1st Edition
Ancestral Knowledges and Postcoloniality in Contemporary Ecuador Epistemic Struggles and Situated Cosmopolitanisms
In light of an unprecedented constitutional acknowledgement of diverse epistemologies and stipulation making the protection and advancement of so-called 'ancestral knowledges' a duty of the state, this research provides an analysis of the uptake of historically subalternised knowledges by the state during the government of Rafael Correa (2007-2017), as well as of the strive for epistemic justice by peoples and nationalities' organisations in the context of struggles for social change, decolonisation, and self-determination. On the basis of rich empirical material, the analysis traces state discourses and practices and mechanisms to govern 'ancestral knowledges' in the framework of the government's Knowledge Society project and delineates how leaders of peoples and nationalities' organisations struggle for the decolonisation of knowledge. This monograph will be of interest to those concerned with relations between peoples and nationalities and Latin American states, politics of recognition and collective rights, the workings of purportedly post-neoliberal governments and the possibilities and limits for alternatives to development, the struggle of peoples and nationalities' organisations for (epistemic) decolonisation, as well as ongoing (re-)conceptualisations of cosmopolitanisms against restructurations of the coloniality of knowledge and being.
Introduction
On Coloniality, Power, Knowledge, and the (Nation-)State
Structure of the Monograph
About this Research
CHAPTER I Nation, Power, Knowledge: The Knowledge Society
From 'Banana Republic' to Knowledge Society
Knowledge as an Infinite Resource
Ancestral Knowledges as Objects of State Discourse
Ancestral Knowledges for a Knowledge Society
The (Re-)Valorisation of Ancestral Knowledges
Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER II Development, Nature, Knowledge: A Change of the Productive Matrix?
A Brief Look on Development and Extractivism
From the Petroleum Boom to the Knowledge Boom
Ancestral Knowledges for a Bio-Economy
Of Protection(isms) and Utilization/Exploitation
Neo-Developmentalism, Neo-Extractivisms
Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER III State, Science, Education: The Knowledge Revolution
The Struggle for Self-Determined Education
Correa's Educational and Knowledge Revolution
Intercultural Bilingual Education
Amawtay Wasi in the Straightjacket of Quality
The Knowledge Revolution's University
Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER IV Conocimientos Propios and Struggles for Epistemic Justice
Conocimientos Propios and Epistemic Self-Determination
Schooling, Education, and Science Otherwise
Struggles for Plurinationality and/or Interculturality
Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise
Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER V Of (Post-)Neoliberal/(Post-)Multicultural Governmentality, Epistemic Struggles, and Situated Cosmopolitanism(s)
Governing Difference: (Post-)/Neoliberal Multiculturalisms
Governing Epistemic Difference
Epistemic Justice, Self-Determination, and Beyond
Rethinking the Cosmopolitical: Situated Cosmopolitanism(s)
Final Remarks
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Julia von Sigsfeld is currently research assistant at the GRASSI Ethnological Museum in Leipzig, Germany
