Abstract: Published by Duke University Press Books in 2018, On decoloniality: concepts, analytics and praxis, by Catherine Walsh and Walter Mignolo, presents decoloniality as a concept, analysis and practice against modernity/coloniality. Critics point out that the segments could be more integrated to enrich the dialog between the authors.

Keywords: Decoloniality, modernity/coloniality, and decolonial practices.

On decoloniality: concepts, analytics and praxis, published by Duke University Press Books in 2018, is written by Catherine Walsh and Walter Mignolo. In the book, the authors propose to present decoloniality as a concept, analysis and praxis against modernity/coloniality. Walsh and Mignolo see Aníbal Quijano’s concept of coloniality as the intersection of their ideas, which permeates the debate on decoloniality and serves as a basis for theories and understanding of decolonial practices. The book was conceived at a necessary moment in proposing to present decolonial thought and practice, because, as the authors note at the time of writing the book reviewed here, we are witnessing the election and first months of Donald Trump as president of the United States, the return of the extreme right in Argentina and Brazil, the war in Syria, the shift from “neoliberal globalism” to “national Americanism,” the return of right-wing nationalisms, among others. All punctuated events are seen as “the turmoil is now at once domestic, transnational, interstate, and global. [1]. (p. 5).

Catherine Walsh, born in the United States, is a professor at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador, where she works with indigenous and Afro-descendant movements, participates in the Modernity/Coloniality Group, and develops studies based on concepts such as decolonial pedagogy and interculturality. For his part, the Argentinean Walter Mignolo taught at the University of Indiana, Toulouse, and Michigan after completing his Ph.D. in France. He is a professor at Duke University and, like Walsh, a member of the M/C group, in which he theorizes the triad of modernity/coloniality/decoloniality and writes, among other things, about what he calls the colonial matrix of power.

As we emphasized in the title of the review, the writing practice chosen by the two authors was called Thinking-doing and Doing-Thinking, so that both could write without losing the connection between the two parts that belong to the book. In the first part, written by Catherine Walsh, the movement takes place through Doing-Thinking, as the author presents decolonial praxis from the perspective of the groups that take it as an option, a way of life. The second part is dedicated to theorizing, outlining some decolonial practices in development. As the authors point out, the second part is a meditation on the coloniality of power.

With this movement of doing/thinking and thinking/doing, Catherine Walsh, in her four chapters[3] and conclusion[4], introduces us to decoloniality and what decoloniality is for, based on examples of struggles, transformations and movements of marginalized, subalternized peoples who have come together to resist the impositions of modernity/coloniality. In addition, from the stance called “thinking with”, the author states that this shift from “studying about” to “thinking with” requires the enunciation of the researcher as well as their presence in this thinking process. In this sense, the author has built her chapters on the experiences of the peoples, social and popular movements involved in the struggles, and on academic theorizing in dialogue with examples of decolonial struggles against the modern/colonial order, or as the Zapatistas call it, the “capitalist hydra. Walsh works with concepts such as decolonial ruptures, decolonial pedagogies, decolonial feminism, shifts, praxis, with our focus on insurgency, resurgence, interculturality, and decoloniality.

Decoloniality is primarily a term that means “resistance and refusal” [6] (p. 17), i.e. it is an ongoing struggle against the colonialities imposed on subaltern and marginalized groups by the colonizing worldview. Decoloniality is also a theory, a concept, and a category in the development of historical experience that emerged at the end of the 20th century, when a group of scholars realized that in order to study colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, it would be necessary to have their own conceptualizations and categories. This was because it was understood that the forms of colonization occurred in different ways in different territories. This group (or research project) is called Modernity/Coloniality, to which both authors of the book under review belong.

