings is to produce andstrengthen communities by performing the principles of the communalsystem as best as they can. Paradoxically, as the cited works show, neoliberal policies playedan important, albeit unwitting, role in making this possible and morevisible. On the one hand, big agro-business and natural resourceextractive extractive/ex��trac��tive/ (-tiv) any substance present in an organized tissue, or in a mixture in a small quantity, and requiring extraction by a special method. ex��trac��tiveadj.1. economies associated with free trade expanded into relativelymarginal rural areas, thus assaulting the subsistence base of manyrelatively autonomous communities. On the other hand, the statesurrendered its role as the central vector of modernization in favor ofa capitalist market that pushed people to fend for Verb 1. fend for - argue or speak in defense of; "She supported the motion to strike"defend, supportargue, reason - present reasons and arguments themselves. Inconjunction with this shifting role of the state, neoliberalism ne��o��lib��er��al��ism?n.A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth.ne promotedthe following: political decentralization de��cen��tral��ize?v. de��cen��tral��ized, de��cen��tral��iz��ing, de��cen��tral��iz��esv.tr.1. To distribute the administrative functions or powers of (a central authority) among several local authorities. ; the transfer of whatever wasleft of social welfare functions to organizations of civil society; anda series of new citizenship rights, including cultural rights enshrinedthrough the notion of multiculturalism. These processes and policiesprompted a number of responses, including the self-organization of ruralcommunities (Indigenous, Black and Mestizo mestizo(māstē`sō)[Span.,=mixture], person of mixed race; particularly, in Mexico and Central and South America, a person of European (Spanish or Portuguese) and indigenous descent. ) in defense of theirterritories, and the emergence of strong communitarian com��mu��ni��tar��i��an?n.A member or supporter of a small cooperative or a collectivist community.com��mu bonds in urbanspaces abandoned by the state, where people displaced from the ruralareas met the "industrial displaced," that is, the masses ofunemployed created by structural adjustment. While the structural reforms of the state attacked many of theleverage points previously used by popular movements to struggle forsocial justice, the reforms also opened new avenues to pursue socialjustice, such as multiculturalism. As one analyst put it, within thewider frame of neoliberal governmentality, the granting of culturalrights by the elites was intended to "cede carefully chosen groundin order to more effectively fend off more far reaching demands"(Hale 202:488). However, as is clear in the Bolivian and Ecuadoriancases, social movements upholding the banner of cultural difference alsoused the ceded ground as a spring-board to launch demands that, emergingfrom subjectivities that exceed the mould provided by the modern regimeof power/knowledge, are more far-reaching than what even the Left couldconceive of. The vice-president of Bolivia makes this clear when herefuses to take seriously the demands for a truly pluricultural statemade by those sectors of the Indigenous movement that he deems romantic.These are precisely the sectors that display the patterns ofmobilization associated with the insurrection of subjugated knowledgesseeking to shape the state in such a way that not only will make itanti-neoliberal but also will make it hospitable to rather than tolerantof non-modern forms of organizing social life (see Esteva 2001). As we pointed out in the previous section, the dismissal ofnon-modernity as unrealistic is itself part of the mechanism by whichmodernity/coloniality protects itself and upholds the modernconstitution as the ontological grounding for politics. In this sense,one just needs to connect the dots, formed by the ontological dividebetween Nature and Culture and the Hobbesian and Lockian vision of thestate of nature as the grounding for conceiving the social contract, tounderstand why for Garcia Linera "all struggles pass through thestate--even the struggle against the state passes through thestate" (cited in Zibechi 2005b). Similarly, one can trace aconnection between Indigenous relational cosmologies, in which therecognition of the worth and importance that the autonomy anddifferences of others (human and non-human) have for the well-being ofthe cosmos is central (see Arquette, Cole and ATFE ATFE Advanced Tactical Fighter Engine 2004; Cajete 2000;McGregor 2004; Viveiro de Castro 2004; Fernandez Osco In Press), andinsurrectional patterns of mobilization that uphold notions of situatedand partial truths that must be co-adjusted for consensualdecision-making and action, thus contributing to the continuingperformance of communitarian bonds, all the while attending to everydayneeds. By linking the insurrectional patterns of mobilization toIndigenous cosmologies, we do not seek to render them exotic; rather,the point is to emphasize that these patterns of mobilization are made"unrealistic" by the colonial difference precisely becausethey embody "worlds and knowledges otherwise." (6) Thecosmologies expressed through these patterns of mobilization, whilesubmerged and constrained, have always been operative (not to beconfused with unchanging) wherever they found space. Therefore the maindiscontinuity that we are witnessing now is not the emergence ofsomething entirely new but the "thinning" of the modernblinders/stoppers that kept other worlds and other politics invisibleand confined. This thinning, we argue, is the result of ongoing internaland external challenges to modernity/coloniality that open a window toimagine a reconfiguration of the regime of power/knowledge that hasdominated in Latin America since the European conquest. The Configuration of Power/Knowledge in Latin America It is noteworthy that for many participants in social movements, itis from Indigenous communities and the countryside where theinsurrectional patterns of mobilization proceed to"contaminate con��tam��i��natev.1. To make impure or unclean by contact or mixture.2. To expose to or permeate with radioactivity.con��tam��i��nant n. " the political practices of marginalized urbandwellers. Thus, a member of the Argentinian movement of unemployedworkers would recount that, in trying to find long-term answers to theirmarginalization mar��gin��al��ize?tr.v. mar��gin��al��ized, mar��gin��al��iz��ing, mar��gin��al��iz��esTo relegate or confine to a lower or outer limit or edge, as of social standing. , people in the movement "started to study Marcosand his Zapatistas, and from them we learned a new way of doing politics... We also went to places were there was a delegation from the MST See micro systems technology. [Brazil's movement of Landless Peasants] ..." (MTD MTD MountedMTD Maximum Tolerated DoseMTD Memory Technology DeviceMTD Month To-DateMTD Methadone (drug screening)MTD motion to dismiss (legal)MtD Mountain DewMTD Memory Technology Driver 2002:31).More explicitly the Argentinian "militant-investigative"collective Colectivo Situaciones has argued that the Zapatista movementhas "expanded its strength not on the basis of inviting others intothe indigenous-peasant world, but by offering us all [those in thecities] elements that, based on their cultures, can circulate among us... in a new way" (Colectivo Situaciones 2005a:19). This reveals anunusual direction in the flow of knowledge. Historically, in Latin America, knowledge has flowed from the"lettered city" outwards. The "lettered city" is theterm coined by literary critic Noun 1. literary critic - a critic of literaturecritic - a person who is professionally engaged in the analysis and interpretation of works of art Angel Rama (1996) to illustrate thegeographical and symbolic configuration of what we call here the modernregime of power/knowledge. In effect, within this regime ofpower/knowledge, the city is the locus par excellence of modernity andthe cradle of the (lettered) intellectual, who is in turn the epitome ofthe modern subject. From this perspective, the countryside emerges asthe margins of modernity, the locus of the traditional or primitive andits stereotyped incarnation, the Indian. Considering the continuedexistence of these old margins, it can he argued that the unruly"territories" emerging in urban spaces on the wake ofneoliberal reforms constitute "new margins." These "newmargins" are (experiential and physical) places produced as modernby the developmental-state (the Latin American version of thewelfare-state) later to be sidelined and excluded by the neoliberal waveof modernization. Out of these experiences, people in these margins findnowadays that the promises of modernity are either empty or extremelyonerous, thus becoming open to see in the practices of those places thatwere never fully shaped by modernity, viable alternative worlds andpolitics not envisioned by their own (modern) traditions of strugglebased on political parties and unions. As the new margins learn from theold margins, some inhabitants of the "lettered city," that is,some modern intellectuals, begin to see the previously invisible proseof "intellectual others." In effect, with its own specificity,some intellectuals in the lettered city have been affected by a similarprocess as the new margins. In other words, increasing disaffection withmodernity from within has been coupled with increasing visibility andviability of alternatives from without. Before discussing how this process has come about we want toclarify that we use the term "modern intellectuals" to stressthe specific regime of power/knowledge that grants authority to theseknowledge-producers. In the configuration of this regime, theacademy/university plays a central role as the privileged site priv��i��leged siten.An area in the body lacking lymphatic drainage, such as the cornea of the eye, in which rejection of foreign tissue grafts does not occur. ofreproduction of the tenets of modernity and is therefore invested withgreat authorizing power. This means that, in this regime ofpower/knowledge, the authority to speak truth and prescribe appropriateactions is more often than not sanctioned by the academy. Moreover, inthis regime, the category of intellectual implicitly connotes somedegree of familiarity with the language of the academy, although itdoesn't necessarily imply insertion in the academy. In this sensean individual might never have attended university, yet to the extentthat his/her practices and visions of the world are informed mostly bythe knowledge historically produced in this site, he/she can becategorized as a "modern intellectual." Qualifying in this waythe category of intellectual, we seek, firstly, to stress the specificrole of the academy-site within the configuration of the modern regimeof power/knowledge, and, secondly, to signal the existence of different,albeit