From decolonizing knowledge to postimperialism

Abstract

AbstractTo open new disciplinary imaginings, we must reinvigorate the relationship between utopian and anthropological thought. This is already underway in efforts to decolonize knowledge. Though such efforts have different emphases, they are located within a field of ideological and utopian struggles that must be understood in the context of imperialism‐colonialism, of subalternized subject positions, and of the armed and cognitive struggles that imperialism‐colonialism has entailed. Based on my Latin American positionality, I analyze the decolonization of anthropological knowledge as part of this wider field and of the discipline's history of reexamining itself. In a critical dialogue with postcolonial and decolonial thought, I proposepostimperialismas a framework that aims to deimperialize the world, overcoming the hierarchical positions between hegemonic and nonhegemonic anthropologies. Moreover, a postimperial research program would entail studying how global elites’ power affects those who struggle to end an unfair regime that is destroying the planet.