Why (post)colonialism and (de)coloniality are not enough: a post-imperialist perspective

Abstract

Subject position is a most important element in the politics of knowledge. Postcolonialism and the Latin American approach ‘decolonialidad del poder’ have made great contributions to the construction of critical theories which are sensitive to many of the quandaries of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. But, although they cannot be reduced to locations and settings, like other formulations, postcolonialism and decoloniality express certain sociological and historical circumstances, grosso modo, the diasporas associated with the end of the British Empire and an Andean problématique, respectively. While I value the strength of both theoretical contributions, I want to advance the idea that, in the early twenty-first century, there is a need to go beyond colonialism as a heuristical device as well as to search for new utopian horizons. I am not arguing that we need to forget history and that ideological struggles are unimportant. What I want to stress is that, currently, utopian struggles have a strategic role in face of the dearth of utopias that might galvanize the progressive imagination after the end of really existing socialism. Since I believe in the existence of global and national geopolitics of knowledge, I need to announce from the outset that I am not necessarily speaking from Brazil, nor is my position representative of a Brazilian perspective (something that may be induced by the subtitle of this article). I am speaking from the perspective of someone who has developed his professional academic career in Brasilia, the ‘new’, federal capital of Brazil, the golden jubilee of which is celebrated this year. I will argue that the prominence of the power of structuration of the postcolonial period in Brazil ended in 1960 with the opening of the modernist federal city. In this regard, critiques that are solely or almost solely based on the power of structuration of the colonial period are not enough to understand the current ideologies and projects of the Brazilian elite. In order to do that, we need to think in post-imperialist terms.