subaltern, configurations of power/knowledge which produce theirown "intellectual Others." Overall, since the 19th century, modern intellectuals anduniversities in most of Latin America have been enrolled in a project ofnation-building. Nation-building basically meant the modernization ofsociety and, thus, the evacuation of diversity from the emergingnation-states, rhetorically through assimilation, integration anddevelopment; in practice through violent physical and symbolicsuppression of the non-modern which, as we pointed out before, wasembodied by the Indigenous populations and more generally thecountryside, and the lower classes. The knowledge guiding thetransformation of society could not be other than modern, which as wepointed out had its privileged locus in the "lettered city."Thus, conceptually and spatially, the project of modernity hasconsistently unfolded from the "lettered city" outwards (Rama1996). While this has been the basic configuration of power-knowledge,some successive small changes within the "lettered city" arenoteworthy because of their eventual aggregate significance in there-configuration of power/knowledge. (7) The first change can be described as the politicization of the"lettered city," which started to take place after the end ofWorld War II. Until then, modern intellectuals and universities wereenvisioned mostly as providers of the knowledge to build the modernnation. They incarnated the scientific-technical reason which bestowedupon the state the authority to rationally "lead" theactivities of their citizens (Castro 2000). The exclusions, inequalitiesand injustices endured by large parts of the Latin American populationwere conceived as temporary "technical problems," theconsequence of the incomplete character of modernization rather than ofmodernization per se. It was implicitly assumed that with theapplication of better knowledge (i.e., produced by modern experts) andbetter education (i.e., the diffusion of modern truths), deliverancefrom exclusion, inequalities and injustices would ensue, in short, thatmodernity would at last settle in. However, the project of building themodern nation began to be debated in different terms in the context ofthe Cold War and the liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Ineffect, "technical problems" started to be understood by manyas actually being political problems stemming from structures ofinequality actively sustained and protected by those benefiting fromthem. This opened a great divide between those who embraced a view ofacademic knowledge as neutral and those who not only contested this viewbut saw claims of neutral academic knowledge as being a disguisedalignment with the elites' interests (see Guerra and Maldonado1979; Ribeiro 1969; Archila 2003; Mato 2000). The second change, which built on the consequences of the first,can be described as some modern intellectuals' discovery of thesubaltern as producer of knowledge. (8) A common premise among thesemodern intellectuals was that established science is the science of thebourgeoisie and "therefore favors those who produce and controlit," making it suspect of collaborating in maintaining relations ofdomination (Fals Borda 1991:5; see also Freire 1970; Colombres 1996).The corollary of this premise was that the knowledge produced by thedominated (subaltern knowledge) can be critical for transforming societyand the relations of domination that characterize it (Fals Borda 1991:5;Colombres 1996;29). Yet, given the hegemonic power of dominantknowledge, the liberating potential of subaltern knowledge is submergedby the history of repression and humiliation through which the presentorder has been naturalized (Fals Borda 1979a, 1979b; 1984; Freire 1970).And it is here where the "committed intellectual," withhis/her methods, is necessary as a catalyst for subaltern knowledge tobecome realized. The limitations as well as the potential of each, thedominated groups and the "committed intellectual, "can beovercome in their dialogical collaboration, for as Fals Borda argues"the sum of knowledge from both types of agents ... makes itpossible to acquire a much more accurate and correct picture of thereality that is being transformed" (1991:4; see also Freire 1970;Colombres 1996). The "committed intellectuals" tradition, while stillcommitted to modern notions of truth, constituted an important attemptto reconsider how knowledge was intertwined with power in the LatinAmerican context? However, from the mid 1970s onwards, thisreconsideration began to be truncated by the establishment of right-wingmilitary dictatorships which, besides forcing "committedintellectuals" into exile and silence, brought along with them anew wave of modernization, now in the garments of neoliberalism. Withthe violent suppression of the Left and, later, with the demise of thecommunist bloc, the neoliberal agenda could now be applied with relativeimpunity throughout the last quarter of the 20th century. Neoliberalmodernization reconfigured in many ways the shape of Latin Americansocieties, most importantly Adv. 1. most importantly - above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent"above all, most especially for our argument, by contributing to furtherchanges in the "lettered city" and, as we have already argued,by inciting the spread of insurrectional patterns of mobilization.Changes in the "lettered city" had two complexlyinterconnected sources (albeit in no way linked by direct causality):the general reshaping of the university system under structuraladjustment and the spread of "postmodern" theories in thesocial sciences and the humanities. Under structural adjustment, public universities (in general, themost prestigious and politically involved) became increasingly concernedwith issues of efficiency and productivity, and, along with the generaltrends in the economy, lost ground to private schemes while making jobinsecurity (euphemized as flexible labor) the norm. Many professors,researchers and alumni were forced to seek jobs as consultants and/orNGOs staff, both of which tend to have very specific and focused scopeof action and a predominantly technocratic approach to social problems(Fals Borda 1991; Gill 2000). The rigors of job insecurity, plus thedisarticulation disarticulation/dis��ar��tic��u��la��tion/ (dis?ahr-tik?u-la��shun) exarticulation; amputation or separation at a joint. dis��ar��tic��u��la��tionn. of the networks of social and political support,contributed to a general climate of cynicism which seemed to be (and tosome extent was) exacerbated by postmodern trends. It is no surprise,then, that from the perspective of an intellectual and political Lefttradition that had sought to fulfill the promises of modernity, thepostmodern attack on its central tenets of truth, progress, freedom andthe like, seemed a little suspect. This was the case because these ideasreached Latin America as more governments heeded neoliberalism'sclaims of being the ineluctable path to modernity, all the whilegenerating more inequalities and exclusions. While many Leftist "modern intellectuals" rejectedpostmodernism, others carefully distinguished different intellectualproductions with that general label, rescuing in particular thepoststructuralist critique of metanarratives, and their regimes oftruth. However, a vexing question was left lingering: how to confrontthe injustices and exclusions produced by a particular metanarrative andregime of truth without grounding oneself in another metanarrative andregime of truth that will of necessity generate new exclusions andinequalities? The poststructuralist's somewhat unsatisfactoryproposal was to entrust this task to the "ascetic"intellectual. In effect, for the poststructuralists there is no logicalconnection between critique and prescription since critique does not(cannot) reveal "the Truth." Thus, the (postructuralist)intellectual needs to be "ascetic" in order to safeguardhis/her critical activity directed to a given regime of truth from thetemptation to prescribe another truth that, of necessity, will beexclusionary. In this way, critique becomes a permanent task throughwhich intellectuals keep open the process of articulating truths bycontesting established and emerging regimes of truth and theirexclusionary powers (see Bernauer 1990). It is in this context thatDeleuze's definition of being on the Left as a problem of neverceasing to be minoritarian makes sense (see Deleuze and Parnet 1997). Inpractice, though, Leftist intellectuals tended to hold on to a veryorthodox modern conception of truth and knowledge, outfitting themselveswith the tools of critique and deconstruction to attack "neoliberaltruths" but without considering the exclusions generated by theirown emergent truths. Again, Garcia Linera's position with regard toinsurrectional patterns of mobilization is symptomatic of this. More by default than by design, insurrectional patterns ofmobilization provided a different response to the challenge posed bypost-structuralism. Recognizing that epistemology is a central dimensionof the operations by which difference is turned into inequality, step bystep many social movements have brought their own"traditional" or "local" knowledge-practices to bearon the debates about social projects (Rappaport 2005; Fernandez Osco InPress; MTD 2002; Casas-Cortes, Osterweil and Powell this issue). Inparticular, knowledge-practices connected in some way to relationalcosmologies seem particularly suited to accomplish the task that thepoststructuralists trusted to the ascetic intellectual. In effect, as inpost-structuralism, there is in these knowledge-practices a heightenedsuspicion of the exclusionary powers of metanarratives and regimes oftruth and, thus, a concern with keeping open the processes ofarticulating and enacting temporary and partial truths. However, incontrast to the post-structuralists, the insurrectionalknowledge-practices signal that the task of keeping open the processesof articulating and enacting truths must be carried out by thecollective, not by the ascetic intellectual. In effect, by furtheringthe mutual encounter of multiple situated truths, theseknowledge-practices help (not always successfully, though) to produce"working" truths while keeping the diversity that grounds themfrom being glossed over by emerging and temporary consensus. Insurrectional knowledge-practices enact what Foucault (1980:33)could only envision as a program of action, a "new politics oftruth" in which specific prescriptions for actions can be producedwhile the wider project aptly described by the Zapatistas as"building a world in which many worlds fit" gets to beperformed. Given that the central point in these knowledge-practices is"doing them" rather than in producing knowledge as accuraterepresentations, their success is not measured in instrumental terms(i.e. "we have achieved a certain goal because we produced anaccurate representation of reality") but in terms of the extentthat they