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The Epistemology of the South, Coloniality of Gender, and Latin American Feminism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2022

Breny Mendoza  and
Daniela Paredes Grijalva Open the ORCID record for Daniela Paredes Grijalva [Opens in a new window]
Breny Mendoza*
Affiliation:
Gender and Women's Studies, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330
Daniela Paredes Grijalva
Affiliation:
Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Hollandstrasse 11-13, Vienna 1210, Austria Email: Daniela.paredes.grijalva@oeaw.ac.at
*
Corresponding author. Email: breny.mendoza@csun.edu
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Abstract

This article provides a Latin American feminist critique of early decolonial theories focusing on the work of Aníbal Quijano and Enrique Dussel. Although decolonial theorists refer to Chicana feminist scholarship in their work, the work of Latin American feminists is ignored. However, the author argues that Chicana feminist theory cannot stand in for Latin American feminist theory because “lo latinoamericano” gets lost in translation. Latin American feminists must do their own theoretical work. Central to the critique of the use of gender in decolonial theory is an analysis of the social pacts among white capitalists and white working-class men that not only exclude white women but make citizenship and democracy impossible for men and women of color in the metropolis as well as in the colony. By revealing the nexus between gender, race, and democracy, not only is the coloniality of gender apparent, but also the coloniality of democracy.

Type
Feminism in Translation
Information
Hypatia , Volume 37 , Special Issue 3: Decolonial Feminism in Latin Améfrica: An Essential Anthology , Summer 2022 , pp. 510 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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Footnotes

This article was first published as Breny Mendoza. 2010. La epistemología del sur, la colonialidad del género y el feminismo latinoamericano. In Aproximaciones críticas a las prácticas teórico-políticas del feminismo latinoamericano. Vol. 1. ed. Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso. Buenos Aires: En la frontera.

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