Decolonizing knowledge and other epistemologies for rethinking education from Latin America

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71112/bm2s8p72

Keywords:

coloniality of knowledge, epistemologies of the South, critical interculturality, initial teacher education, cognitive justice

Abstract

This article examines the decolonization of educational knowledge in Latin America through a theoretical and documentary review of coloniality, epistemologies of the South, and critical interculturality. It explores how hierarchies of epistemic legitimacy shape curricula, teacher education, and assessment. An interpretive comparison of selected scholarship and Bolivia’s Education Law No. 070 identifies tensions between cultural recognition and the redistribution of epistemic authority. The analytical findings emphasize community participation, responsible assessment of knowledge claims, and context-sensitive curricular decisions. The article argues that decolonizing education requires accountable institutional changes as well as pedagogies capable of combining pluralism, critical scrutiny, and cognitive justice. This review includes neither fieldwork nor causal claims about educational outcomes.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Purich Publishing.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1970). La reproduction: Éléments pour une théorie du système d’enseignement. Éditions de Minuit.

Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Polity Press.

de la Cadena, M. (2015). Earth beings: Ecologies of practice across Andean worlds. Duke University Press.

Dussel, E. (1994). 1492: El encubrimiento del Otro. Hacia el origen del mito de la modernidad. Plural Editores.

Escobar, A. (2003). Mundos y conocimientos de otro modo: El programa de investigación de modernidad/colonialidad latinoamericano. Tabula Rasa, (1), 51–86.

Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press.

Fanon, F. (1961). Les damnés de la terre. François Maspero.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogia do oprimido. Paz e Terra.

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogia da autonomia: Saberes necessários à prática educativa. Paz e Terra.

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.

Lander, E. (Ed.). (2000). La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales. Perspectivas latinoamericanas. CLACSO.

Lugones, M. (2008). Colonialidad y género. Tabula Rasa, (9), 73–101.

Medina, J. (2013). The epistemology of resistance: Gender and racial oppression, epistemic injustice, and resistant imaginations. Oxford University Press.

Mignolo, W. D. (2000). Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton University Press.

Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.

Ministerio de Educación del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. (2010). Ley de la Educación «Avelino Siñani–Elizardo Pérez», Ley N.º 070. https://www.minedu.gob.bo/files/documentos-normativos/leyes/LEY_070_AVELINO_SINANI_ELIZARDO_PEREZ.pdf

Quijano, A. (2000). Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. En E. Lander (Ed.), La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales. Perspectivas latinoamericanas (pp. 201–246). CLACSO.

Quijano, A. (2007). Colonialidad del poder y clasificación social. En S. Castro-Gómez & R. Grosfoguel (Eds.), El giro decolonial: Reflexiones para una diversidad epistémica más allá del capitalismo global (pp. 93–126). Siglo del Hombre Editores.

Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2010). Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: Una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores. Tinta Limón.

Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2018). Un mundo ch’ixi es posible: Ensayos desde un presente en crisis. Tinta Limón.

Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.

Santos, B. de S. (2009). Una epistemología del Sur: La reinvención del conocimiento y la emancipación social. Siglo XXI Editores / CLACSO.

Santos, B. de S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Paradigm Publishers.

Santos, B. de S. (2018). The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the South. Duke University Press.

Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). Zed Books.

Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? En C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). University of Illinois Press.

Walsh, C. (2005). Interculturalidad, conocimientos y decolonialidad. Signo y Pensamiento, 24(46), 39–50. https://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/signoypensamiento/article/view/4663

Walsh, C. (2007). Interculturalidad, colonialidad y educación. Revista Educación y Pedagogía, 19(48), 25–35. https://revistas.udea.edu.co/index.php/revistaeyp/article/view/6652

Walsh, C. (Ed.). (2013). Pedagogías decoloniales: Prácticas insurgentes de resistir, (re)existir y (re)vivir (Tomo I). Ediciones Abya-Yala.

Walsh, C. E. (2023). On justice, pedagogy, and decolonial(izing) praxis. Educational Theory, 73(4), 511–529. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12592

Published

2020-10-22

Issue

Section

Education Sciences

How to Cite

Tarqui Laura, M. . (2020). Decolonizing knowledge and other epistemologies for rethinking education from Latin America. Multidisciplinary Journal Epistemology of the Sciences, 3(4), 609-633. https://doi.org/10.71112/bm2s8p72