contaminate with their logic more sites and practices (i.e.,"we have formed a community because we acted as such").Insofar in��so��far?adv.To such an extent.Adv. 1. insofar - to the degree or extent that; "insofar as it can be ascertained, the horse lung is comparable to that of man"; "so far as it is reasonably practical he should practice as these patterns of mobilization enact a relational way ofunderstanding and relating to relating torelate prep → concernantrelating torelate prep → bez��glich +gen, mit Bezug auf +accothers, we argue that their intellectualproduction can be understood as an anthropology, in the widest sense ofthe term, that is, as an active and creative exploration ofcommonalities between different worlds. Through theseknowledge-practices, the problem these patterns of mobilization addressis that, to use Latour words, "no one has the answers--this is whythey have to be collectively staged, stabilized and revised"(Latour 2005:138). Not surprisingly, the insurrection of subjugated knowledges hasfound an audience prone to be enrolled as interlocutors: some"modern intellectuals" who took poststructuralist critiquesseriously, beyond their utility as tools for deconstructing neoliberaldiscourses. This has translated into an interesting development that, webelieve, opens up a window to foresee some possible directions in whicha reconfiguration of the dominant regime of power/knowledge mightproceed. This development is the relative equalization In communications, techniques used to reduce distortion and compensate for signal loss (attenuation) over long distances. of modern andinsurrectional knowledge-practices, the proliferation of sites claimingto foster a fruitful encounter between them, and the inklings of acertain disposition among some "modern intellectuals" to allowfor the contamination of their knowledge-practices by those of"intellectual Others." The Reconfiguration of Power/Knowledge in Latin America? The relative equalization of knowledge-practices has as a firstsymptom the evident fact that knowledges that before were simplydisregarded as nothing but anthropological curiosities are nowconsidered important. Like any symptom, this is only an indicator, andit might very well be deceiving. For example, in development andconservation circles indigenous understandings that were previouslylabeled superstition are now labeled knowledges, yet as critics havepointed out, the acronym IK (Indigenous Knowledges) refers to certainkinds of knowledges that are disassociated from their implicitontological assumptions about how reality is constituted (Banerjee andLinstead 2004; Briggs and Sharp 2004; Ellen et al. 2000; Noble 2007;Nadasdy 2003). In this way, rather than being taken as competing claimsabout reality, IK are actually incorporated within "universalscience" as one input among others. Tolerant incorporation bespeaksthe acceptance of inequalities, rather than a challenge to inequalities,and is not the kind of symptom that we are referring to. What we have inmind are a few emblematic cases that represent the attempt to foster anencounter on equal terms between modern and non-modernknowledge-practices. The cases that we will briefly present are notintended to be exhaustive, they just indicate a tendency. We make noclaims about their success. What is important is holding them incontrast to the dominant forms of conceiving knowledge and theproduction of knowledge in the "lettered city," and also tocertain attempts within the "lettered city" to generate asimilar gesture of dialogue and cross-fertilization. Universidad Intercultural Amawtay-Wasi The Intercultural University Amawtay-Wasi stems from the efforts ofthe Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE CONAIE Confederaci��n de Nacionalidades Ind��genas del Ecuador (Spanish: Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador)) tocreate a system of intercultural and bilingual education bilingual education,the sanctioned use of more than one language in U.S. education. The Bilingual Education Act (1968), combined with a Supreme Court decision (1974) mandating help for students with limited English proficiency, requires instruction in the native . This effortresulted in the official creation of the University with stateaccreditation in 2004. The University was officially launched on March21, 2005, with the sponsorship of CONAIE and with diverse fundingsources (including the European Union and UNESCO UNESCO:see United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. UNESCOin full United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ). During theinauguration, the rector stated that the University is meant for"all societies, even the non-indigenous ones, and must includeAfrican-descended people and foreigners interested in learning thesciences developed by their elders" (University Website:www.amawtaywasi.edu.eclindex.htm). In the Intercultural University Amawtay-Wasi, the academic yearsare organized along five Centers of Knowledge (Centros de Saber) thatall "students" have to go through and that relate to specificdomains of experiences, such as living in the community, reconcilinghumans and technology, and constructing the intercultural project, amongothers. Some of these centers include the Yachay Munay, dedicated toexploring knowledge and the capacity to observe and understand diversecosmovisions and philosophies; and the Munay Ruray, which has as itsmain goal the promotion of "good living" and the constructionof "a world that supports intercultural coexistence and thearticulation of humans with the community, the planet and thecosmos" (University Website). There are also three cycles ofknowledge; Runa Yachay, related to ancestral knowledge; Shtkatk Yachay,related to western knowledge and finally the Yachaypura, related tointercultural knowledge. The "class sessions" move betweendifferent places and even incorporate the original communities fromwhich the "students" come, since they, too, are also learningcommunities (comunidades de aprendizaje). The University Amawtay Wasiconceives these communities as a "strategy for multiplying andpotentializing the opportunities to participate in collective learningprocesses, culturally and socially significant for youths and adults ofall ages [and based] on the principle of learning as a life-longprocess" (Universidad Intercultural Amawtay-Wasi 2004:230). The conceptual architecture Conceptual architecture is a term used to describe certain buildings and practices that make use of conceptualism in architecture. Conceptual architecture is characterized by an introduction of ideas or concepts from outside of architecture often as a means of expanding the of the intercultural university isbased on Indigenous principles and cosmologies. For example, the centralconcept of interculturality is based on, among other things, theprinciple of relationality. Relationality is conceived within acosmovisional framework whose basic assumption is multiplicity. Theimage that best captures this notion is one of diverse threads weavingthemselves into a tapestry. In this context, knowledge is conceived notas an isolated "thing," extracted out of a context, but ratheras the emergent result of communal effort. Thus, "the idea is notto create a knowledge space reserved only for Indigenous peoples, but tobuild fundamental [curriculum] contents conducive for the experience ofinterculturality," a notion that allows "for the acceptance ofdiversity and the construction of a more equitable and tolerantworld" (Universidad Intercultural Amawtay-Wasi 2004:164-165).Currently, the university offers three undergraduate programs in theMunay Ruray center (agroecology program), the Ushay Yachay center(intercultural multilingual teaching program) and the Ruray Rushaycenter (architecture and territorial planning program). All threeprograms confer professional and specialist degrees through courseworkthat lasts from six to ten semesters each. For the university, the conceptualization con��cep��tu��al��ize?v. con��cep��tu��al��ized, con��cep��tu��al��iz��ing, con��cep��tu��al��iz��esv.tr.To form a concept or concepts of, and especially to interpret in a conceptual way: of interculturality, asan ideological principle of the Indigenous movement's politicalproject, is different from the idea of liberal multiculturalism. Withinthis conception, interculturality implies a dialogue between equals, amutual accommodation of diverse life-worlds, and not the subordinatingaccommodation of diverse life-worlds within the overarching frameworkimposed by a dominant modern life-world (see Walsh In Press, Rappaport2005). In this sense, interculturality is key in the construction of anew "anticolonialist, anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, andantisegregationist" democracy that guarantees, according to theConfederation of Ecuadorian Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE), "thefull and permanent participation of the [Indigenous] peoples andnationalities in decision making" and fosters "the exercise ofpolitical power in the Plurinational State" (CONAIE 1997:11, quotedin Walsh In Press). Universidad de la Resistencia The history that lies behind the University of Resistance is theviolent dispute over the extraction and monopoly of legal and illegalresources in the Apartado region of northwestern Colombia by differentactors since the 1980s (Uribe 2004). Today, the industrial production ofbananas, along with the introduction of illegal coca crops and themilitary dispute over key corridors, has turned what was a frontierregion four decades ago into a strategic area for actors ranging frominternational and national investors of capital, guerrilla groups (FARC Noun 1. FARC - a powerful and wealthy terrorist organization formed in 1957 as the guerilla arm of the Colombian communist party; opposed to the United States; has strong ties to drug dealers and EPL 1. EPL - Early PL/I.2. EPL - Experimental Programming Language.3. EPL - Eden Programming Language. U Washington. Based on Concurrent Euclid and used with the Eden distributed OS. Influenced Emerald and Distributed Smalltalk. ), paramilitaries and the Colombian State. The violent struggleled in the 1990s to one of the most tragic episodes in the recenthistory of Colombia See also: History of South AmericaPre-Colombia periodMain article: Indigenous peoples in Colombia About twelve thousand years ago hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogot�� (at El Abra . In certain rural areas, military clashes betweenthe armed forces, guerrillas and paramilitary groups The list of paramilitary groups includes all organized armed groups not officially considered a national military force. Groups are listed alphabetically, with the common name as the primary entry. forced more than4,000 peasants to flee for their lives to nearby urban settlements.Assassinations of community leaders and crude violations of human rightswere common, as was the negligence and incapacity The absence of legal