33 Decoloniality: Anibal Quijano

Rakesh M Krishnan and Sujata Patel

Introduction

Anibal Quijano (b 1928)

The idea of “race” is surely the most efﬁcient instrument of social domination produced in the last 500 years. Dating from the very beginning of the formation of the Americas and of capitalism (at the turn of the 16th century), in the ensuing centuries it was imposed on the population of the whole planet as an aspect of European colonial domination.

Quijano (2007b: 45)

Anibal Quijano is a Peruvian theoretician of decolonial perspective and has contributed immensely to the field of post-colonial studies and critical theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anibal_Quijano). He engages modernity as an episteme through the conceptual category – coloniality of power. According to Arias (2013:214), he is the first scholar to introduce the concept of coloniality in the year 1989. Quijano is part of a larger community of scholars who have been interrogating the concept of modernity in the context of Latin America. Latin American scholars critically engaged with modernity to historicise the geo-political developments that have led to the conquest of Latin America. This helped them to understand the processes of social change in their region. Structures of power initiated by the process of colonisation are the subject of study and analysis by Quijano. This module will try to recover Quijano‘s engagement with the concept of modernity and evaluate it critically.

2. What is Decoloniality?

The term decolonisation of social theory needs to be clarified before any further elaboration.

Decoloniality has been called a form of ―epistemic disobedience‖ (Mignolo 2011: 122-123), ―epistemic de-linking‖ (Mignolo 2007: 450), and ―epistemic reconstruction‖ (Quijano 2007: 176). In this sense, decolonial thinking is the recognition and implementation of a border gnosis or subaltern reason (Mignolo 2000: 88), a means of eliminating the provincial tendency to pretend that Western European modes of thinking are in fact universal ones (Quijano 2000: 544). In its less theoretical, and more practical applications—such as movements for Indigenous autonomy, like Zapatista self-government—decoloniality is called a ―programmatic‖ of de-linking from contemporary legacies of coloniality (Mignolo 2007: 452), a response to needs unmet by the modern Rightist or Leftist governments, (Mignolo 2011: 217), or, most broadly, social movements in search of a ―new humanity‖ (Mignolo 2011: 52) or the search for ―social liberation from all power organized as inequality, discrimination, exploitation, and domination‖ (Quijano 2007: 178).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoloniality

There are multiple concepts associated with the project of decolonisation of social theory as indicated above. In this context, it will be useful to look at the commentary of Arthur Escobar (2002) [http://apse.or.cr/webapse/pedago/enint/escobar03.pdf] who maps out the project of decolonisation of social theory in his presentation titled Worlds and Knowledges Others. In this presentation he locates the Latin American critique of modernity. Escobar (ibid) in his appraisal presents the array of concepts and categories that are part of the Latin American perspectives on modernity. He maps out the intellectual background of the interventions by various scholars. Multiple strands of thoughts and approaches inform the various formulations that are discussed in the Latin American intellectual terrain. However, he posits that there is a common strand that stitches the diverse intellectual forays of the various scholars. In his opinion, it is the urge to look at the social and political reality of Latin America against the mainstream narratives of modernity like, Christianity, Liberalism and Marxism, which inform the thought processes of these scholars. Alternative formulations for the western understanding of modernity have been articulated through various approaches like liberation philosophy, dependency theories etc. According to Escobar; Anibal Quijano, Enrique Dussel and Walter Mignolo are the main intellectual sources of this Latin American intellectual enterprise.

Unlike the Western European understanding of modernity, Latin American perspective contests the historical, sociological, cultural and philosophical underpinnings of modernity. In doing so Eurocentric understanding of the world is questioned. Escobar argues that modernity/coloniality project of Latin America sets out to (i) re-historicise the origin of modernity in the conquest of America and not in the 17th century Europe, the latter centered around the periods of Reformation, Enlightenment and French Revolution; (ii) focus on the political economy of colonialism and understanding capitalist world system as constitutive of modernity; (iii) a world-historical lens is deployed to understand the reasons of and for European domination at a particular point in world history and seeing at as an event among series of events in the world history; (iv) positing the idea that domination beyond the core countries of modernity as a need and logic of modernity and examining the impact of this process of modernity on the knowledge and culture of the dominated groups and; (v) hegemonic representation of knowledge production is seen as Eurocentrism and this representation and mode of knowing which is seen to be claiming universality for itself, is questioned.

