The EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE SOUTH as an expression of epistemological and ontological struggles reflect the debates that make up a set of texts by several of the authors who are members of the Working Group Epistemologies of the South (2016-2019) who have been participating for several years in one of the virtual learning and training spaces co-organized by the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES) and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), entitled Justice among knowledges: epistemologies of the south and knowledge born from struggle.  Specifically, this volume, coordinated by Maria Paula Meneses and Karina Bidaseca, was the result of the CLACSO Epistemological Study Working Group (2018). The book draws attention to the immense experience of knowledge created and tested in struggles, in a space as vast as the Global South. The root of this challenge lies in the concerns of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who, in line with many other intellectuals, is troubled by the growing exhaustion of the modern rational analytical model, and thus proposed the challenge of going to the South and working with the South (1995: 508).  

The hegemonic thinking of modern science is responsible for a tradition of political and cultural domination that has subjugated the diversity of knowledge in the world, the meaning of life, social practices, bodies, and identities, from a colonial, patriarchal, and Eurocentric perspective that continues even today in a completely racist and conservative world, with neo-fascist characteristics that threaten this diversity. While acknowledging the experiences that bear witness to the enormous historical diversity of the world, Europe cannot reflect productively and constructively on this diversity, using it to find solutions to its own problems. The root of this inability is the persistence of colonial prejudices deeply rooted in the epistemological sphere, which extends beyond the end of many situations of historical colonialism. It is these prejudices that compromise the search for solutions to current crises (political, cultural, economic, financial, human rights, etc.), solutions inspired by those developed in other contexts.

Thus, “This South reveals a vast pluriverse of knowledge, serving as a metaphor for encounters, confrontations, and the pollination of knowledge. At a time characterized by strong questions and weak answers, the encounter with southern diversity raises multiple questions that the texts in this volume seek to answer: Why, in recent centuries, has the dominant epistemology eliminated the cultural and political context from epistemological reflection, from the production and reproduction of knowledge? Is the diversity of science the result of epistemological pluralism? Or does the reason for this diversity have ontological origins, a diversity resulting from the heterogeneity of the world? How can we recognize other epistemologies and generate dialogues between them? What is the role of public universities in the production of knowledge committed to social transformation?” (p. 5).

From the perspective of subaltern studies, "provincializing the world," as Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000) emphasizes, means dismantling, deconstructing, and decolonizing the epistemologies of the Global North. Thus, assuming research and knowledge production as ethical and political processes committed to struggle, research itself must be conducted differently—with people, rather than by people—in an open challenge to extractive research (Santos, 2018). Research conducted with and from the Global South requires significant political and epistemic shifts: initial problems are based on dialogue, priorities are organized according to the interests and priorities of the Global South, and problems are defined in such a way that subjects from the Global South participate as agents, not objects, producing knowledge within these struggles.

Whether through activism, academic work, feminist movements, or gender studies, feminist movements have opened up a new space for debate encompassing diverse areas, from history to philosophy, from law to various fields of science, such as medicine and biology. Along the way, there have been several challenges, such as the complexity inherent in the knowledge generated by social struggles and the difficulty of translating this knowledge to broaden its diversity while avoiding reductions and ambiguous representations. A profound commitment to democratic renewal at different levels seeks a different sense of being and knowing—that is, a responsible ontological and epistemological challenge.

We live in turbulent and complex times. The legacy of colonial ideology, closely associated with capitalist and patriarchal domination, is so heavy that in the Global South, oppressed and subordinate groups are denied the right to express themselves, to share their knowledge, and to speak about their realities and experiences. Or, if they do, this knowledge remains confined to local contexts, endowed with a particular value, useful only within the context that produces it. As a consequence of the repression and marginalization of knowledge that deviates from scientific rationality, "authorized ignorance" (Spivak, 1985: 6) is generated, possible only in a social context where those privileged to benefit from a hegemonic worldview protect these privileges and the structures of knowledge and power that sanction them by rejecting and disqualifying other worldviews (or epistemes). These attacks occur individually or institutionally, passively or actively. In the passive case, there is a refusal to recognize, learn, and understand marginalized epistemes; in the active case, there is an active denial of knowledge about these studies. Challenging these epistemic and political positions, epistemologies of the South are based on the principle of an ecology of knowledges and, therefore, do not grant epistemological privileges to any form of knowledge. They aim to generate the essential conditions for overcoming the epistemological hegemony of the Global North. To this end, it is imperative to go to the South and learn from the South—not from the imperial South (which reproduces the logic of the North, taken as universal), but from the anti-imperial South, a metaphor for the systematic and unjust human suffering caused by global capitalism and the resistance against it (Santos, 2014: 42). In this context, it is essential to characterize the abyssal exclusions in their multiple metamorphoses in order to identify and improve epistemologies of the South.

