Dialogues and tensions between the decolonial turn and posfoundational theory: approaches to the political

Abstract

This article examines the dialogues and tensions between the decolonial turn and post-foundational theory in relation to the subject as a key axis for understanding the political and political identities. While the decolonial approach highlights the historical structures of the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being, it tends to oscillate between a structuralist and an ethical understanding of the political, running the risk of essentializing the subaltern subject. Post-foundational theory, in turn, provides tools for thinking about political subjectivity from the perspective of contingency, but it often overlooks historical macro-structures, which also shape identities. The article argues that a critical dialogue between the two perspectives opens up new lines of inquiry for rethinking the production of political subjects in contexts of subjection to structures, while at the same time avoiding moralizing or determinist forms of reflection.