Decolonial Turn in Epistemology

The decolonial project critiques modernity/coloniality as a single epistemic regime. Walter Mignolo, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and Sylvia Wynter are key voices.

Coloniality of Knowledge

Mignolo (The Darker Side of Western Modernity, 2011): Eurocentric reason universalized itself, marginalizing other knowledges.

Coloniality is constitutive of modernity — delinking is necessary.

Border Thinking

Thinking from the exteriority of the system — from the borders where colonial difference is lived. "Border thinking is the necessary epistemology for decolonial projects." (Mignolo)

Epistemic Disobedience

Santos (Epistemologies of the South, 2014): Reject the monoculture of knowledge; recognize ecology of knowledges.

Wynter: Man vs Human

Sylvia Wynter: Western "Man" (white, bourgeois, rational) is a genre of the human — decolonial work redefines humanity beyond this overrepresentation.

Pluriversal Knowledges

Create space for multiple worlds without one dominating.

Influences global south theory, indigenous studies, critical university movements.