Walter Mignolo, Pluritopic Hermeneutics and Border Epistemologies

Abstract

The essay outlines critical thinking of the Argentinian philosopher Walter Mignolo, known for his critique of the relationship between modernity and coloniality, and introduction of the decolonial option. The decolonial option propagates decoupling and decentering from the European epistemic hegemony and turning to colonial epistemologies rejected by the West as valid knowledge (or knowledge in general). The main point of Mignolo’s critique is that colonialism is constitutive of modernity, and not its historical product. Therefore, Mignolo develops a number of concepts for resisting the imposed necessity of modernity (such as the concept of “transmodernity”), as well as the general epistemic hegemony of the West (such as the concepts of “border thinking”, “border epistemologies” and “pluritopic hermeneutics”). Since what is said is less important than who is saying it, as well as where from and for whom, Europe needs to be criticized from the outside (from its borders) rather than from the vantage point of its own intellectual tradition. The European auto-critique is necessary, but it is not sufficient.