ability, competence, or qualifications.An individual incapacitated by infancy, for example, does not have the legal ability to enter into certain types of agreements, such as marriage or contracts. of the authorities toinvestigate and prosecute anyone. It was precisely in this violent environment that severalcommunities of Afro-Colombians, Indigenous people and mestizo peasants,accompanied by religious organizations and NGOs, declared themselvesPeace Communities (Uribe 2004). In these collective pacts, they not onlydeclared neutrality in the middle of the conflict, but also proclaimedhorizontal and participatory models of society for the recuperation recuperation/re��cu��per��a��tion/ (-koo?per-a��shun) recovery of health and strength. recuperation,n the process of recovering health, strength, and mental and emotional vigor. oftheir autonomy and sovereignty over their actions and decisions(Memorias del Seminario Taller con Comunidades de Riesgo 2003). InFebruary 2004, as a reaction to the general spread of violence in theregion and to the passive reaction of authorities (which the communitiesblame for much of the suffering), twenty of these Peace Communitiescreated RECORRE, an acronym for the Spanish words, Redes de Comunidadesen Ruptura y Resistencia (Network of Communities in Rupture andResistance). One of the central components emerging from these meetingswas to launch the University of Resistance. The University of Resistance was to be the platform for sharingexperiences of resistance and survival among the different collectives,ranging from alternative agricultural practices to traditional medicine.The guiding principle of the university is to work collectively andadvance through four axes of research and action: food sovereignty "Food sovereignty" is a term originally coined by members of Via Campesina in 1996 [1] to refer to a policy framework advocated by a number of farmers', peasants', pastoralists', fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples', womens', rural youth and environmental organizations, ,traditional medicine, alternative education and traditional or customarylaw. As one of the leaders of the Peace Community of San Jose deApartado told one of us, the aim of these encounters was to share andbenefit from the different experiences and strategies that eachcollective had been using to survive amidst violence. He mentioned, forexample, that the Indigenous communities brought their knowledge ontraditional medicine, the Black communities shared their experience innegotiating territorial rights, and the villagers from San Jose talkedabout their strategies for surviving during military blockades. Theyalso exchanged seeds and information about the. importance of preservingthem during armed blockades or intense armed conflict. This universityhas no fixed classroom or space, no permanent professors, and does notconfer degrees or diplomas to its participants. It is organized throughsessions taking place in areas of conflict. In fact, the organizers donot want to have their sessions in areas lacking internal strife. Most significantly, the University of Resistance does not cater tospecific racial or ethnic groups but rather to a wider community, inthis case the victims of the widespread violence in Colombia:Afro-Colombian communities, Indigenous communities, internally displacedpeasants whose crops have been fumigated under eradication policies,relatives of disappeared or kidnapped people, among others. A recentinformal session, attended by one of us in San Jose de Apartado, focusedspecifically on memory and reparation Compensation for an injury; redress for a wrong inflicted.The losing countries in a war often must pay damages to the victors for the economic harm that the losing countries inflicted during wartime. These damages are commonly called military reparations. within the context of a potentialthough still utopian scenario of forgiveness and justice in Colombia.Even mothers of policemen and soldiers kidnapped by guerrillas joinedthe meetings with victims of paramilitary forces. In conclusion, thereis not a single subjectivity here. The work of co-adjusting differentexperiences and epistemologies is constant in the scarce (althoughsignificant) activities of the university. However, we do not want toclaim that this work is free of difficulties and reversals, particularlyconsidering that up to this point, with very scarce resources, theuniversity has only met twice. The lack of resources for transportationand sustenance of the delegates from each community has been a permanentobstacle during these years. In fact, the first "courses" wereexclusively dedicated to explore and share experiences about theconcepts and practices of "food sovereignty" or "foodautonomy" (soberania o autonomia alimentaria). Discussion on theother axes of research and action (traditional medicine, alternativeeducation, traditional or customary law) has been delayed for futuremeetings. During the first encounter in San Jose de Apartado, studentsmet for almost a month; each community sent a single student. Theirclasses, lasting almost eight hours a day, were held in the fields. Thecommunity in San Jose prepared to receive more than 70 students,collecting enough food and improvising small shelters to host them. Athird encounter of the university dedicated to the discussion of"customary and autonomous law" (derecho De`re´chon. 1. A straight wind without apparent cyclonic tendency, usually accompanied with rain and often destructive, common in the prairie regions of the United States. propio) is beingplanned and will be held in a coastal mountain range inhabited byIndigenous and peasant groups. Colectivo Situaciones The Argentinian Colectivo Situaciones emerged in the late 1990salong with the increasing visibility of the patterns of mobilizationthat we have been characterizing as insurrectional. Only one of thecollective's members is currently employed in a university,although the original space from which the group came was the academy(Pers. Comm. January 2005). According to their own account, thegroup's practices took shape out of a perception of inadequacybetween, on the one hand, the figures of the militant and the universityresearcher and, on the other hand, the emergence of new elements ofsociability immanent im��ma��nent?adj.1. Existing or remaining within; inherent: believed in a God immanent in humans.2. Restricted entirely to the mind; subjective. in insurrectional patterns of mobilization. In bothfigures they see an approach from the outside which does not respondwell to these patterns' demands for "a new disposition to feeland think" (Colectivo Situaciones 2005b:606). These"demands" are in turn characterized as an "extendedelaboration whose fundamental point of origin was the failure ofrevolution in the decade of the 1970s" (2005b:606). The Colectivo's modality of engagement, militant research, hasinvolved using workshops to articulate with collectiveexperiences/experiments such as H.I.J.O.S. (acronym of an organizationformed by children of the disappeared during the Argentineandictatorship of 1976-1983), the Movement of Unemployed Workers of Solano(MTD), Movement of Peasants from Santiago del Estero province Santiago del Estero is a province of Argentina, located in the north of the country. Neighbouring provinces are from the north clockwise Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, C��rdoba, Catamarca and Tucum��n. (MOCASE),among others (see the Colectivo's webpage: www.situaciones.org).Militant research's organizing concept is that of "composition(processes of interaction, collective valorization val��or��ize?tr.v. val��or��ized, val��or��iz��ing, val��or��iz��es1. To establish and maintain the price of (a commodity) by governmental action.2. , systems ofproductive compatibilities)" concerned with the "production of(an) encounter(s) that produces subject(s)" (Colectivo Situaciones2005b:604). Here the concern is with producing consistency betweenexperiences that neither emerge as already unified nor accept "anexternal, imposed, state-like union" (2005b:607). The Colectivoenvisions the labor of research militancy as "tuning up," andthereby strengthening, elements of an emerging sociability. Hence, theirconcern with the question of how to carry out this "tuning up"without enacting knowledge-practices which are at odds with thisemerging sociability, Research militancy takes shape ... as a series of operations when in the face of concrete problems (or of anguish that stubbornness turns into productive interrogations): how to establish bonds capable of altering our subjectivities and finding some sort of community in the middle of today's radical dispersion? How to provoke interventions that strengthen horizontality and resonances, avoiding both hierarchical centralism and pure fragmentation? And, to continue in this line, how to co-elaborate thinking in common with the experiences/experiments [i.e., insurrectional patterns of mobilization] that have been elaborating hyper-intelligent practices? (607) As one can see from these brief characterizations, these are verydifferent sites and experiences, from rural to urban and in between;from positions that expressly and decidedly reject the state topositions associated with the idea of interculturality, an idea thatimplies a thorough transformation of the modern-state into apluricultural state. There are, however, two fundamental similaritiesbetween these sites/experiences. First, they all express an attempt tofoster a form of producing knowledge that mimics, with an uncertaindegree of success, the knowledge-practices that characterizeinsurrectional patterns of mobilization. That is, a permanent work ofco-adjustment between different subjectivities and formations, an effortto avoid the imposition of truths, and an emphasis on keeping theproduction of knowledge embedded in the community. In short, besidesaddressing pressing problems, the goal in these sites is to performcommunities. Second, they constitute complex sites of encounter betweeninsurrectional and modern knowledge-practices, where collaboration,contamination and contestation seem to be at play simultaneously. Let uslook at this in more detail. In many of these sites, intellectuals trained in the "letteredcity" participate as active members and collaborators, yet there isan expectation that their contributions should adapt to the specificforms of producing knowledge that characterize the insurrectionalpatterns of mobilization. Thus, within their specific conditions, thesesites tend to generate intellectuals engaged in social strugglesthrough, among other means, the mutual equalization and contamination ofdiverse knowledge practices. We do not claim that this puts an end tothe violent imposition of a single epistemology; but that, at least,some "intellectuals" steeped in the "lettered city"are learning in these sites that, to paraphrase Boaventura de SousaSantos (2004), the struggle for social justice