From the experiences discussed by the author in the first part of the book, we see the peoples who fought to regain the name Abya Yala [9]. This was the name given by the Kuna-Tule peoples to the lands of Latin America before the colonial invasion and the recuperation of Abya Yala by the indigenous peoples as a way to counter the celebrations of “discovery” in the second half of the 20th century. Thus, this opposition, rupture, renaming is perceived as a decolonial practice that takes place through resurgence when it is used against the conceptions imposed by a Eurocentric vision that modifies and destroys an entire existing social, political, economic and territorial organization. Resurgence, according to the author, is “[…] as renewal, restoration, revival or a continuation after interruption of knowledge, life, practices and re-existences […]” [10] (p. 19).

In addition to this decolonial practice, the author discusses the struggles of black women and the importance of cimarronaje (or marronage) as a practice. Understood as a mode of rebellion, of existence and re-existence in the midst of colonizing impositions based on the idea of race, gender, and labor, cimmarronage, according to the author in dialogue with Libia Grueso, is “a way of rethinking oneself against the form of colonialism that is structured on the denial and negation of the other-slave-and that determines a sense of gender as an imposed category.” [11] (p. 42).

This way of rethinking is what will guide relations between black men and women based on the denial of the patriarchal organization imposed by the white Western worldview. Thus, this practice is perceived as insurgent because it is a point of view that disobeys colonizing impositions. Insurgency, for Walsh, does not negate “resurgence” but goes beyond it when people seek the decolonization of being, knowing, and thinking. It is important to note, as the author does, that decoloniality is not a term used by these communities. Furthermore, when we speak of interculturality, which, as the author states, is a “proposal, process and project to transform, reconceptualize and re-found structures and institutions” [14], and in this way it is hoped that justice will be achieved by “relating different cultural logics, practices and ways of knowing, thinking, acting, being and living” [15], without the conflictive aspects ceasing to exist (p. 59).

Walter Mignolo, for his part, engages in a dialogue based on concepts that are also fundamental for understanding the coloniality of power and how its tentacles destroy the knowledge, know-how, practices and languages of marginalized and subalternized peoples and societies. In The Decolonial Option, composed of six chapters[16] that outline the various concepts through their definitions and differentiations, Mignolo asserts that decoloniality is the concept that allows us to see coloniality and perceive it as the dark side concealed by illusory modernity. For this reason, in order to understand decoloniality, it is necessary to first understand the other two concepts.

This necessity stems from the idea that modernity and coloniality are interdependent, because without modernity, coloniality would not exist, and without coloniality, nothing would sustain modernity. Therefore, without the existence and mutual maintenance of modernity/coloniality, decoloniality would not be necessary. As the author points out when dealing with the conceptual triad, there is a simultaneity in the existence not only of modernity/coloniality, but of the triad of modernity/coloniality/decoloniality.

The illusory narrative of modernity is present in discourses based primarily on modernization and development, but at other times this modernity has also been called “renaissance, progress, and the civilizing mission” [17] (p. 110). Coloniality is constitutive of modernity as its dark side, maintaining the discourse of modernity through its various forms of marginalization, subalternization, whether through the idea of race, gender, episteme, or religion. In outlining these concepts, the author explains why the term “thinking and doing differently” emerges.

For the author, it lies in the need to think about the experiences that have been denied, concealed, hidden, and repressed by modernity, and this doing is done by presenting modernity as only half the story because it doesn’t fit or serve “the imaginaries and desires of storytellers who legitimize themselves in the name of science, politics, and economics that provide a guarantee for the well-being and interests of storytellers. [19]. [19]. (p. 113). As a repressed part, coloniality is continuous and marks economy and politics. Mignolo understands that the terms coloniality and coloniality of power are abbreviations of the term colonial pattern of power (popularized by Aníbal Quijano), which for him is inscribed as the colonial matrix of power, correlating with the thesis of the film The Matrix. This is how he translates it, because he considers that the matrix “[…] is a set of structural relations and flows constitutive of an entity (conceptual and mechanical, as in the film The Matrix). [20] (p. 114). The Matrix is the organization of a system in which the minority holds power and controls the lives of the majority.

