Aníbal Quijano and the Decolonial Turn

Abstract

This review article proposes that Aníbal Quijano’s conceptualization and elaboration of the coloniality of power can be understood as part of a third major moment of the decolonial turn that is related to the activities of Indigenous and Black organizations and collectives in the context of the 500th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of the Americas in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While Quijano frequently insists on the special status of ‘Latin America’ in his accounts of coloniality and decoloniality, this article makes the case for the relevance of the Caribbean and all other sites that have served as laboratories for the formation of modern/colonial power in the unfinished project of decolonization and decoloniality. Finding limits in arguments that overstate the role of sensibilities that are rooted in geopolitical locations, the article emphasizes the role of decolonial collectives in the formation of combative decolonial attitudes.