Decoloniality and Disruption of the Scientific Status Quo: Dissemination of Universal Theoretical Assumptions in International Research

Abstract

The challenges faced by science in the international communication process range from the choice of philosophical and epistemological assumptions used in scientific research to the choice of participants who comprise the sample of the studies produced. There is, in the hierarchy of scientific production, Westernized trends of theoretical assumptions that predominate. The challenge of producing and communicating scientific knowledge is now guided by a review that geographically and philosophically shifts the Western prominent place. The purpose of this article is use a decolonial perspective to theoretically problematize scientific practice and the process of publishing its results. It criticizes the assembly line in which psychology ends, especially in the publication of results as a condition for the constitution of scientific communities. The scientific community can assist in the dissemination of a certain theory, but it can also constitute an obstacle to new ideas. It points to decoloniality as an alternative path as a possibility of breaking with the production-line logic of publications. By presenting the example of González Rey’s theory of subjectivity, it advocates the history-education-time tripod as necessary elements to address contemporary crises studied by psychology. The article demonstrates the possibility of rupture with the market-related scientific status quo.