The Epistemologies of the South, as proposed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, advocate for the expansion of political imagination beyond the intellectual and political exhaustion of the Global North. This exhaustion translates into an inability to confront the challenges of this century and into threats to democracy, law, and human dignity. The South serves as a metaphor for the human suffering caused by major forms of oppression—capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy—and the various forms of struggle and resistance against these oppressions. In this sense, the Epistemologies of the South seek to broaden the possibilities of rethinking the world based on the knowledge and practices of the Global South, challenging attempts at epistemicide or epistemic subalternization. Within this framework, they provide theoretical and methodological tools that enable the development of a critical diagnosis of the present, one whose constitutive element is the possibility of reconstructing, formulating, and legitimizing alternatives for a more just and free society.

This GT, when it was proposed to CLACSO 3 years ago, had two central objectives:

a) to constitute a flexible group, which includes colleagues who, based on their theoretical reflections and practical work in and with social movements, seek to give coherence to an analytical proposal for the characterization and understanding of the Global South;

b) This group aimed to identify themes and reflective groups that have been less present in reflections on the South, especially going beyond continental reflections (Latin America / Africa / Asia), in order to produce another geopolitical, epistemic and ontological reading of the contemporary world.

The online course on epistemologies of the south, along with publications, discussion circles and regular meetings (whose course took place in Buenos Aires during the VIII CLACSO Conference in 2018) showed that the objectives were met.

Whether due to student interest in the Epistemologies of the South course or the responses to joining the reconstitution of this Working Group, the interest in thinking about and re-existing the Global South as an alternative to the colonial-capitalist and heteropatriarchal monoculture is evident. Based on this interest, we are moving forward with a proposal for a broader and more consolidated Working Group, integrating colleagues from diverse geographical and thematic areas, thus fulfilling CLACSO's challenge to expand South-South cooperation based on specific struggles, experiences, and contexts. 

The importance of the epistemic and political reflections and practices of this GT was reflected, as we mentioned, in a joint publication coordinated by Karina Bidaeca and Maria Paula Meneses, which was a great success with the public.

Now it is important to advance the increasingly profound debate on the conditions for decolonization, decoding, and radical change of the patriarchy that marks our struggles and still governs many of our societies. Decolonization, as a process of deepening democracy, requires, as Boaventura de Sousa Santos emphasizes, the right to be equal when our difference makes us inferior; and the right to be different when our equality distorts us. Hence the need for an equality that recognizes differences and a difference that does not produce, fuel, or reproduce inequalities. That is to say, from the right to the diversity of knowledge, contextually legitimized, in the plural, created by subjects with a voice, a fundamental condition for understanding the Global South from within the Global South. To know from the South and with the South is to learn from other experiences, to learn to listen deeply to other voices, to relearn the importance of art, music, affection, and care. Re-educating ourselves will be at the heart of the challenge of this Working Group.

The Working Group will be structured around these fundamental axes of the Epistemologies of the South linked to these working premises:

1. That the interpretation of the world transcends the Eurocentric interpretation of it;

2. That global social justice is not possible without global cognitive justice;

3. That emancipatory knowledge is produced from the experiences of the subjects of the world, and not from experimentation on objects;

4. That the emancipatory transformations produced in the world cannot be confined to grammars and scripts developed by critical theory centered on the Global North; on the contrary, the Epistemologies of the South claim a diversity that is possible to (re)cognize and value.

 We also propose linking our work with other working groups such as Afrodescendencias y propuestas contra-hegemónicas (Afro-descendants and Counter-Hegemonic Proposals), with whom we share the possibility of reflecting on “race” and racism, the concepts of “Negritude” (Fanon), and situated thought processes specific to the Caribbean and the Antilles, connecting them to the work of Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire, as well as African thinkers like Valentin Mudimbe, who conceives of the coloniality of knowledge in terms of what he calls the “colonial library.” Decolonizing universities becomes a key performative gesture in our challenges as a group.

This new period will be dedicated to consolidating the promotion of South-South interdisciplinary dialogues that seek to document and interpret resistance to colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy in our societies and to propose counter-hegemonic policies. Its horizon is to study the Global South in all its diversity—a South that metaphorically expresses a broad field of economic, social, cultural, and political innovation of increasing diversity, in which dialogues between different forms of knowledge reflect the conditions of pluriversality.