Coloniality, distribution of the sensible and decolonization: a Rancierian critique of Walter Mignolo's “colonial option”

Abstract

In this paper we propose to address and problematize some aspects of the decolonial option of the argentine semiologist Walter Mignolo. Specifically, we are interested in investigating the articulation of two central categories of his thought; "colonial difference" and "geopolitics of knowledge" and how give rise to a politics of identity. To deepen this problematization, and as the main contribution of the writing, we propose to rebuild the notion partage du sensible of Jacques Rancière in order to see if it is possible and what implications would think coloniality in this terms. We argue that drawing this conceptual link will allow us to elucidate why Mignolo's theoretical device, by stabilizing a relationship between way of being, place and thought, reproduces a certain colonial logic and can also suggest us to think decolonization without an identity imprint. To explore this last point, we will briefly return to the way in which Rancière thinks about the processes of political subjectivation in order to put him in dialogue with a specific decolonial practice: the appropriation of the principles of the French Revolution than by black slaves in the Haiti independence.

Keywords

• diferencia colonial
• geopolítica del saber
• colonialidad
• reparto de lo sensible
• igualdad