In taking the above mentioned standpoint, the Latin American perspective yielded the following position – modernity cannot be viewed outside coloniality and in fact it is argued that coloniality constitutes modernity. Therefore colonial difference is an important site for re-thinking and re-assembling the contours and history of modernity as narrated by thinkers rooted in the dominant episteme – North Western European understanding of modernity. It is to be noted that modernity is not seen as an emancipatory project by the critical interlocutors from Latin America, on the contrary it is seen as a process and project that is creating and accentuating social cleavages. Sensitising the thought process to the colonial differences embedded in the thought processes and social relations, is critical in formulating decolonised theories. Mignolo in his reflection over a conference presents the nuanced positions of himself, Dussel and Quijano. To provide particular introduction to Quijano from this general introduction one can examine Mignolo (2002) at http://waltermignolo.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/Geopolitics.pdf.

3. Coloniality of Power: Re-enacting the category

In this section, we will be looking at certain key works of Quijano to understand and describe the concept of ‗coloniality of power‘. These works, written at various times, attempt to make an elaborate statement on the concept and overlaps in its descriptions and explanations as it tries to fine tune the idea. The significance of the concept lies in the fact that modernity does not talk about how change is introduced or made. It is through colonialism that socio- economic and political change is introduced in a society. For modernity to be effective, colonialism was important since it gave power to make changes.

To start with, Quijano (1993) shows us how the history of modernity unveiled in the Iberian Europe implicated changes in Latin America. Quijano (1993) discusses how ideals and utopias were formed in Europe and the process of their export to the Americas. Furthermore, he traces the linkage between the history of struggle for domination among the European nations and concomitant repercussions in Latin America. He suggests that both Europe and America were in the same trajectory of modernity wherein there was a simultaneous development and transformation of mercantile capital. However, the decline of Spain and rise of Great Britain arrested the tendencies of capital transformation and social change in Latin America. Internal changes in Europe according to him were ―more than decisive – it was catastrophic‖ and ―Latin America would not again encounter modernity except under the guise of modernisation‖ (ibid: 146).

Latin America‘s encounter of modernity was through colonial experience and Quijano asserts how the domination of colonial powers produced a certain form of modernity. The decline of Spain as a consequence of developments in the 17th and 18th centuries led to the stoppage of socio-economic transformations in Latin America. It is argued that even though Latin America is a ―passive recipient‖ of the modernisation process in 1960s, it was earlier an ―active participant in the production of modernity.‖ Quijano argues that in the construction of future, which is a central axis around which the new intersubjectivity that constitutes modernity (―modernity as a movement of social intersubjectivity‖) was framed, is a reflection of the Latin American or Andean social institutions. Hence the centrality of Latin America in the construction of ideals and utopias that inform the European project of modernity is underlined. This emphasis is central to Quijano‘s assertion that modernity and coloniality are mutually constitutive.

Shifts in the political domination among the West European powers induced changes in the way modernity was conceived. Europe and Latin America was going through the same socio- historical processed however, the emergence of Britain as a world power reduced the transformational potentials in the Andean regions. Restrictions in trade and new geopolitical centres led to stagnation of Latin American economy and it had immense impact on its society. It is claimed that the social groups who were opposing the transformations in Latin America started to assert and occupy key positions during the decline of its economy. This shift fuelled the movement towards delinking Latin America from Europe. The significance of this shift is critical from the stand point of Latin America, modernity became an intellectual consciousness rather than a daily social experience (a similar argument with further elaboration can be seen in Quijano, 1989).

Domination of British industrial capitalism reduced reason to instrumental rationality thereby sidelining its liberation potentials. It reduced modernity to a form of domination rather than the production of inter-subjectivity. According to Quijano, it is in this context that modernisation as a process is inaugurated. Distinction between historical reason (reason and liberation) and instrumental reason (reason and domination) is made to mark the shift of the emergence of British industrial capitalism, the global hegemony of Britain and later on the North American imperialism consolidated these trends.