cannot be disentangledfrom the struggle for cognitive justice. This means that the problem isnot who has knowledge and for what, but rather how knowledge is producedand with what consequences. In this sense, it is important to highlightthat these sites are not "discovered" by the "letteredcity" as interlocutors that could help to complete an accuratepicture of reality, as the "committed intellectual" traditionexpected. Rather, these subjugated knowledges are actively contestingthe privileges of the "lettered city." Thus, the label of"university" is used by some of these experiencesstrategically to indicate the relative equalization of which we speak.As we have argued in our discussion of the insurrectional patterns ofmobilization, there is a contestation of modern institutions' claimto have a monopoly on true knowledge, in this case by proposing auniversity otherwise, a university which is distinguished not by thecontent of the knowledge it produces but by the kind ofknowledge-practices that it sustains. It is worth noting that the ceaseless work of co-adjustmentfostered in these sites implies the possibility of unpredictableencounters and articulations between formations such as the universityand alternative nodes of knowledge production that appear insurmountablydifferent. From these kinds of encounters some "modernintellectuals" turn into Trojan horses that try to introduce their"contaminated" knowledge-practices within the "letteredcity." While this signals further possibilities for areconfiguration of power/knowledge, the path is full of challenges andthe opportunities for unwitting reversal abound. Perhaps the best way toillustrate the point is by reference to some examples of attempts atintroducing other knowledge-practices into the "letteredcity." In contrast to the tolerant/extractive framework dominant indevelopment and conservation circles, there have emerged in the last fewyears some attempts from within the academy to generate a well-groundeddialogue between academic knowledge and "otros saberes" (otherknowledges). As an indication of this trend, during 2006-2007, the LatinAmerican Studies Association sponsored research collaborations betweenacademics and Indigenous and African-descended peoples through theproject "Otros Saberes/Otras Americas." This initiativeresponded most directly to an ongoing proliferation of"collaborative methodologies" being produced at the variousinterfaces between producers of knowledge in the North American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. andLatin American academy and social movements in Latin America (see LeyvaSolano and Speed n.d.; Mallon 2005; Rappaport 2005; Warren 1998; Hale2006), but also resonated with many of the concerns of the MCD researchprogram that we consider ourselves to be part of and have introducedearlier in this paper. Besides the fact that the institutionalization InstitutionalizationThe gradual domination of financial markets by institutional investors, as opposed to individual investors. This process has occurred throughout the industrialized world. ofcollaborative and dialogical practices does reflect the usual"trendification" and to some extent re-discovery of old ideasin the academy, it is important to address more substantial limits thataffect even the most innovative and critical approaches. Among theseworks, a common thread is the valorization of other knowledges (orknowledges otherwise) with regards to their liberating potentials. Yet,in most cases we "modern intellectuals" stop short of trulyengaging with these knowledges on their own terms, and thus remainentrenched in our position of authority, reproducing the currentconfiguration of power/knowledge. As academics, we engage with the works of "intellectualothers" but do not find ourselves compelled to mix, meld and bridgetheir categories and ours. In effect, when we engage "intellectualothers" the tendency is to assume that collaboration and dialogueis about the "alignment" of our research agenda to theinterests of our interlocutors and partners, and/or about making visibletheir knowledge practices. In contrast, when "intellectualothers" engage with us they do a work of bridging, mixing, andmelding categories from different traditions of knowledge (modern andtheirs) and thus, for example, they reconceptualize a concept like theuniversity through indigenous cosmologies, principles and paradigms, asin the case of Amawtay Wasi. In part, this problem is compounded by thefact that, from the perspective of most modern intellectuals, thevisibility of "intellectual others" depends on their capacityto do this bridging, mixing and melding. Total illiteracy in thelanguage of the "lettered city" implies complete invisibility.Symptomatic of this is that the "others" recently recognizedas intellectuals in academic circles are in one way or another familiarwith the language of the "lettered city" through training ininstitutions of formal education (see, for instance, the profile ofvarious "intellectual others" in Warren 1998; Rappaport 2005;Mignolo 2000; Leyva Solano and Speed n.d.). Indeed, with rareexceptions, intellectual Others who do not speak the language of the"lettered city" seem to still be off the radar screen of"modern intellectuals." Of course, this speaks of powerdifferentials and signals that decolonial thinking is still mostlyshouldered by intellectual others. (10) It is important however tohighlight that these problems (related to power differentials betweendifferent regimes of power/knowledge) must also arise in differentdegrees in the sites of encounter generated by the insurrectionalpatterns of mobilization. Thus, the actual dynamics of engagement inthese sites, and the challenges and obstacles faced by projects ofdialogue and contamination, remain to be ethnographically investigated.Yet, investigating insurrectional subjugated knowledges poses somechallenges in itself. These are the focus of our conclusion. Betrayal and Researching Insurrectional Subjugated Knowledges Researching insurrectional subjugated knowledges withoutquestioning modern assumptions about what constitutes knowledge mightvery well constitute a betrayal of these subjugated knowledges. To fullygrasp the point we need to stress the centrality ofterritorialization/autonomy in these insurrections. We pointed outbefore that this was tied to the capacity of specific places to organizesocial bonds according to a vector and model that is the communitarianexperience, which implies the ceaseless co-adjusting of multipleexperiences in co-existence. Knowledge in this context is relational,emergent and contextual. Its truth-value goes hand in hand with itsconduciveness to such co-adjusting of multiplicity. This is radicallydifferent from knowledge as an accurate representation of reality,better achieved as the observer is more detached. Keeping thisdifference in mind, we wonder in what sense are our modernknowledge-practices conducive to co-adjusting multiplicity when theyreproduce power differentials that, as we indicated in the previoussection, force others to adjust to us without a similar gesture on ourpart? Are we contributing to the production of a common world in whichmany worlds fit, or are we still imposing our world? Theknowledge-practices of the insurrectional patterns of mobilization arewhat they do, and we completely miss this point when we try to capturewhat they are in the form of plain description, without letting them dowith us what they do, i.e., shape communal bonds. Taking theseinsurrectional knowledges-practices seriously necessarily implies atransformation of our knowledge-practices in a way that will make thelatter relevant for the politics of the former. We want to conclude by opening up a discussion on the specificityof our situation as intellectuals within the "lettered city."We would like to signal that our claim of being some sort of Trojanhorse See Trojan. Trojan Horsehollow horse concealed soldiers, enabling them to enter and capture Troy. [Gk. Myth.: Iliad]See : Deceit(application, security) Trojan horse does not gloss over power differentials. On the contrary, it isexceedingly clear to us that if our situation/site is of any relevanceto insurrectional patterns of mobilization, it is because of the rolethat the "lettered city" has as a key node for thereproduction of power relations in the present socio-epistemologicalregime. The challenge then is how to deploy this centrality andspecificity in a way that erodes the inequalities currently associatedwith this regime. And here lies the crux of what seems an intractableproblem for intellectuals of the "lettered city": theauthority of their knowledge, its status as expert knowledge, appears tobe wedded to inequality. This is evident in the issue of expertlanguage: it is often said that in order to be truly democratic andhorizontal our intellectual production has to be accessible to thenon-expert. Otherwise we protect our exclusive authority and theinequality that separates the expert from the non-expert. But hereseveral things get confused: expertise does not always imply inequality,and authority does not always connote con��note?tr.v. con��not��ed, con��not��ing, con��notes1. To suggest or imply in addition to literal meaning: "The term 'liberal arts' connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns"imposition. Perhaps a good way to think about this issue is through the exampleof the konsaho (shaman) of the Yshiro people of Paraguay, with whichone of us is familiar. The konsaho is an expert and as such he/shemanages a language that is not accessible to just anyone, but only tothose who are themselves konsaho or in the process of becoming one. NoYshiro would have the idea that everyone should be a konsaho--this issomething determined by particular vital trajectories--yet konsaho areindeed vested with authority to the extent that they prove themselves tobe beneficial to the community of humans and non-humans that co-form theyrmo (cosmos). Interestingly, being beneficial depends largely on thekonsaho's capacity to co-adjust the multiple "threads"(social bonds) that come to meet in his/her persona. It is preciselybecause a person is recognized to have a talent to do this co-adjustingconsistently well that he or she becomes and is recognized by thecommunity as an expert konsaho. But this is not someone who looks at theworld from above and from a distance, rather it is through his/herdisposition to entangle en��tan��gle?tr.v. en��tan��gled, en��tan��gling, en��tan��gles1. To twist together or entwine into a confusing mass; snarl.2. To complicate; confuse.3. To involve in or as if in a tangle. his/her self in open-ended relations withunforeseeable Un`fore`see´a`blea. 1. Incapable of being foreseen.Adj. 1. unforeseeable - incapable of being anticipated; "unforeseeable consequences"unpredictable - not capable of being foretold consequences(both in identitarian and bodily terms) thatthe konsaho gains authority and respect. In other words, the konsaho isan institution in a permanent state of becoming. Perhaps the"lettered city" can be construed in this way, where ourexpertise becomes such to the extent that we open this (personal andinstitutional) site to become one of the nodes where multiplicities meetand co-adjust in coexistence, always keeping in mind that we cannot beeverywhere (and nowhere), that we all operate in the specificity of oursites. Hence, for us it is not so much in the simplicity andaccessibility of language (which assumes un-difference) that thepossibility of eroding inequalities lies, but in the kind ofarticulations/translations that the "lettered city" can allowwithin itself, and in partnership with other sites of practices. