Coloniality of Power

Eduardo Restrepo

Eduardo Restrepo

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia

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Abstract

Coloniality of power, a category elaborated by the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano, refers to the pattern of global power that emerges with the modern world system, which is associated with racial classification and has permitted the control and exploitation of the labor force, wealth, and territories throughout the planet for the sake of the emergence and consolidation of capitalism. This category has been nodal for a group of authors, mostly from Latin America, to develop a set of categories and conceptualizations that radically problematize the most common assumptions about modernity. They argue that coloniality is the constitutive dark side of modernity. This entry examines this group's elaboration of the category of coloniality of power, particularly those that refer to the decentering of modernity when colonial difference is taken into account.

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