María Lugones

Agora

María Lugones

1944–2020

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Colonialism imposed a strict two-gender system on many peoples who had organised gender differently, so feminism must also be decolonial.

Placement

Latin American & Caribbean Philosophy · Latin America & Caribbean · Society & History, Ethics, Epistemology, Gender & Feminism

Argentine-American philosopher: the “coloniality of gender” – colonialism imposed a binary gender system – grounds a decolonial feminism; “world”-travelling as loving perception.

Key ideas

Coloniality of gender
Decolonial feminism
“World”-travelling

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Influence

Influenced by 3

Gloria Anzaldúa

influenced by
Lugones read Anzaldúa’s new mestiza as a figure of resistance that lives the tension between worlds, close to Lugones’s own ‘world’-travelling (‘On Borderlands/La Frontera’, 1992). M. Lugones, “On Borderlands/La Frontera: An Interpretive Essay”, Hypatia 7 (1992); G. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Evidence: AI draft
Gloria Anzaldúa › 1942–2004
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí

influenced by
Lugones drew on Oyěwùmí’s thesis that precolonial Yoruba society was not organised by gender to argue colonialism imposed a gender system (‘Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System’, 2007). M. Lugones, “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System”, Hypatia 22 (2007); O. Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women (1997)
Evidence: AI draft
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí › b. c. 1957
Kimberlé Crenshaw

influenced by
In “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System” (2007) Lugones took up Crenshaw’s intersectionality – it shows what stays invisible when gender and race are conceived as separate categories, namely women of colour – and traced that separation to the colonial imposition of gender. M. Lugones, “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System”, Hypatia 22:1 (2007), 186–209
Evidence: AI draft
Kimberlé Crenshaw › b. 1959

Influenced 1

Talia Mae Bettcher

influenced
Bettcher used Lugones’s idea of multiple ‘worlds’ to argue that in trans communities ‘woman’ applies to trans women without qualification (2013; ‘Trapped in the Wrong Theory’, 2014). T. M. Bettcher, “Trans Women and the Meaning of ‘Woman’”, in A. Soble, N. Power and R. Halwani (eds.), The Philosophy of Sex (6th ed., 2013); “Trapped in the Wrong Theory”, Signs 39 (2014); M. Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception”, Hypatia 2 (1987); SEP “Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues”
Evidence: AI draft
Talia Mae Bettcher › b. c. 1966

Criticism

Criticizes 1

Aníbal Quijano influenced by

influenced by
Lugones extended Quijano’s coloniality of power into a ‘coloniality of gender’ and a programme of decolonial feminism (‘Toward a Decolonial Feminism’, 2010). M. Lugones, “Toward a Decolonial Feminism”, Hypatia 25 (2010); A. Quijano, “Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina” (2000)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised
Lugones extended Quijano’s coloniality of power but objected that he takes gender for granted as biological and heterosexual; colonialism imposed this gender system (Hypatia, 2007). M. Lugones, “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System”, Hypatia 22 (2007), 186–209; “Toward a Decolonial Feminism”, Hypatia 25 (2010)
Evidence: AI draft
Aníbal Quijano › 1928–2018

Works

2007Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System
Quijano’s coloniality of power overlooks gender: colonialism imposed a binary, hierarchical gender system on colonised peoples.

Position

In her essay on “world”-travelling (1987) Lugones described how women of colour move between “worlds” in which they are perceived differently; travelling to another’s world with playful, loving perception, rather than arrogant perception, makes solidarity possible. Later she extended Quijano’s coloniality of power, arguing that he took gender for granted as biological and heterosexual. Drawing on Oyěwùmí and others, she held that colonialism imposed a binary, hierarchical gender system on colonised peoples, in which colonised women were not even counted as “women”. This “coloniality of gender” grounds a decolonial feminism that resists from the fractured place between colonial categories and older ways of life.

Life & context

María Lugones was born in Buenos Aires in 1944 and later moved to the United States. She earned a doctorate in philosophy and political science at the University of Wisconsin. She taught at Carleton College and then for many years at Binghamton University, in comparative literature, philosophy and women’s studies. Alongside her academic work she was active in popular education and grassroots organising. She died in 2020.

Further main works

Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception (1987)
Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions (2003)
Toward a Decolonial Feminism (2010)