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Aníbal Quijano

1928–2018

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

The racial hierarchy created by the conquest of America still organises work, knowledge and power across the modern world.

Placement

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

Peruvian sociologist: the “coloniality of power” – the racial classification created with the conquest of America – still structures labour, knowledge and the modern world order.

Key ideas

  • Coloniality of power
  • Race as colonial classification
  • Eurocentrism

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Influence

Influenced by 2

  • Karl Marx

    influenced by

    Quijano started from Marxist dependency theory but held that Eurocentric historical materialism misses race as a basis of the colonial division of labour (‘Colonialidad del poder’, 2000). A. Quijano, “Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina”, in E. Lander (ed.), La colonialidad del saber (2000)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Karl Marx › 1818–1883

  • José Carlos Mariátegui

    influenced by

    Quijano introduced Mariátegui’s Siete ensayos (1979 edition) and built on his analysis of the colonial roots of Peruvian society for the coloniality of power. A. Quijano, prologue to J. C. Mariátegui, 7 ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1979); Reencuentro y debate: Una introducción a Mariátegui (1981)

    Evidence: AI draft

    José Carlos Mariátegui › 1894–1930

Influenced 2

  • Sylvia Wynter

    influenced

    Wynter took up Quijano’s ‘coloniality of power’, with its racial classification of world populations, as one axis of the coloniality of being (‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being’, 2003). S. Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom”, CR: The New Centennial Review 3 (2003); A. Quijano, “Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina” (2000)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Sylvia Wynter › b. 1928

  • Walter Mignolo

    influenced

    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

    Walter Mignolo › b. 1941

Criticism

Criticized by 1

  • María Lugones influenced

    influenced

    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 by

    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

    María Lugones › 1944–2020

Criticizes 1

  • René Descartes

    criticised

    Quijano traced the Eurocentric paradigm of knowledge to the Cartesian separation of a knowing subject, as reason, from its object and from the body – a dualism that in his account allowed the colonised to be classed as nature and body; critics dispute that Eurocentrism derives from Descartes. A. Quijano, “Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad”, Perú Indígena 13:29 (1992); “Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina”, in E. Lander (ed.), La colonialidad del saber (2000)

    Evidence: AI draft

    René Descartes › 1596–1650

Works

Position

Quijano’s key concept is the “coloniality of power”. With the conquest of America, he argued, a new idea of “race” arose that classified the world’s population as naturally superior or inferior and tied each group to a form of labour – wage work for Europeans, serfdom for Indigenous peoples, slavery for Africans. This classification became the backbone of global capitalism and of a Eurocentric order of knowledge, and it outlived formal colonialism; modernity and coloniality are therefore inseparable. Building on Mariátegui and dependency theory, and in dialogue with Immanuel Wallerstein, he founded the modernity/coloniality approach developed by Mignolo, Lugones and others; Lugones criticised his narrow, biological view of gender.

Life & context

Aníbal Quijano was born in Yanama, Peru, in 1928 (some sources say 1930) and studied at San Marcos University in Lima. In the late 1960s he worked for the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) in Santiago de Chile, amid debates on dependency. He then taught sociology at San Marcos for decades and held visiting posts abroad, including Binghamton University. He died in Lima in 2018.

Further main works

  • Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality (Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad, 1992)
  • Americanity as a Concept (with Immanuel Wallerstein, 1992)

Appears in

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

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