Given these larger historical moments that shape Latin American society and its politics, Quijano (1993) attempts to delineate the forces at work in the contemporary Andean society. The attempt is directed at arriving at the pivot around which domination and ideologies operate. Differences between the dominator and the dominated are spelt out in the matrix of race which is used to classify and codify the population. This racial classification of the population and evaluation of the experiences and value system of the people is fundamental to the exercise and consolidation of colonial power. Globalisation, which is understood as a continuation of colonisation in different form also re-produces this racial matrix of power. Colonial domination in this way indicates the Eurocentrism present in it, since Europe and European experiences are the reference points of such a construction of race and the knowledge systems based on it.

Construction of racial category had two effects – firstly, it created a hierarchy between the conquerors and the conquered so as to legitimise domination and colonisation, and secondly, it created internal stratification in the conquered society. Identities were formed and social relations were seen and investigated from this lens. This identity formation was seen in constituting the stratification in the society. Additionally, Quijano alerts us to the fact there is no history of race as a metric of social classification prior to the colonisation of Americas. Furthermore, the control of labour and production of commodities in Latin America for the world-market led to the emergence of capitalism at a global level for the first time. It is pertinent to re-emphasise the events alluded above are important in framing the emergence of new global order based on racial categories and control of labour. The critical point asserted by Quijano is the role of coloniality in shaping events, institutions and processes in the colonies.

An elaborate statement on race can be found elsewhere – Quijano (2007b). He argues that race as a category is not only the cornerstone of coloniality of power but also its omnipresent manifestation. It is argued that it is also the site of contestations. By citing the example of Nazi party in Germany he demonstrates how it offers a case of the extreme impact of race as a category in our everyday lives. Political practice of race might have ended with the defeat of Hitler but as a social practice it is still prevalent globally. Quijano points out the fact, that race is no longer seen as a category of classification and codification of colonial powers and is rather seen as a ‗natural‘ or given ‗fact‘ of everyday life, it indeed shows the perversion of colonality and its continuation into the present.

By naturalising the category of race, colonial powers were able to naturalise the power relations established by coloniality. It has and had legitimised commodification and stratification of labour at the global level and has lead to inequities. More pertinent to note is the fact that the construction of race based on biological differences was not questioned. Quijano argues that, it was imperative for Europe to maintain a difference between themselves and the colonised so as to affirm their superiority and thereby continue the domination and control. In fact it enabled Europe to mould its identity in relation to the Americas and the rest of the world. In doing so, the control over the forces of production enabled Europe to dominate in the intellectual sphere and its hegemony naturalised and legitimised concepts like race and geo-cultural and social categories developed to classify the world. It is in this context that decolonisation of theory emerges as a critical venture. Brief discussion of this intellectual move is eluded in the beginning and Quijano‘s attempt is delineated in the next section.

Racial division of labour is central to the global power structure. It is argued that racial categories created new social identities in the colonies and this classification of the population structured the division of labour. Local elites were not enslaved and quite often they were co-opted in the system to aid the control of the population and production of goods and services. It is also noted that mixed parentage population (born out of the marriage of coloniser and colonised people) also served bureaucratic and other functions in the colonies. Selective education of the local population was also done to mystify the forms of knowledge production process of the colonial power.

Eurocentrism in the thought processes and institutional structures finds its moorings in this mode of power – colonial mode of power. In fact, Quijano elaborates how through the processes of production and domination (colonisation of the world) European understanding of the world centred on race, becomes a hegemonic process.

It would not be possible to explain the elaboration of Eurocentrism as the hegemonic perspective of knowledge otherwise. The Eurocentric version is based on two principal founding myths: ﬁrst, the idea of the history of human civilization as a trajectory that departed from a state of nature and culminated in Europe; second, a view of the differences between Europe and non-Europe as natural (racial) differences and not consequences of a history of power. Both myths can be unequivocally recognized in the foundations of evolutionism and dualism, two of the nuclear elements of Eurocentrism.

