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The main tools of the epistemologies of the South are as follows: the abyssal
line and the different types of social exclusion it creates; the sociology of ab-
sences and the sociology of emergences; the ecology of knowledges and inter-
cultural translation; and the artisanship of practices.
ism based on foreign territorial occupation, but it did not recognize colonial-
ism as a form of sociability that is an integral part of capit alist and patriarchal
domination, and which, therefore, did not end when historical colonialism
ended. Modern critical theory (which expresses the maximum possible con-
sciousness of Western modernity) imagined humanity as a given, rather than
as an aspiration. It believed that all humanity could be emancipated through
the same mechanisms and according to the same principles, by claiming rights
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Epistemologies of the South
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before credible institutions grounded on the idea of formal equality before the
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law. At the very heart of this modernist imagination is the idea of humanity as a
totality built upon a common project: universal human rights. Such humanistic
imagination, an heir to Renaissance humanism, was unable to fathom that, once
combined with colonialism, capitalism would be inherently unable to relinquish
the concept of the subhuman as an integral part of humanity, that is to say, the
idea that t here are some social groups whose existence cannot be ruled by the
tension between regulation and emancipation, simply because they are not fully
human. In Western modernity there is no humanity without subhumanities.
At the root of the epistemological difference there is an ontological difference.
In this regard, Frantz Fanon is an unavoidable presence. He eloquently de-
nounced the abyssal line between metropolis and colony, as well as the kinds
of exclusions that the abyssal line creates. He also formulated, better than any-
one else, the ontological dimension of the abyssal line, the zone of nonbeing
it creates, the t hing into which the colonized is transformed, a t hing that only
“becomes man during the same process by which it feels f ree” (Fanon 1968: 37).
Inspired by Fanon, Maldonado-Torres proposes the concept of coloniality of
being as side by side with the concepts of coloniality of power and coloniality
of knowledge: “colonial relations of power left profound marks not only in
the areas of authority, sexuality, knowledge and the economy, but on the gen-
eral understanding of being as well” (2007: 242). “Invisibility and dehumaniza-
tion are the primary expressions of the coloniality of being. . . . The coloniality
of being becomes concrete in the appearance of liminal subjects, which mark,
as it w
ere, the limit of being, that is, the point at which being distorts meaning
and evidence to the point of dehumanization. The coloniality of being pro-
duces the ontological colonial difference, deploying a series of fundamental
existential characteristics and symbolic realities” (2007: 257).
The abyssal line is the core idea underlying the epistemologies of the South. It
marks the radical division between forms of metropolitan sociability and forms
of colonial sociability that has characterized the Western modern world since the
fifteenth c entury. This division creates two worlds of domination, the metropoli-
tan and the colonial world, two worlds that, even as twins, present themselves
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as the liberal state, the rule of law, human rights, and democracy. The struggle
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Modern critical theories recognized the different degrees of exclusion but refused
to consider qualitatively different types of exclusion and w ere therefore totally
unaware of the abyssal line. This is not to say that nonabyssal exclusions and the
struggles against them are not equally important. Of course they are, if for no
other reason than because the success of the global struggle against modern dom-
ination cannot be achieved if it does not include the struggle against nonabyssal
exclusions. If the epistemologies of the South do not grant any epistemological
much cognitive investment and b ecause the struggles against them for the
past five hundred years have been far more visib le politically. From the perspec-
tive of the epistemologies of the South, nonabyssal exclusions and the struggles
against them gain a new centrality once the existence of the abyssal line is recog-
nized. The political agenda of the groups struggling against capitalist, colonial,
and patriarchal domination must then accept as a guiding principle the idea that
abyssal and nonabyssal exclusions work in articulation, and that the struggle for
liberation will be successful only if the different struggles against the different
kinds of exclusion are properly articulated.
An incursion into the lived experience of abyssal and nonabyssal exclusion
may help to clarify what has been stated. Following the end of historical co-
lonialism, the abyssal line persists as colonialism of power, of knowledge, of
being, and goes on distinguishing metropolitan sociability from colonial socia-
bility.1 These two worlds, however radically different, coexist in our postcolo-
nial societies, both in the geographic al global North and in the geographical
global South. Some social groups experience the abyssal line while crossing
between the two worlds in their everyday life. In what follows, I present three
hypothetical examples that are all too real to be considered a mere figment of
the sociological imagination.
First example: In a predominantly white society, a young Black man in sec-
ondary school is living in a world of metropolitan sociability. He may well con-
sider himself excluded, whether because he is often avoided by his schoolmates
or because the syllabus deals with materials that are insulting to the culture or
history of p eoples of African descent. Nonetheless, such exclusions are not abys-
sal; he is part of the same student community and, at least in theory, has access to
mechanisms that will enable him to argue against discrimination. On the other
hand, when the same young man on his way back home is stopped by the police,
evidently due to ethnic profiling, and is violently beaten, at such a moment the
young man crosses the abyssal line and moves from the world of metropolitan
sociability to the world of colonial sociability. From then on, exclusion becomes
abyssal and any appeal to rights is no more than a cruel façade.
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friend of terrorists, at that particular moment the worker crosses the abyssal
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line and moves from the world of metropolitan sociability to the world of co-
lonial sociability. In this way, exclusion becomes radical b ecause it focuses on
what he is rather than what he says or does.
Third example: In a deeply sexist society, a woman with a job in the for-
mal economy inhabits the world of metropolitan sociability. She is the victim
of nonabyssal exclusion to the extent that, in violation of employment labor
laws, her male coworkers receive a higher salary to perform the same tasks.