Decoloniality, finally, is the process and practice of undoing and redoing the conditioning factors that allow colonialities to exist and, for the author, to re-exist as conceived by Walsh. This practice is not carried out by the state, but by subalternized, marginalized and racialized groups that organize themselves to disengage from the colonial matrix and, as the author states, decoloniality is an option that in its process aims to disengage from all forms of coloniality, from being, knowledge, nature, among others. However, this option becomes an imperative, according to the Kantian understanding, for “whoever embraces the decolonial option, it cannot be a missionary imperative to control and dominate. And above all, it is not a claim that decoloniality is the option where the final truth is housed without parentheses. [21] (p. 225).

It is important to emphasize that the practice of decoloniality faces significant challenges when we think about its development on a larger scale, aiming at social and economic transformation in the struggle against the colonial matrix of power. Mignolo states that decoloniality is not a mission, but an option. With this statement, the author indicates that decoloniality is one of many processes/ways and that it is a choice to practice “decolonial liberation”. However, the author builds his argument from the perspective that the choice is individual, based on one’s own experiences. This uncollectivized approach limits the potential of decoloniality as an effective political force in the struggle against the tentacles of modernity/coloniality. In this way, Mignolo’s position makes the practical application of decoloniality less convincing in terms of achieving tangible and transformative results at the systemic level.

Finally, by committing to discussing decoloniality from a Thinking-Doing and Doing-Thinking writing proposal, the two segments of the book could be in separate books, since there is no direct dialogue between the authors, which, if it existed, could further enrich the first work in the On Decoloniality series.

However, we understand that the book is crucial for decolonial studies. It provides an insight into the practices of popular and social movements and indigenous peoples, as well as the concepts of the authors. The work is a resistance to events that seek to deny, erase, subaltern and marginalize people through colonizing discourses. In doing so, they destroy the knowledge and know-how of colonized peoples. The authors position themselves as follows: “With this book, we intend to open a global conversation that the series will build upon, expand, and extend. [2]. (p. 11).

The authors thus present us with decolonial practices such as insurgency, resurgence, interculturality, which can be observed in the practices of indigenous peoples, the Zapatistas, the Cimarronaje insurgency practice itself, among others, and should be read even by non-specialists who are engaged in movements ideologically marked by these phenomena and who consider themselves to belong to the field of decolonial pedagogy or decolonial history. However, as announced above, the book fulfills its purpose insofar as it presents decoloniality as a concept, analysis, and practice against modernity/coloniality.

Summary of On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analysis, Practice

Introduction

1. Decoloniality in/As Practice | Catherine E. Walsh

The Decolonial For: Resurgences, Shifts, and Movements

Insurgency and Decolonial Perspective, Practice, and Project

Interculturality and Decoloniality

On Decolonial Dangers, Decolonial Fissures, and Rising Decolonial Pedagogies

Conclusion: Seeding and Growing Decoloniality in/as Practice: Some Final Thoughts

1. What does it mean to decolonize? | Walter D. Mignolo

The Conceptual Triad: Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality 6

The Invention of the Human and the Three Pillars of Power 7

The Colonial Matrix of Power: Racism, Sexism and Nature

Colonial/Imperial Differences: Classifying and Inventing Global Orders of Lands, Seas, and Living Organisms

Eurocentrism and Coloniality: The question of the totality of knowledge

Decoloniality is an option, not a mission

Concluding remarks

Afterword(s)

Selected Bibliography

Bibliographical Index

Reviewers

Elizabeth Souza Oliveira holds a degree in History from the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) and a Master’s degree in Education from the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS). Among other works, she has published “O Pensamento Decolonial: Conceitos para Pensar uma Prática de Pesquisa de Resistência” https://periodicos.ufs.br/historiar/article/view/15456 ID LATTES: 4043480788411718; ID: ORCID: 0000-0002-8948-7382; Email: eliza.oliveira.58@gmail.com.

To cite this review

MIGNOLO, Walter D.; WALSH, Catherine E. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analysis, Practice. Duke University Press, 2018. 291p. Reviewed by: OLIVEIRA, Elizabeth Souza. Thinking-doing and Doing-thinking. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.16, mar./abr., 2024. Available at <>.