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Artura Escobar for his inspiration,encouragement and support. The Social Movements Working Group collectiveat the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public, coeducational, research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Also known as The University of North Carolina, Carolina, North Carolina, or simply UNC has been anincredibly supportive and friendly environment to develop our ideas.Marisol de la Cadena, Catalina Cortes Severino and Elena Yehia have alsobeen key interlocutors for us to develop the ideas presented here. Weare thankful to them all. REFERENCES Alvarez, Sonia E., Evelina Dagnino and Arturo Escobar Arturo Escobar may refer to: Arturo Escobar, American anthropologist. Arturo Escobar, Mexican politician. , eds. 1998.Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures: Re-visioning Latin AmericanSocial Movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Archila, Mauricio. 2003. Idas, Venidas, Vueltas y Revueltas:Protesas Sociales en Colombia, 1958-1990. Bogota, Colombia: InstitutoColombiano de Antropologia e Historia; Centro de Investigacion yEducacion Popular. Arquette, Mary, Maxine Cole and the Akwesasne Task Force on theEnvironment. 2004. "Restoring Our Relationships for theFuture." In Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Felt, and Glenn McRae, ads., InThe Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects, andGlobalization globalizationProcess by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation . London and Ottawa: Zed Books and IDRC IDRC International Development Research Centre (Canada)IDRC International Development Research CouncilIDRC International Disaster Reduction Conference (UNESCO)IDRC International Display Research Conference . Assies, Willem, Gamma van der Haar and Andre Hoekema. 2000. TheChallenge of Diversity: Indigenous Peoples and Reform of the State inLatin America. Amsterdam: Thela Thesis. Banerjee, Subhabrata Bobby and Stephen Linstead. 2004."Masking Subversion: Neocolonial Embeddedness in AnthropologicalAccounts of Indigenous Management." Human Relations human relationsnpl → relaciones fpl humanas57(2):221-247. Bartolome, Miguel. 2000. El Encuentro de la Gente con losInsensatos: La Sedentarizacion de los Cazadores Ayoreo en el Paraguay.Asuncion, Paraguay, and Mexico City Mexico CitySpanish Ciudad de MéxicoCity (pop., 2000: city, 8,605,239; 2003 metro. area est., 18,660,000), capital of Mexico. Located at an elevation of 7,350 ft (2,240 m), it is officially coterminous with the Federal District, which occupies 571 sq mi , Mexico: Universidad Catolica"N. S. de la Asuncion"; Centro de Estudios Antropologicos(CEADUC); Instituto Indigenista Interamericano. Bernauer, James. 1990. Michel Foucault's Force of Flight:Towards an Ethics for Thought. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Briggs, John and Joanna Sharp. 2004. "Indigenous Knowledgesand Development: A Postcolonial Caution." Third World Quarterly25(4):661-676. Cajete, Gregory. 2000. Native Science: Natural Laws ofInterdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers. Castillo-Cardenas, Gonzalo. 1987. Liberation Theology liberation theology,belief that the Christian Gospel demands "a preferential option for the poor," and that the church should be involved in the struggle for economic and political justice in the contemporary world—particularly in the Third World. from Below:The Life and Thought of Manuel Quintin Lame. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Castro-Gomez, Santiago. 2000. "Ciencias Sociales, ViolenciaEpistemica y el Problema de la 'Invencion de Io Otro.'"In Edgardo Lander, ed., La Calonialidad del Saber: Eurocentrismo yCiencias Sociales, pp. 201-225. Caracas, Venezuela: Facultad de CienciasEconomicas y Sociales, Instituto Internacional de la UNESCO para laEducacion Superior en America Latin y el Caribe. Chatterton, Paul. 2005. "Making Autonomous Geographies:Argentina's popular uprising and the 'Movimiento deTrabajadores Desocupados' (Unemployed Workers Movement)."Geoforum 36: 545-561. Colectivo Situaciones. 2005a. Bienvenidos a la Selva La Selva could refer to: La Selva (South America), the lowland Amazonian regions within the Andean nations of Ecuador and Peru. La Selva Biological Station, in Costa Rica, one of the Organization for Tropical Studies research stations. : Didlogos aPartir de la Sexta La Sexta is a Spanish television station. La Sexta began broadcasting on March 27, 2006 but only for Madrid and Barcelona. As of June 1, 2006 85% of the Spanish population can receive it. Its president is Emilio Arag��n. . Declaracion del EZLN EZLN Ej��rcito Zapatista de Liberaci��n Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Chiapas, Mexico). Buenos Aires Buenos Aires(bwā`nəs ī`rēz, âr`ēz, Span. bwā`nōs ī`rās), city and federal district (1991 pop. , Argentina: TintaLimon Ediciones, Universidad Internacional de Andalucia. --. 2005b. "Something More on Research Militancy: Footnotes onProcedures and (In)Decisions." Ephemera e��phem��er��a?n.A plural of ephemeron.ephemeraNoun, plitems designed to last only for a short time, such as programmes or postersNoun 1. : Theory & Politics inOrganization 5(4):602-614. Colombres, Adolfo. 1996. La Hora ho��raalso ho��rah ?n.A traditional round dance of Romania and Israel.[Modern Hebrew h del Barbaro: Bases para unaAntropologia Social de Apoyo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones delSol. Colloredo-Mansfeld, Rudi. 2002. "Don't be Lazy,Don't Lie, Don't Steal: Community Justice in the NeoliberalAndes." American Ethnologist eth��nol��o��gy?n.1. The science that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology.2. 29(3):637-662. Comaroff, Jean. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: TheCulture and History of a South African People The term African people can be used in two ways. First, it may refer to all people who live in Africa, see also demographics of Africa. Second, it is commonly used to describe people who trace their recent ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa, in particular Sub-Saharan . Chicago: University ofChicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including * De la Cadena, Marisol. 2000. Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics ofRace and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991. Durham, NC: Duke UniversityPress. Deleuze, Gilles Deleuze, Gilles(born Jan. 18, 1925, Paris, France—died Nov. 4, 1995, Paris) French antirationalist philosopher and literary critic. He began his study of philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1944 and was appointed to the faculty there in 1957; he later taught at the and Claire Parnet. 1997. L'Abecedaire deGilles Deleuze avec Claire Parnet. Paris: Editions Montparnasse. Duffield, Mark. 2002. "Social Reconstruction and theRadicalization of Development: Aid as a Relation of Global LiberalGovernance." Development and Change 33(5): 1049-1071. Dussel, Enrique. 2000. "Europe, Modernity, andEurocentrism." Nepantla 1(3): 465-478. Earle, Duncan and Jeanne Simonelli. 2005. Uprising of Hope: Sharingthe Zapatista Journey to Alternative Development. Lanham, MD: Alta MiraPress. Edelman, Marc. 1999. "Social Movements: Changing Paradigms andForms of Politics." Annual Review of Anthropology 30:285-317. Ellen, Roy et al. 2000. Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and itsTransformations: Critical Anthropological Perspectives. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of :Routledge. Escobar, Arturo and Sonia Alvarez, eds. 1992. The Making of SocialMovements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy. Boulder,CO: Westview Press. Escobar, Arturo. 2001. "Culture Sits in Places: Reflections onGlobalism glob��al��ism?n.A national geopolitical policy in which the entire world is regarded as the appropriate sphere for a state's influence.glob and Subaltern Strategies of Localization Customizing software and documentation for a particular country. It includes the translation of menus and messages into the native spoken language as well as changes in the user interface to accommodate different alphabets and culture. See internationalization and l10n. ." PoliticalGeography treats of the different countries into which earth is divided with regard to political and social and institutions and conditions.See also: geography 20(2):139-174. Escobar, Arturo. 2004. "'Worlds and KnowledgesOtherwise': The Latin American Modernity/Coloniality ResearchProgram." Cuadernos del CEDLA 16:31-67. Escobar, Arturo. In Press. Territories of Difference: Place,Movements, Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Esteva, Gustavo. 2001. "The Meaning and Scope of the Strugglefor Autonomy." Latin American Perspectives 28(2):120-148. Fabian, Johannes. 1983. Time and the Other: How Anthropology MakesIts Object. New York: Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is an academic press based in New York City and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan (2004-present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, . Fals Borda, Orlando. 1979a. El Problema de Como Investigar laRealidad para Transformarla por la Praxis. Bogota, Colombia: EdicionesTercer Mundo. Fals Borda, Orlando. 1979b. Historia Doble de la Costa This article refers to the resort. For the neighborhood of the same name surrounding it, see Carlsbad, California.The La Costa Resort and Spa , Vol. 1,Mompox y Loba. Bogota, Colombia: Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Fals Borda, Orlando. 1984. Historia Doble de la Costa, Vol. 3,Resistencia en el San Jorge San Jorge can refer to S?o Jorge (island) San Jorge, Samar, a municipality in the Philippines the Spanish name for Saint George See alsoSaint George (disambiguation) . Bogota, Colombia: Universidad Nacional deColombia. Fals Borda, Orlando and Muhammad Anisur Rahman Anisur Rahman (born March 1, 1971, Dhaka) is a former Bangladeshi cricketer who played in 2 ODIs from 1995 to 1998. , eds. 1991. Actionand Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action Research Action Research or Participatory action research has emerged in recent years as a significant methodology for intervention, development and change within communities and groups. It is now promoted and implemented by many international development agencies and university programs CCAR, as .New York: The Apex Press. Fernandez, Ana Maria. 