Quijano (2000: 542)

The production of knowledge from a Eurocentric perspective has led to distortion of the reality and in a later piece (Quijano, 2007a) elaborates his findings. Coloniality of power as a heuristic device to re-construct not only our modes of knowledge but also the world around us finds its fuller statement in that work. It is clarified that even though the political form of coloniality has ended with the birth of new nation-states in America, Asia and Africa, coloniality permeated the new nation-states in the form of hierarchies, identities, value- systems and knowledge systems used to understand and reflect on social realities. In other words, coloniality is present even after the formal demise of colonialism in the language and imaginations of us.

Quijano illustrates the process of domination and Eurocentrification of the global order,

1. Political domination necessitated classification and understanding of colonial subjects.

2. Colonial structure of power created social categories centred on racial divisions.

3. Racial categorisation was done on biological grounds and a sense of superiority and

inferiority was constructed.

4. Division of labour was organised along racial lines.

5. These constructions were seen as objective and scientific thereby legitimised the colonial domination.

6. Construction of categories and knowledge were European in orientation, thereby Eurocentric forms of knowledge was created.

7. Political and economic domination enabled European knowledge system to emerge as hegemonic discourse.

8. European knowledge systems and ways of life were made aspirational by controlling the access to them.

9. Political, military and technological power was used to impose culturally superiority or cultural colonialism over the dominated cultures.

10. History was conceived as a linear movement from primitive to advanced capitalist society with Europe presenting the future and the colonies presenting the past Europe.

Having said so, Quijano argues the case for decolonisation of theory and he presents this attempt as an epistemological reconstitution. An outline of coloniality of power can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloniality_of_power.

4. On Capitalism and Modernity

The present section will try to understand how Quijano theorises capitalism and modernity. For this purpose we will be drawing on his article Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America (2000). The new global order that emerged with the ‗discovery‘ of America is rooted in the colonial structures. However, even after the end of political domination of the colonies by the Europeans, the colonial structures which permeated the social, political, cultural and political domains of the colonies are present. It is in this context that Quijano tries to approach the ideas/concepts of capitalism and modernity. Following is a brief understanding of his theory of capitalism and modernity.

In the historical process of the constitution of America, all forms of control and exploitation of labor and production, as well as the control of appropriation and distribution of products, revolved around the capital-salary relation and the world market. These forms of labor control included slavery, serfdom, petty-commodity production, reciprocity, and wages. In such an assemblage, each form of labor control was no mere extension of its historical antecedents.

Quijano (2000: 535)

The point asserted by Quijano is that new, historically and sociologically, identities were formed in the colonies with respect to division of labour. It is a new identity formation since these categories of production process were formed to organise and control the production. Additionally, it is said that different forms of labour control like slavery, serfdom, petty- commodity production, reciprocity, and wages existed not only in the same time and space but also integrated to capital and global market. Different forms of labour were thus brought under one rubric of a single centralised capitalist structure based in Europe. This was seen in the form of Whites being the wage earners and the colonised population being excluded from wage earning and were categorised as non-paid or non-wage labourers. Racial inferiority perceived by the colonisers was the main reason of the segregation of the labourers as wage and non-wage earners (at times as lower wage earners). It is pertinent to recall that capitalistic production process was organised on racial lines as indicated in the earlier section.

Capitalist wage-labour relation determined the social geography of capital – ―capital, as a social formation for control of wage labor, was the axis around which all remaining forms of labor control, resources, and products were articulated‖ (ibid: 539). In Europe, the social geography of capital was specific and concentrated. Since it was concentrated and organised in a more superior manner compared to the colonies in terms of wages, resources, products etc., Europe became the center of the capitalist economy in the world. The key to this concentration of capital and emergence of Europe is the colonality of power that structured labour and capital in specific forms in different geographies. A caveat is added by Quijano when he suggests that this historical model of labour control is in the premises of center – periphery theory of Raul Prebisch. Integration of labour and capital from diverse settings had a major implication in terms of the integration of different societies with that of the European sensibilities and orientations. The hegemony of Europe exercised through its coloniality of power operated at multiple levels,

1. Cultural artefacts of the colonised people were ‗discovered‘ by the colonists and those that were found suitable for the capitalist development were appropriated.

