Why the Epistemologies of the South? Artisanal Pathways for Artisanal Futures

Abstract

The epistemologies of the global South concern the production and validation of knowledges documenting the experiences of resistance to the violent histories of Western imperialism and colonialism. The richly-diverse field of such experiences is what Boaventura Santos designates as an epistemological, nongeographical South, composed of many epistemological souths, which have in common the fact that they are all knowledges born in struggles against capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. For Santos, the objective of the epistemologies of the South is to allow oppressed people to represent the world as their own and in their own terms, for only thus will they be able to change it according to their own aspirations. Given the uneven development of capitalism and the ongoing forms of Western-centric colonialism, the epistemological and geographical Souths partially overlap, especially regarding the countries that were subjected to colonialism. According to Santos, the overlap is only partial, not only because the epistemologies of the North also flourish in the geographical South but also because the epistemological South is also found in the geographical North (Europe and North America) in the different the struggles waged there against capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy (2018).