On the other hand, when she is returning home and is a victim of gang rape or
is threatened with death just because she is a woman (femicide), at that par
ticular moment, she is crossing the abyssal line and moving from the world of
metropolitan sociability to the world of colonial sociability.
The crucial difference between abyssal and nonabyssal exclusion is that only
the former is premised upon the idea that the victim or target suffers from an
ontological capitis diminutio for not being fully h uman, rather a fatally degraded
sort of human being. It is therefore unacceptable or even unimaginable that the
said victim or target be treated as a human being like us. As a consequence, the
resistance against abyssal exclusion includes an ontological dimension. It is bound
to be a form of reexistence. As long as the three modes of modern domination
(capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy) are in force and act in tandem, large
social groups will experience in their lives and in a systematic way, however
differently in different societies and contexts, this fatal crossing of the abys-
sal line. Modern domination is a global mode of articulation between abyssal
and nonabyssal exclusions, an articulation that is both uneven, as it varies ac-
cording to societies and contexts, and combined at the global level. Following
historical colonialism, the elusiveness of the abyssal line and the consequent
difficulty in recognizing these two types of exclusion are due to the fact that
the ideology of metropolitanness, as well as all the juridical and political ap-
paratuses that go with it, hovers above the world of colonial sociability as the
ghost of a paradise promised and not yet lost. The end of historical colonialism
produced the illusion that the political independence of the former European
colonies entailed strong self-determination. From then on, all the exclusions
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natural resources in the colonies and neocolonies, that is to say, at the cost of
aggravating abyssal exclusions.2
As a consequence of the invisibility and confusion concerning different
kinds of exclusion, social groups that are the victims of abyssal exclusion are
tempted to resort in their struggles to the means and mechanisms proper to
the struggle against nonabyssal exclusion. The current model of aid to devel-
opment is a good example of how an abyssal exclusion can be disguised (and
worsened) by treating it as if it w ere nonabyssal. The persistence of the invisible
abyssal line, and the difficulty in disentangling abyssal from nonabyssal exclu-
sions, makes the struggles against domination even more difficult. However,
from the perspective of the epistemologies of the South, liberation is premised
upon building alliances between abyssally excluded groups and non–abyssally
excluded groups, thereby articulating struggles against abyssal exclusions and
against nonabyssal exclusions. Without such an articulation, nonabyssal exclu-
sions, when viewed from the other side of the abyssal line (the colonial side),
look credibly like privileged forms of social inclusion. Conversely, abyssal
exclusions, when viewed from this side of the abyssal line (the metropolitan
side), are alternatively considered as the product of fate, of self-inflicted harm,
or of the natural order of things. By the same token, abyssal exclusions are
never seen on this side of the line (the metropolitan side) as exclusions, but
rather as a fatality or the natural order of t hings. Historically, social groups
excluded by abyssal forms of exclusion have been forced to resort to means of
struggle adequate only for fighting against nonabyssal exclusions. No wonder
there has been a lot of frustration.
Alliances and articulations are a demanding historical task, not only b ecause
different struggles mobilize different social groups and require different means
of struggle but also because the separation between struggles against abyssal
exclusions and against nonabyssal exclusions overlap with the separation be-
tween struggles that are considered to be primordially against capitalism or
against colonialism or against patriarchy. Such separation gives rise to contra-
dictory kinds of hierarchies among struggles and among collective subjectivi-
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ties carrying them out. Thus a struggle conceived of as being against capitalism
may be deemed successful to the extent that it weakens a struggle that con-
ceives of itself as being against colonialism or against patriarchy. The opposite
is likewise possible. Of course, there are differences between kinds of struggles,
but such differences should be mobilized to potentiate the cumulative effect
of the struggles and not to justify reciprocal boycotts. Regrettably, reciprocal
boycott is what has happened more frequently.
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Epistemologies of the South
Account: s5205063
The difficulties in establishing alliances cannot be ascribed to the myopia of
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social leaders alone, or to the different histories and contexts of the struggle.
Between abyssal and nonabyssal exclusions there is a structural difference that
affects the struggles against them. Unlike the struggles against nonabyssal exclu-
sions (which fight for change in terms of the logic of regulation/emancipation),
the struggles against abyssal exclusions entail a radical interruption of the logic
of appropriation/violence. Such an interruption entails a break, a discontinu-
ity. Fanon’s insistence that violence is necessary in the decolonization process
must be interpreted as an expression of the interruption without which the
abyssal line, even if it shifts, goes on dividing the societies into two worlds of
sociability: the metropolitan world and the world of coloniality. Interruption
may manifest itself in e ither physical violence or armed struggle, on the one
hand, or in boycott or lack of cooperation, on the other (more on this below).
Recognizing the abyssal line entails acknowledging that alliances between the
struggles against the different kinds of exclusion cannot be built as if all
exclusions were of the same kind. Eurocentric critical thought was built upon
a mirage, namely that all exclusions were nonabyssal. However vehement the
statements against liberal political theory, to think that the struggles against
domination can be conducted as if all exclusions were nonabyssal is a liberal
prejudice.
colonial side of the line) were concealed. Today the sociology of absences is
the inquiry into the ways colonialism, in the form of the colonialism of power,
knowledge, and being, operates together with capitalism and patriarchy to pro-
duce abyssal exclusions, that is, to produce certain groups of p eople and forms
of social life as nonexistent, invisible, radically inferior, or radically dangerous—in
sum, as discardable or threatening. Such an inquiry focuses on the five monocul-
tures that have characterized modern Eurocentric knowledge: valid knowledge,