The concept of alterity inside the discussion between the theoretical frames of device and of communication

Abstract

From the perspective of Luhmann´s General Social Systems Theory (GSST) this paper analyses, systematizes, contrasts and polemizes with the concepts of 'Other' and 'Alterity' assumed by two South-American figures of Post-Colonial Studies: Santiago Castro-Goméz and Walter Mignolo. The problem that interest us is the sociological statute attributed to the category of alterity by that school. We observe its relative analytical weakness in contrast with the use of the same category given by the GSST which connected it with the categories of double contingency and communication. We focus critically the sociological and methodological restraints of the alterity when it is related with the concept of (social) device, originally Foucaultian and cardinal to the main thesis of South-American Post-Colonial Studies: the coloniality of power. Our hypothesis indicates that the concept of alterity, once related with the concept of device, simplifies the relation of alterity, impoverishes the statute of social relation, eliminates the doublecontingent dimension of social relations and occludes the analysis of communication because reduces socially relevant signification to the unilateral expectations of the emissor and excludes the reception. Once we argue our hypothesis, we solidify the reached results with sociological elements of Serge Grunzinly´s theory of 'Mestizo Mind', Tzvetan Todorov´s theory of semiotic colonization and Mario Margulis thesis of racialization of classrelation. For these purposes we implement a methodological strategy founded in terminological analysis and critical interpretation.