Introduction: Intersections of Activism and Academia

Abstract

The focus of this Special Section stems from research presented in the 2019 PILAS Conference held at the University of York. The conference theme 'Communities of Knowledge, Communities of Action' sought to bridge the gap between scholarly research and Latin American activism. The collegial exchange of ideas between a new generation of engaged and innovative researchers at the conference represented a critical alternative to the traditional isolation of academia -a reality that has since been exacerbated and magnified by the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. This Special Section of the Bulletin of Latin American Research seeks to offer a platform that will advance these new epistemologies and propel the voices of a new generation of engaged scholars.It is organised around the theme of 'Intersections of Activism and Academia'. The theme further develops the efforts of the 2019 PILAS Conference in emphasising interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches that will promote new forms of scholarly activism. In turn, this Special Section actively engages with the movement to decolonise academia at research and curriculum level, and across university campuses. Different decolonial approaches are adopted by the contributors. Some are grounded in Latin American scholarship and others materialise the intersection of this approach with global understanding of decolonial methodologies, especially by focusing on the transindigenous dialogue necessary today. Our focus on decolonisation is prompted by the fact that we cannot possibly see our current world as a 'postcolonial' one in speaking about social developments even in the twenty-first century. Indeed, while formal colonialism comes to an end, imperial practices do not; they are maintained socio-politically and economically through racial and structural inequalities across the globe. Hence, we engage with the concept of decoloniality as defined by a wide range of authors including Ng ũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1992), Quijano (1999), Fanon (2002,

Whose Knowledge Counts? The Struggle to Revitalise Indigenous Knowledges in Guatemala

“…This link between knowledge production and colonialism means that much of WMS has its origins in epistemological extractivism, in which for example scientific knowledge from Persian, Arabic, and Chinese thinkers were taken and repackaged as Western [18]. Epistemic ignorance as well as extraction of knowledge still takes place today and as a result the work to decolonise academia continues [19][20][21][22] within as well as outside of academia. One influential movement outside of academia in this context is the indigenous political Zapatista movement in southern Mexico which questions the hegemonic and exclusionary structure through the notion of 'Un Mundo Donde Quepan Muchos Mundos' ('A World Where Many Worlds Fit') since the mid-1990s [23].…”