Review of "Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide," by Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Abstract

Architects of Austerity is a well-researched, clearly written, and convincingly argued book on the political history of international finance regulation of the post-WWII period. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that, with this book, Aaron Major establishes himself as a leading voice among analysts who, over the past decade or so, have done some serious rethinking of the common wisdom surrounding our understanding of this crucial period.This common wisdom looks something like this: the end of the Second World War coincides with the emergence of a new international regime broadly governed by a logic of "embedded liberalism." Unlike the gold standard regime and its focus on monetary stability at the expense of all else, under embedded liberalism new economic priorities become dominant, and among those priorities the primacy of growth and full employment over the need for stability takes pride of place. But for reasons having to do with the weak political will of the forces underlying this regime, the tension created by the Cold War and the rise and decline of US hegemony, and the contradictions of the regime itself, embedded liberalism falls apart under the weight of stagflation and international volatility, to be replaced surprisingly by a resurgent liberal doctrine. While neo-liberalism is not free of problems and contradictions, it acquires an uncontested, hegemonic status that to this day sets strict limits on the financial and fiscal autonomy of national governments. Neoliberalism underpins the current politics of austerity.In what ways is this common wisdom incorrect? Scholars from a variety of fields and approaches have taken issue with its lack of nuance: neoliberalism is surely dominant, but its rise has been uneven to say the least, and understanding the sources of this unevenness yields insight into the political processes that underlie it. Put differently, understanding neoliberalism as a reaction to the economic failure of embedded liberalism hides the institutional foundations of neoliberalism, and the identity and shape of the political constellations that have facilitated its diffusion. But ignoring those institutional foundations means implicitly accepting that neoliberal success is a function of its effectiveness as an economic solution. The search for institutional differences in the intensity, timing, and configuration of neoliberalism, in turn, has unearthed unexpected evidence about the political coalitions where important ideas that neoliberalism later appropriates come from (see in this respect Monica Prasad's book The Politics of Free Markets).Major's book joins this conversation by pointing not to national differences, but to institutional continuity at the international level in order to explain neoliberalism's resurgence. In fact, Major's argument is that classical liberalism never went away; rather, it constituted the ideological terrain of international financial institutions throughout the period of embedded liberalism, and exercised important constraints on national governments ...

Social marketing hackers

“…What we call “traditional thinking” in social marketing is a legacy of Northern and Western colonisation (Connell, 2020). Indeed, the Global North and what is known as Western knowledge perpetuates colonisation by determining what are acceptable ways to construct theory and knowledge which are portrayed as universal but which exclude Southern theory and First Nations ways of knowing (Connell, 2020; de Sousa Santos, 2015, 2018).…”

“…Universities perpetuate epistemicide being the systematic destruction of First Nations epistemologies, knowledge and pedagogies – “the killing of knowledge systems” (Hall and Tandon, 2017, p. 6). There is a growing global chorus of scholars calling for decolonisation of knowledge systems and the need for knowledge democracy, cognitive justice and epistemic justice whereby there is an ecology of knowledge systems rather than one dominated by Northern/Western scientific knowledge (de Sousa Santos, 2015; Hall and Tandon, 2017). In this ecology of knowledge, First Nations ways of thinking, knowing and having equal standing, usurping the current unequal knowledge hierarchies, which assert power by defining what credible and valid knowledge is and who the bearer of this is (Hall and Tandon, 2017; De Sousa Santos, 2018).…”

Puzzlement of a déjà vu: Illuminaries of the global South

“…He rhetorically claims a personally led self-identified big programme, with the swarming effect of disciples and followers. Indeed it has been noted that Santos invents words and concepts as ‘re-affirmations of the originality and importance of the project rather than solutions to intellectual projects’ (Bortolicu, 2015, p. 232). Thus supporting his own self-enterprising entity.…”