The “New:” A Colonization of Non-Modern Scholars and Knowledges

Abstract

We engage in an affirmative feminist reading of the recent, predominantly Western, philosophical movement called the new materialisms—that is, we problematize the “new” while still valuing its contributions toward justice (Todd 2016; Schaeffer 2018). We put Sara Ahmed in conversation with María Lugones and Zoe Todd in order to recognize that not only have feminist scholars engaged in conversations around the material before publications of the “new” (Ahmed 2008; Lugones 2010; Todd 2016), but we also argue that the “new” creates a coloniality of non-modern knowledges that think and live some of the so-called groundbreaking ideas of the “new.” The new materialisms, then, function systematically to deny and silence the multiple and varied ways in which the concepts it engages have a prolonged and deep scholarship of theorization in both feminisms and non-modern knowledges. The significance of this, we contend, is not merely a question of semantics as (some) authors of the “new” purport—language matters. That is, language materializes the world; it affects. In engendering this philosophy as “new,” it acts, in effect, as a colonization that reinforces harmful and violent discourses of white, neoliberal, colonial capitalism (Lugones 2010) that some feminist theories seek to dismantle.

Not All That Post, Not All That New: The Disruption of Challenging Coloniality

“…Cherniak and Walker (2020, p. 435) write about their stance on working with postcolonial critiques: “We suggest that we can continuously position ourselves to disrupt the colonial practice of new/old binaries and to actively engage with non-modern philosophers as an act and practice of reparations ” (emphasis in the original).…”

Toward Decolonial Feminisms: Tracing the Lineages of Decolonial Thinking through Latin American/Latinx Feminist Philosophy

“…We find this lesson at the heart of Shara Cherniak and Ashli Walker's essay, “The ‘New’: A Colonization of Non-Modern Scholars and Knowledges.” Cherniak and Walker urge us to carefully reflect on how thoroughly the coloniality of knowledge has saturated Western feminist lexicons, particularly those that appeal to “the new” as a way of making sense of their knowledge-making projects. As they argue, “The notion that these philosophies enact ‘unprecedented things’ privileges the colonizing philosophies of the Euro-Western ‘new’ and have no interest in substantially engaging the aforementioned historically disenfranchised philosophies in their conversations, and thus persisting the new/old dichotomy!” (2020, p. 432).…”