Description
You are invited to this brown bag lunch hosted by the recently merged groups “Decolonizing research/Alternative cosmologies”.“Decolonial Theory” is a critical research approach that is based on the understanding of the different responses and resistances by indigenous peoples to the colonial violence in Latin America from the beginning of the 16th century to the present. Decolonial theory is a huge body of intellectual work that extends a critique not only of colonial/historical aspects but also of the universalism of Eurocentric thought, patriarchy, gendered bodies, and capitalism as an economical model of environmental destruction. Engaging with this literature, the talk will focus on one of the key concepts: "Sumak Kawsay". Sumak kawsay, which translates as “good life” from the Quechua language, is a new political and cultural concept. It confronts the anthropocentric/Western idea of progress and infinite growth, and emphasizes the need to place human beings as part of an interdependent bio-community that includes all forms of life. After the incorporation of this concept in the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia, it became one of the most relevant political proposals of the last decades.
The talk is by Elena Ansotegui who engage with Latin American decolonizing theory in her research on social movements in relation to ethnicity, utopia, feminism and climate change in Mexico and Bolivia. Her PhD project at the Universidad Autónoma Madrid examines the Zapatista indigenous movement in the Mexican southeast. Elena is also part-time lecturer in Spanish and Latin American studies at the University of Copenhagen.
| Period | 9 May 2023 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Seminar |
| Organiser | Danish Institute for International Studies |
| Sponsor | Danish Institute for International Studies |