2. Knowledge production, cultural expressions and subjective formations of the

colonised people that were not in tandem with the forms of knowledge production, cultural matrix and subjectivities of the European colonisers were repressed.

3. Colonised people were forced to learn the dominant culture to aid, establish and consolidate the capitalist form of production and thereby making Europe the center of capitalist world possible.

The above mentioned processes helped in imagining the European experiences as unique. It also helped in naturalising the feeling of superiority of the colonisers with respect to the colonised people.

The association of colonial ethnocentrism and universal racial classification helps to explain why Europeans came to feel not only superior to all the other peoples of the world, but, in particular, naturally superior . This historical instance is expressed through a mental operation of fundamental importance for the entire model of global power, but above all with respect to the intersubjective relations that were hegemonic, and especially for its perspective on knowledge: the Europeans generated a new temporal perspective of history and relocated the colonized population, along with their respective histories and cultures, in the past of a historical trajectory whose culmination was Europe (Mignolo 1995; Blaut 1993; Lander 1997).

Quijano (2000: 541)

In doing so, the European and non-European experiences started to be expressed in terms of binaries like East-West, primitive-civilized, magic/mythic-scientific, irrational-rational, traditional-modern etc. Quijano (ibid: 542) further argues these formulations are based on two ‗myths‘, first of all history of mankind is understood to have deviated from that of nature and culminated in Europe and racial differences are natural and not a consequence of coloniality of power.

Modernity as Instrumental Rationality

Post Second World War with the modernisation processes, the meaning of modernity shifted. In this shift, according to Quijano (1989), the emancipatory potentials of modernity were sidelined and it became instrumental in nature. The successful models of modernisation made Latin America under external influence adopt certain modes of production and consumption as the only way to modernise, thereby, accepting the needs of capital (ibid: 147-148). It is suggested that, ―Even worse, there is no doubt that it was in this context that the dark reign of instrumental reason was consolidated, claiming for itself alone, and against historical reason, the prestige and luster of the name of modernity. It is still worth noting that it was not clear to many—and was not admitted by others–that this reign not only blanketed the Western world, but also consolidated itself under Stalinism‖ (ibid: 148).

Role of Latin America in constituting modernity is explained in the above sections, presently, we will be confining ourselves on how and why did the shift in the meaning of modernity from historical rationality to instrumental rationality occur. To map the relationship between modernity and rationality Quijano looks within the European context. According to him the northern European countries (Anglo-Saxon Enlightment) understood rationality as instrumental reason- ends justifying means. However, the southern European countries (French-Continental Enlightment) understood it in a liberation sense, wherein the injustice and inequalities that prevail in the society are addressed through the processes of modernity. This modernity is labelled as historical reason. The re-alignment of power among the European nations lead to the dominance of Britain and thereby the domination of Anglo- Saxon understanding of reason forwarded by Locke, Hume and Smith. This domination was not restricted to Europe alone but throughout the world due to the imperial and colonial power of Britain. This form of reason prevails even after the decline of Britain and the concomitant rise of America as the dominant force in geo-politics.

With the domination of America, it is claimed that there were pressure to ‗modernise‘ in Latin America. Institutions that make the state were professionalised; especially the repressive forms of state and democratic aspects were ignored. This suggests that the modernised‘ state did not meet the needs of the population – justice and equality. Quijano calls it as the crisis of modernity. Furthermore,

This form of modernity, of course, deserves no defense; nor should it be the object of any form of nostalgia, especially in Latin America. It was under its dominion that the task of satisfying the worse imperatives of capital were imposed upon us for the benefit of the bourgeoisie of Europe and the United States, beginning at the very moment in Independence when the hegemony of historical reason over the consciousness of the Latin Americans was displaced, although without any loss of the prestige of the label of modernity.

Quijano (1989: 155)

However, he adds a caveat,

Since Euro-North American rationality–one has to insist on its instrumental rationality–has been a part of colonialism and imperialism, which have not only exploited the labor of the world’s peoples, but have also despised and destroyed, when they were able to, their cultures, the idea of a simplistic rejection of all modernity and rationality has its attractions in many quarters. This is understandable, but we must not blind ourselves to the potential and actual contraband that, under this attractive mantle, dominant groups everywhere attempt to smuggle it in to preserve their power against the growing pressures for the liberation of society.

