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Walter Mignolo

b. 1941

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Modernity and colonialism are two sides of one coin, and real knowledge can come from thinking at the borders that colonialism drew.

Placement

Latin American & Caribbean Philosophy · Latin America & Caribbean · Epistemology, Society & History

Argentine semiotician at Duke: modernity and coloniality are two sides of one coin; “border thinking” and epistemic delinking open knowledge from colonial difference.

Key ideas

  • Modernity/coloniality
  • Border thinking
  • Epistemic disobedience

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Influence

Influenced by 9

  • W. E. B. Du Bois

    influenced by

    Mignolo counted Du Bois’s “double consciousness” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903) among the forms of border thinking – the consciousness of those who live on the colonial border – beside Anzaldúa’s new mestiza consciousness; the interview is checked, the passage in the book not. W. D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs (2000); interview with E-International Relations (1 June 2017)

    Evidence: AI draft

    W. E. B. Du Bois › 1868–1963

  • Frantz Fanon

    influenced by

    Mignolo took up Fanon’s sociogeny – Fanon learns that he is seen as a “Negro” – as an experience of border consciousness absent from Husserl’s theory of consciousness, partly through Wynter’s reading of Fanon. W. D. Mignolo, interview with E-International Relations (1 June 2017); “Sylvia Wynter: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” (2015)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Frantz Fanon › 1925–1961

  • Aníbal Quijano

    influenced by

    Mignolo took Quijano’s ‘coloniality of power’ as the hidden side of modernity, making it the core concept of the modernity/coloniality project (The Darker Side of Western Modernity, 2011). W. D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity (2011); Local Histories/Global Designs (2000); A. Quijano, “Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad”, Perú Indígena 13 (1992)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Aníbal Quijano › 1928–2018

  • Sylvia Wynter

    influenced by

    In “Sylvia Wynter: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” (2015) Mignolo read Wynter’s critique of the overrepresentation of Western “Man” as the human as a central contribution to decolonial thought. W. D. Mignolo, “Sylvia Wynter: What Does It Mean to Be Human?”, in K. McKittrick (ed.), Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis (2015)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Sylvia Wynter › b. 1928

  • Enrique Dussel

    influenced by

    Mignolo built on Dussel’s critique of Eurocentrism and his dating of modernity from 1492 to describe a ‘colonial difference’ that ranks peoples and knowledges (Local Histories/Global Designs, 2000). W. D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs (2000); E. Dussel, 1492: El encubrimiento del otro (1992)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Enrique Dussel › 1934–2023

  • Gloria Anzaldúa

    influenced by

    Mignolo developed ‘border thinking’ from Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, as knowledge produced from the colonial difference by those it marginalises (Local Histories/Global Designs, 2000). W. D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking (2000); G. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (1987)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Gloria Anzaldúa › 1942–2004

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  • Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala

    influenced by

    Mignolo read Guaman Poma’s Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (c. 1615) as an early example of border thinking (Local Histories/Global Designs, 2000). W. D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs (2000); The Darker Side of the Renaissance (1995); F. Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (c. 1615)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala › c. 1535–1616

  • Rodolfo Kusch

    influenced by

    Mignolo made Kusch a precursor of decolonial thought and introduced the English translation of El pensamiento indígena y popular en América (Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América, 2010). W. D. Mignolo, foreword to R. Kusch, Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América, trans. M. Lugones and J. M. Price (2010); R. Kusch, El pensamiento indígena y popular en América (1970)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Rodolfo Kusch › 1922–1979

  • V. Y. Mudimbe

    influenced by

    Mignolo’s “border gnosis” in Local Histories/Global Designs (2000) borrows the term gnosis from Mudimbe’s The Invention of Africa (1988), for knowledge produced from the colonial difference rather than within the Western order of knowledge. W. D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs (2000); V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988)

    Evidence: AI draft

    V. Y. Mudimbe › 1941–2025

Criticism

Criticized by 1

  • Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui

    criticised by

    Rivera Cusicanqui insisted that decolonisation is a practice before a discourse and accused Mignolo of turning Andean thinkers’ ideas into academic capital without citing them (‘Ch’ixinakax utxiwa’, 2010). S. Rivera Cusicanqui, Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores (2010); Engl. in South Atlantic Quarterly 111 (2012)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui › b. 1949

Criticizes 2

  • Immanuel Kant

    criticised

    In “The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis” (2000) Mignolo read Kant’s cosmopolitanism as a global design from the centre of colonial power and set against it a “critical cosmopolitanism” grounded in border thinking. W. D. Mignolo, “The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism”, Public Culture 12:3 (2000), 721–748

    Evidence: AI draft

    Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804

  • Jacques Derrida

    criticised

    In his afterword to Writing Without Words (1994) and in The Darker Side of the Renaissance (1995) Mignolo argued that Derrida’s grammatology, a critique within the Western philosophy of writing, should be “circumvented” for Mesoamerican writing systems, which were never conceived as a representation of speech. W. D. Mignolo, afterword to E. H. Boone and W. D. Mignolo (eds.), Writing Without Words (1994); The Darker Side of the Renaissance (1995)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004

Works

  • 2000Local Histories/Global Designs

    Coloniality as the dark side of modernity, and “border thinking” as knowledge produced from the colonial difference.

Position

Mignolo argues that modernity and coloniality are two sides of one coin: the European story of progress since 1500 has a darker side of conquest, slavery and the silencing of other forms of knowledge. Building on Quijano’s coloniality of power and Dussel’s critique of Eurocentrism, he speaks of a “colonial difference” that ranks peoples and knowledges. “Border thinking”, a notion inspired by Anzaldúa, is thought produced from that difference by those it marginalises; Guaman Poma is one of his examples. Decoloniality requires “epistemic disobedience” and “delinking” from the Western claim to universal knowledge. The Bolivian sociologist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui accused him of turning Indigenous thought into academic capital.

Life & context

Walter Mignolo was born in Argentina in 1941 and studied philosophy and literature at the National University of Córdoba. He took his doctorate in Paris, working in semiotics and literary theory. After teaching in France and at the universities of Indiana and Michigan, he moved in 1993 to Duke University, where he became a distinguished professor of literature and Romance studies and a leading voice of decolonial thought.

Further main works

  • The Darker Side of the Renaissance (1995)
  • The Darker Side of Western Modernity (2011)
  • On Decoloniality (with Catherine Walsh, 2018)

Appears in

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

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