The Darker Side of Western Modernity

During the Renaissance, Europeans colonized time and space, inventing the historical eras Antiquity and the Middle Ages; mapping, appropriating, and exploiting the Americas; and establishing the idea that European modernity was the apogee of human history and the model for the world to emulate. Walter D. Mignolo analyzes the colonial logic that has driven five hundred years of Western imperialism, from colonialism through neo-liberalism, and he describes resistance, from the sixteenth century onward, to the projection and violent forcing of modern European ideals onto the non-European world. Mignolo argues that in the early twenty-first century, an irreversible polycentric world order has taken hold. European-American modernity is no longer taken for granted as a global model. The creation of multiple, global futures not dominated by the West is well underway; it was visible in the Zapatista movement's displacement of the separation between theory and practice, and it can be seen in the election and government of Evo Morales in Bolivia. Advocating for the pluralisation of ways of being and knowing, Mignolo contributes to the projects of decolonization unfolding in different forms around the world.