“The Passion for What Is Possible” in Comparative and International Education

Abstract

This article interrogates the North-South directionality of knowledge production in the field of comparative and international education. Building on theoretical frameworks developed in the South, it describes changes taking place in Latin American countries affirming the cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity and mixture (mestizaje) that has long characterized the Americas. It questions Western social science and its dominance over frameworks of analysis to understand Latin American societies and cultures. The article further invites researchers to stop the destruction of Indigenous knowledge that is taking place through imposition of the dominant epistemic regime and encourages instead the development of decolonial thinking and research paradigms that contest North-South hierarchies in knowledge in order to promote equality and justice in local and global communities.