Quijano (1989: 166)

5. Decolonisation of Theory: Understanding Epistemic Reconstitution

Quijano (2007a) after illustrating the ways in which colonial power has been reproducing itself after the demise of colonial political domination makes a call for the decolonisation of theory. In fact he urges the following, ―It is necessary to extricate oneself from the linkages between rationality/modernity and coloniality, first of all, and definitely from all power which is not constituted by free decisions made by free people” (ibid: 177). Displacement of coloniality is seen an an epistemological de-colonisation wherein the universality of a particular is replaced by the choice of people in terms of orientations, freedom to criticise, inter-cultural communications etc. Thereby, Quijano imagines the possibility of the liberation potential of modernity from the colonial matrix of power.

The thrust of the above mentioned epistemic move is to de-center the experiences of Europe and vision of the society from Eurocentrism. Quijano suggests that one needs to go beyond the negation of the received categories and theoretical reductionisms, however he cautions in the total rejection of colonial/modernity/rationality as envisaged from the European standpoint. The task is to iron out the pitfalls of this vision. It is pointed out that outside the West, differences within a totality, society, is acknowledged as heterogeneity and is seen as irreducible. This heterogeneity is seen as a diversity which is constitutive of the totality, and this diversity is not seen in hierarchical scale. Hence, he argues for, ―liberation of intercultural relations from the prison of coloniality‖ (ibid: 178).

In the context of decolonisation of theory it is pertinent to recall Quijano‘s (2005) argument on ―indigenous movements‖. In this paper he analyses the reasons behind the emergence of indigenous movements especially why and how they had diverse implications and enactments across the Andean region. According to him it is the contemporary expression of coloniality of power in ex-colonial countries. Coloniality presents itself in the contemporary societies in the following manner,

1. Race as a category of social classification.

2. Control and exploitation of labour within a single historical process of capitalist production mechanism.

3. Eurocentrism in production processes and knowledge production.

4. Creation of nation-states with colonial form of relations in the society.

It is in this context that we have a ―non –convergence of nation, identity and democracy‖, that we have indigenous movements like the Chiapas revolution of 1994. So what is the way forward? It is argued that,

The ―indigenous problem‖ thus became an authentic political and theoretical irritant in Latin America. In order to resolve it, simultaneous changes would be required in three interdependent dimensions: (1) the decolonizing of political relations within the state; (2) the radical undermining of conditions of exploitation and the end of servitude; and (3), as precondition and point of departure, the decolonization of relations of social domination, i.e. the purging of ―race‖ as the universal and basic category of social classiﬁcation.

Quijano (2005:61)

Coloniality of power is attributed to the internal cleavages beseeching the Latin American nation states as well as other ex-colonial countries. Indigenous movement is seen as a response to the coloniality of power that exists in Latin American and is seen as a challenge to the global order of power.

you can view video on Decoloniality: Anibal Quijano

References

Arias, Santa. 2013. Coloniality and its Preoccupations. Latin American Research Review, Vol 48(3): 214-220.
Mignolo, Walter. D. 2002. The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference. The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol 101(1): 57-96.
Quijano, Anibal. 1989. Paradoxes of Modernity. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol 3(2): 147-177.
Quijano, Anibal. 1993. Modernity, Identity, and Utopia in Latin America. Boundary 2, Vol 20(3): 140-155.
Quijano, Anibal. 2000. Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, Vol 1 (3):533-580.
Quijano, Anibal. 2005. The challenge of the “indigenous movement” in Latin America. Socialism and Democracy, Vol 19(3): 55-78.
Quijano, Anibal. 2007a. Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality. Cultural Studies, Vol 21(2- 3):168-178.
Quijano, Anibal. 2007b. Questioning “Race”. Socialism and Democracy, Vol 21(1): 45-53.

Links for further explorations

Video

https://vimeo.com/88641265
Tutorial: Ramon Grosfoguel and Coloniality of Power