Postmodern thought, the decolonial perspective, and the ontoepistemological construction of democracy in the Global South

Abstract

Taking decolonial thought as a foundational element for the emergence of other epistemologies, we discuss the importance of the postmodern turn in confronting colonial/modern paradigms and the development of contemporary studies involving the concept of democracy, from local perspectives. To this end, we draw on Bezerra (2007) and Portela Júnior (2015) to address the concepts of modernity and postmodernity; Queiroz (2020) and Mignolo (2020) to discuss the concept of coloniality; and Nascimento (2021) to link our discussion to the idea of locus of enunciation. We conclude that adopting postmodern thought, grounded in the perspective of decolonial studies for research on democracy, contributes to overcoming socially shared archetypes perpetuated for centuries in colonized countries, such as Brazil.