2006. Politica Politica is the undergraduate journal of the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Politica solicits original student essays on topics broadly political. y Subjetividad: AsambleasBarriales y Fabricas Recuperadas. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Tinta LimonEdiciones. Fernandez Osco, Marcelo. in Press. "Ayllu: Decolonial CriticalThinking and Other Autonomy." In Mario Blaser, Ravi de Costa,Deborah McGregor and William D. Coleman William David Coleman (1842 – 1908) was the 13th President of Liberia, serving from 1896 to 1900.He was born in Fayette County, Kentucky and emigrated to Liberia at the age of 11. He was trained as a carpenter, but became a successful trader before entering politics. , eds., Indigenous Peoples,Globalization and Autonomy. Vancouver: University of British ColumbiaPress The University of British Columbia Press is a university press that is part of the University of British Columbia. It was established in 1971. External linksUniversity of British Columbia Press . Foucault, Michel Foucault, Michel,1926–84, French philosopher and historian. He was professor at the Collège de France (1970–84). He is renowned for historical studies that reveal the sometimes morally disturbing power relations inherent in social practices. . 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. A. M.Sheridan Smith Sheridan Smith (born 25 June 1981 in Epworth, North Lincolnshire) is an English actress.She is perhaps best known for playing Janet Keogh (n��e Smith) in the BBC sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. , trans. London: Tavistock. Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews andOther Writings, 1972-1977. Colin Gordon Colin Gordon (April 27, 1911 – October 4, 1972) was a British actor born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).Gordon had a long career in British cinema and television from the 1940s to the 1970s, often playing government officials. , ed. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, Michel. 1991. "Govermentality." In GrahamBurchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect:Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Freire, Paulo Freire, Paulo(pou`lō frār`), 1921–97, Brazilian educator. After his exile from Brazil following the military coup in 1964, Freire taught in Chile and was a consultant to UNESCO. . 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the most widely known of educator Paulo Freire's works. It was first published in Portuguese in 1968 as Pedagogia do oprimido and the first English translation was published in 1970. . New York, London:Continuum. Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar, ed. 2001. Alternative Modernities.Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Garcia Linera, Alvaro. 2007. "Evo Simboliza el Quiebre de unImaginario Restringido a la Subalternidad de los Indigenas." InKarin Monasterios, Pablo Stefanoni and Herve Do Alto, eds., Reinventandola Nation en Bolivia: Movimientos Sociales, Estado y Poscolonialidad,pp. 11-21. La Paz La Paz, city, BoliviaLa Paz(lä päs), city (1992 pop. 713,378), W Bolivia, administrative capital (since 1898) and largest city of Bolivia. The legal capital is Sucre. , Bolivia: CLACSO/Plural Editores. Ghosh, Kausik. 2006. "Between Global Flows and Local Dams:Indigenousness, Locality, and the Transnational Sphere in Jharkhand,India." Cultural Anthropology 21 (4): 501-534. Gill, Lesley. 2000. Teetering on the Rim. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press. Gomez, Juan. 2004. El Alto El Alto(ĕl äl`tō), city (2001 pop. 649,958), La Paz dept., W Bolivia. A burgeoning suburb of La Paz, El Alto is on a plateau overlooking the capital from the west. de Pie: Una Insurreccion Aymara enBolivia. La Paz, Bolivia: Comuna. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. [1615] 2001. Primer Nueva Cronica iBuen Gobierno (Peru, 1615). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press Museum Tusculanum Press (Danish: Museum Tusculanums Forlag) is an academic press of the University of Copenhagen for the fields of humanities, social sciences and theology. It was founded in 1975 as a non-profit institution and publishes approximately 60 titles annually. ,University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (Danish: K?benhavns Universitet) is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. . Guerra, Maria y Ezequiel Maldonado, eds. 1979. El Compromiso delIntelectual. Editorial Mexico City, Mexico: Nuestro Tiempo. Hale, Charles. 2002. "Does Multiculturalism Menace?Governance, Cultural Rights and the Politics of Identity inGuatemala." Journal of Latin American Studies The Journal of Latin American Studies (JLAS) is an interdisciplinary journal focusing on Latin America. Since 1969, it has been published quarterly, in February, May, August and November, by Cambridge University Press. 34(3):485-524. Hale, Charles. 2006. "Activist Research v. Cultural Critique:Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically EngagedAnthropology." Cultural Anthropology 21(I):96-120. Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinventionof Nature. London: Routledge. Haraway, Donna. 1997.Modest-Witness@Second-Milienium.FemaleMan-MeetsOncoMouse: Feminism andTechnoscience. New York: Routledge. Hayek, F. A. 1973. "The Principles of a Liberal SocialOrder." In Jeffrie G. Murphy, ed., An Introduction to Moral andSocial Philosophy: Basic Readings in Theory and Practice, pp. 248-263.Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Higgins, Nicholas P. 2004. Understanding the Chiapas Rebellion:Modernist Visions and the Invisible Indian. Austin: University of TexasPress. Korovin, Tanya. 2002. "Reinventing the Communal Tradition:Civil Society and Local Government in Andean Ecuador." LatinAmerican Research Review 36(3):36-68. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Moderns. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press The Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. . Latour, Bruno. 1999. Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality ofScience Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, Bruno. 2004. The Politics of Nature: How to Bring theSciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction toActor-Network-Theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Leyva Solano, Xochitl and Shannon Speed. n.d. "Hacia laInvestigacion Descolonizada: Nuestra Experiencia de Co-labor."Unpublished manuscript. Manami Ramirez, Pablo. 2005. Geopoliticas Indigenas. El Alto,Bolivia: CADES. Mato, Daniel. 2000. "Not 'Studying the Subaltern,'But Studying with 'Subaltern' Social Groups, or, at Least,Studying the Hegemonic Articulations of Power." Nepantla, Viewsfrom the South 1(3):479-502. McGregor, Deborah. 2004. "Traditional Ecological Knowledge andSustainable Development Sustainable development is a socio-ecological process characterized by the fulfilment of human needs while maintaining the quality of the natural environment indefinitely. The linkage between environment and development was globally recognized in 1980, when the International Union : Toward Co-Existence." In Maria Blaser,Harvey A. Feit and Glenn McRae, eds., In The Way of Development:Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects, and Globalization. London and Ottawa:Zed Books and IDRC. Memorias del Seminario Taller con Comunidades en Riesgo. 2003.Vida, Dignidad y Territorio: Comunidades de Paz y Zonas Humanitarias enUraba y Atrato. Bogota, Colombia: Fundacion Cultura Democratica,Ministerio del Interior, PNUD PNUD Programme des Nations Unies pour le D��veloppement (French: United Nations Development Program)PNUD Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (Spanish: United Nations Development Program for Latin America). Mignolo, Walter. 2000. Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality,Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Princeton University,at Princeton, N.J.; coeducational; chartered 1746, opened 1747, rechartered 1748, called the College of New Jersey until 1896.Schools and Research Facilities Press. Mignolo, Walter. 2007. "Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity,the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-Coloniality."Cultural Studies 21(2-3):449-514. Mol, Annemarie. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology ontology:see metaphysics. ontologyTheory of being as such. It was originally called “first philosophy” by Aristotle. In the 18th century Christian Wolff contrasted ontology, or general metaphysics, with special metaphysical theories In MedicalPractice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. 2000. Talkin' Up to the White Woman:Indigenous Women and Feminism. St. Lucia, Australia: University ofQueensland The University of Queensland (UQ) is the longest-established university in the state of Queensland, Australia, a member of Australia's Group of Eight, and the Sandstone Universities. It is also a founding member of the international Universitas 21 organisation. Press. Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (MTD). 2002. De la Culpa ala Autogestion. Buenos Aires, Argentina: MTD Editora. Nadasdy, Paul. 2003. Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge, andAboriginal-State Relations in the Southwest Yukon. Vancouver, Canada:UBC Press. Nash, June. 1993. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us. New York:Columbia University Press. Neuhaus, Susana, Hugo Calello et al. 2006. Hegemonia yEmancipacion. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Herramienta. Noble, Brian. 2007. "Justice, Transaction, Translation:Blackfoot Tipi Transfers and WIPO's Search for the Facts ofTraditional Knowledge Exchange." American Anthropologist109(2):338-349. Patzi, Felix. 2004. Sistema Comunal: Una Propuesta Alternativa alSistema Liberal. Uno Discusion Teorica para Salir de la Colonialidad ydel Liberalismo. La Paz, Bolivia: CEA. Postero, Nancy and Leon Zamosc, eds. 2004. The Struggle forIndigenous Rights in Latin America. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press. Rama, Angel. 1982. Transculturacion Narrativa en America Latina.Hanover, NH: Ediciones del Norte Del Norte can refer to multiple things: Del Norte County, California Del Norte, Colorado . Rama, Angel. 1996. The Lettered City. John Charles For the American football player of the same name see John Charles (American football).John Charles, CBE (27 December 1931 – 21 February 2004) was a Welsh football player. Chasteen, ed.and trans. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rappaport, Joanne. 2005. Intercultural Utopias: PublicIntellectuals, Cultural Experimentation and Ethnic Pluralism inColombia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ribeiro, Darcy Ribeiro, Darcy(rēbā`rü), 1922–97, Brazilian anthropologist, statesman, and author. An expert on the indigenous peoples of Brazil, he wrote many books, notably the six-volume 1960s work, . 