Postcolonial Theory, Subaltern Studies and Latin America: an epistemological turn?

Abstract

In order to address the issues of colonialism and its heritage we will highlight the two main theoretical currents that have gained visibility in academic circles in the last decades: postcolonial theory and subaltern studies. Those theoretical perspectives allow the reconstruction of the spaces of discourse emission in societies where the knowledge/power of coloniality has settled, highlighting the rescue of history, of knowledge and of the subaltern subject in its struggle for autonomy. In the wake of this reflection, part of Latin American social theory and their representatives have been claiming a decolonial shift, a break with Western-centrism and its echoes in knowledge. Our hypothesis is that the synthesis of those theories is effective for understanding the Latin American reality while also promoting the critical renewal of knowledge from a political and intellectual perspective, as well as the emancipation from various situations of oppression defined through boundaries of gender, race or ethnicity and fundamentally, class.