Coloniality of Gender and Power

Abstract

Anticolonial theories analyze complex power relations between the colonizer and the colonized to promote the political project of decolonization. This chapter situates anticolonial feminist theories in relation to two schools of anticolonial thinking, postcolonial and decolonial theory, particularly the strand of decolonial theory developed by the modernity/coloniality school of thought of Latin America. It compares key theoretical arguments and political projects associated with intersectionality, postcolonial feminism, and the decolonial feminism that Maria Lugones has advanced with her notion of the coloniality of gender. The chapter explores the reception of Lugones work in Latin America and the critical insights that decolonial theory offers contemporary social justice projects.

Black lives and bodywork matters: A postcolonial critique of gender and embodiment in Nigeria

“…The exploration of the Global South has had very different responses to feminism and equality agendas. For example, colonization itself can be considered as a gendered act, carried out by imperial workforces, overwhelmingly men, drawn from masculinized occupations (Mendoza, 2015, pp. 100–121).…”

Tornedalian Teachers’ and Principals’ in the Swedish Education System: Exploring Decolonial Pockets in the Aftermaths of ‘Swedification’

“…From this perspective, education is saturated with notions of universalism that hinder expressions of difference and diversity, but also require these conditions as a mirror for itself (Quijano, 2013). Mendoza (2015) argues that coloniality's impacts on present-day societies lie in their power to "redefine culture, labor, intersubjective relations, aspirations of the self, common sense, and the knowledge production in ways that accredit the superiority of the colonizer" (p. 114). Thus, to this day, educational practices are still at work and have been shaped so as to silence and eradicate non-Western knowledge (Lander, 2000, as cited in Mendoza, 2015).…”

“…Mendoza (2015) argues that coloniality's impacts on present-day societies lie in their power to "redefine culture, labor, intersubjective relations, aspirations of the self, common sense, and the knowledge production in ways that accredit the superiority of the colonizer" (p. 114). Thus, to this day, educational practices are still at work and have been shaped so as to silence and eradicate non-Western knowledge (Lander, 2000, as cited in Mendoza, 2015). Following the thinking of coloniality, Tornedalians' experiences of racialisation and stigmatisation in Sweden due to their minority Finno-Ugric ethnicity, culture and knowledge (Heith, 2016), should not be viewed as a demarcated contextual period of time marked by Swedish colonial intrusion; instead, the aftermaths of these colonial abuses have a continuous character, with real consequences for modern-day Tornedalians.…”

“…Consequently, the teachers' Tornedalian cultural identity became less prominent within the Swedish school culture. Mendoza (2015) stresses that the authority of Western conceptions of knowledge lies in their power to control what are seen as proper educational subjects. In accordance with this reasoning, the existing space for Tornedalian teachers to use a pedagogy that authentically embraces local minority perspectives is limited.…”

Decolonizing gender and education research: unsettling and recasting feminist knowledges, power and research practices

“…Feminist research has had a longstanding commitment to epistemically, theoretically, and methodologically interrogating issues of power and difference with the goal of emancipating women (Benhabib and Cornell 1987;Benhabib et al 1995;Connell 2014Connell , 2015Fraser 1989). Similarly, decolonizing research seeks to explicitly address colonial structures of knowledge production and the representation of marginalized and indigenous populations (Lugones 2010;Mendoza 2016). Both feminist and decolonizing research challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge and seek to incorporate the scholarship and perspectives of non-Western, nondominant scholars to challenge the traditional self-other distinction (Abu-Lughud 1991;Lincoln and Gonzalez 2008;Smith 2012).…”