1969. La Universidad Necesaria. Merida, Venezuela:Ediciones del Rectorado. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2004. "Toward a Counter-HegemonicGlobalisation (Part I)." In Jai Sen, Anita Anand Anita Anand is a British radio presenter and journalist born in London in the United Kingdom. Her parents were Hindus from the North West Frontier of Pakistan bordering on Afghanistan. , Arturo Escobarand Peter Waterman, eds., The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires,pp. 235-245. New Delhi New Delhi(dĕl`ē), city (1991 pop. 294,149), capital of India and of Delhi state, N central India, on the right bank of the Yamuna River. : The Viveka Foundation. Scott, James C. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant. New Haven New Haven,city (1990 pop. 130,474), New Haven co., S Conn., a port of entry where the Quinnipiac and other small rivers enter Long Island Sound; inc. 1784. Firearms and ammunition, clocks and watches, tools, rubber and paper products, and textiles are among the many ,CT: Yale University Yale University,at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was Press. Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms ofPeasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: HiddenTranscripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stahler-Sholk, Richard. 2007. "Resisting NeoliberalHomogenization homogenization(həmŏj'ənəzā`shən), process in which a mixture is made uniform throughout. Generally this procedure involves reducing the size of the particles of one component of the mixture and dispersing them evenly : The Zapatista Autonomy Movement." Latin AmericanPerspectives 34(3):48-63. Taussig, Michael T. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism In Marxist theory, commodity fetishism is a state of social relations, said to arise in complex capitalist market systems, in which social relationships center around the values placed on commodities. inSouth America South America,fourth largest continent (1991 est. pop. 299,150,000), c.6,880,000 sq mi (17,819,000 sq km), the southern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina. External linkUniversity of North Carolina Press . Universidad Intercultural Amawtay Wasi. 2004. Sumak Yachaypi: AlliKawsaypipash Yochakuno. Aprender en la Sabiduria y el Buen Vivir:Learning Wisdom and the Good Way of Life. Quito, Ecuador: Banco Centralde Ecuador. Uribe, Maria Teresa. 2004. "Emancipacion Social en un Contextode Guerra Prolongada: El Caso de la Comunidad de Paz de San Jose deApartado." In Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Maurico GarciaVillegas, ads., Emancipacion Social y Violencia en Colombia. Bogota,Colombia: Grupo Editorial Norma. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. "Exchanging Perspectives:The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in AmerindianOntologies." Common Knowledge 10(3):463-484. Walsh, Catherine. In Press. "lnterculturality and theColoniality of Power: An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning fromthe Colonial Difference." In Ramon Grosfoguel, Jose David Saldivarand Nelson Maldonado-Torres, eds., Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity,and Border Thinking. Warren, Kay. 1998. Indigenous Movements and their Critics: Pan-MayaActivism in Guatemala. Princeton, N J: Princeton University Press. Warren, Kay and Jean Jackson, ads. 2002. Indigenous Movements,Self-Representation, and the State in Latin America. Austin: Universityof Texas Press. Wolf, Eric. 1987. Europa y la Genre sin Historia. Mexico City,Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica. Zibechi, Raul. 2003. Genealogia de la Revuelta: Argentina, UnaSociedad en Movimiento. La Plata La Plata(lä plä`tä), city (1991 pop. 640,344), capital of Buenos Aires prov., E central Argentina, 5 mi (8.1 km) inland from Ensenada, its port on the Río de la Plata. , Argentina: Letra Libre. Zibechi, Raul. 2005. "Subterranean Echos: Resistance andPolitics 'Desde el Sotano.'" Socialism and Democracy19(3): 13-39. Zibechi, Raul. 2006. Dispersar el Poder: Los Movimientos comoPoderes Antiestatales. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Tinta Limon. ENDNOTES (1) If we accept the proposition that the diversity of cultures hasalways been produced through the mutual interaction of diverse cultures,the question then becomes why we should call the present state ofdiversity of cultures "modern"? The "modernness" ofall this diversity needs to be proven rather than axiomatically ax��i��o��mat��ic? also ax��i��o��mat��i��caladj.Of, relating to, or resembling an axiom; self-evident: "It's axiomatic in politics that voters won't throw out a presidential incumbent unless they think his challenger will asserted. This is where the imprecise quality of pluralized modernitybecomes apparent for in order to show how a given place is modern onewould need some criteria of what it means to be so. It is evident thatthere is no agreement among analysts about what these criteria would be,except perhaps for the unstated assumption that being modern is relatedto having somehow experienced the consequences of European expansion andcolonialism. If this is the case, then the problem is to prove that inthe ceaseless history of encounters of a given culture with others, andthe ensuing transformations generated by such interactions, theencounter with the Europeans is the most relevant for the culture inquestion, so as to warrant our defining it as being modern. Thus, ourpoint is not denying that modernity might be multiple, but that theclaim that there is nothing but modernity (pluralized as it might be)needs to be proven, and in order to do so we need clear criteria of whatit is to be modern. (2) This does not mean that modernity is homogenous homogenous - homogeneous . The ways inwhich the modern constitution can be conceived of may vary greatly asthe diverse schools of modern philosophy attest. Nevertheless, thisdiversity is not limitless. (3) On the notion of multiple worlds or multiple ontologies see Mol(2001); Latour (1993, 1999, 2004); Haraway (1991, 1997). (4) At the same time, it must be pointed out that many of thesemarginalized places can turn, or are actively turned into"borderlands," spaces overridden by the logic of war, criminalnetworks, and all kinds of violence, which in turn "call for"and justify state interventions backed up by further violence (Duffield2002). (5) We wish to stress that we are not arguing that all communities(Indigenous or otherwise) operate according to the communal system. Ineffect, there are important differences between, say, the Indigenouscommunities of hunter-gatherers in the Paraguayan Chaco, where communalinstitutions have so far effectively truncated the emergence ofpermanent hierarchies (see Bartolome 2000; Renhaw 2003), and thecommunities of handicraft handicraft:see arts and crafts. producers of the Otavalo people in Ecuador,where "reinvented" communal institutions (see Korovkin 2001)might actually operate as vehicles to reify reify - To regard (something abstract) as a material thing. economic differences (seeColloredo-Mansfeld 2002), thus making it questionable whether we canproperly speak of a communal system at all. In short, when we speak ofthe communal system we are not describing specific communities but aform of organizing social life and action that specific communitiesmight manifest, or not, in varying degrees and in different forms. (6) "[W]orlds that are more just and sustainable and, at thesame time, worlds that are defined through principles other than thoseof Eurocentric modernity" (Escobar 2004:220). (7) It is important to notice that while these developments had aspecific character in Latin America, they were part of larger trendsspanning beyond the region. Debates of this kind existed before but werenot of the magnitude of the 1960s and 1970s. (8) This "discovery" had parallels in other intellectualspaces. For instance, we can think of the pioneering work of E. P.Thomson (1971), and more generally the Centre for Contemporary CulturalStudies The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) was a research centre at the University of Birmingham. It was founded in 1964 by Richard Hoggart, its first director. Its object of study was the then new field of cultural studies. (CCCS CCCS Consumer Credit Counseling ServiceCCCS Colorado Community College SystemCCCS Core Curriculum Content StandardsCCCS Calvary Chapel Christian SchoolCCCS Current Controlled Current SourceCCCS Corpus Christi Catholic SchoolCCCS Call Centre Council of Singapore ), James Scott (1976, 1985, 1990), and in anthropology,Michael Taussig (1980), June Nash (1993) and Commaroff (1985) asdifferent examples of an emphasis on understanding the agency ofsubalterns as so many expressions of different historicalconsciousnesses and moral economies. Among many Latin American modernintellectuals, this concern took the shape of a veritable"tradition," that of the "committed intellectuals."Prominent among these committed intellectuals were Orlando Fals-Borda(Colombia), Adolfo Colombres (Argentina), Paulo Freire (Brazil), DarcyRibeiro (Brazil), Guillermo Bonfil Batalla (Mexico), Stefano Varese(Peru), and others. It is important to highlight the strikinglydifferent understanding between this and a previous"discovery" of the Other as knowledge producer that waspopular among intellectual elites through the early part of the 20thcentury and is known as indigenismo. Indigenismo was concerned with anidealized Indigenous past that could be reclaimed by mestizointellectuals as a heritage with the same standing as the Europeanheritage. In contrast to the committed intellectuals' concern withcontemporary subaltern groups and their knowledges, indigenismodismissed contemporary agrarian Indigenous people's culturalproductions and knowledges as devoid of any real value (see de la Cadena2000; Rama 1982). (9) As Mato (2000:493) argues, Freire, a central proponent of the"committed intellectual tradition," recognized the implicitdanger of sustaining a notion of Truth "by being particularlycritical of [the] notion of consientizacao (critical consciousness)which he found contradictory to his ideas [of dialogue] because itsuggested that there is one individual [the modern intellectual] whoalready has a critical consciousness and another who does not." (10) Decolonial thinking makes reference to the idea of thinkingfrom a "double consciousness" or from two differenttraditions, the dominant modern and the subalternized Others (seeMignolo 2000). Juan Ricardo Aparicio University of North Carolina North Carolina,state in the SE United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina and Georgia (S), Tennessee (W), and Virginia (N).Facts and FiguresArea, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop. , Chapel Hill Marie Blaser York University