Beyond the Third World: imperial globality, global coloniality and anti-globalisation social movements

Abstract

The increasing realisation that there are modern problems for which there are no modern solutions points towards the need to move beyond the paradigm of modernity and, hence, beyond the Third World. Imagining after the Third World takes place against the backdrop of two major processes: first, the rise of a new US-based form of imperial globality, an economic–military– ideological order that subordinates regions, peoples and economies world-wide. Imperial globality has its underside in what could be called, following a group of Latin American researchers, global coloniality, meaning by this the heightened marginalisation and suppression of the knowledge and culture of subaltern groups. The second social process is the emergence of self-organising social movement networks, which operate under a new logic, fostering forms of counter-hegemonic globalisation. It is argued that, to the extent that they engage with the politics of difference, particularly through place-based yet transnationalised political strategies, these movements represent the best hope for reworking imperial globality and global coloniality in ways that make imagining after the Third World, and beyond modernity, a viable project.

Notes

Arturo Escobar is in the Department of Anthropology, CB 3115 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. Email: [email protected].

I am grateful to Walter Mignolo for discussing some of the issues raised in this paper with me in ways that clarified the paper's goals. I also want to thank Mark Berger for his invitation to contribute to this special issue and for his suggestions on the initial version of this article.

D Scott, Refashioning Futures: Criticism After Postcoloniality, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

B de S Santos, ‘The World Social Forum: toward a counter-hegemonic globalization’, paper presented to the XXIV International Congress, Latin American Studies Association (lasa), Dallas, TX, March 2003. Also available at http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt/bss/fsm.php.

A Quijano, El Nuevo Imaginario Anti-capitalista, at http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/dinamic/es/tbib_Anibal_Quijano.asp.

S Amin, ‘For struggles, global and national’, Frontline, 20 (2), pp 1–10. Also available at http://www. flonnet.com/fl2002/stories/20030131008201200.htm.

W Harcourt & A Escobar, ‘Women and the politics of place’, Development, 45 (1), pp 7–14; JK Gibson-Graham, ‘Politics of empire, politics of place’, unpublished manuscript, Department of Geography, University of Massachusetss, and Department of Geography, Australian National University, 2003; and P McMichael, ‘Can we interpret anti-globalisation movements in Polanyian terms?’, unpublished manuscript, Cornell University, 2001. See also Patel & McMichael in this issue.

Santos, ‘The World Social Forum’; J Sen, ‘The World Social Forum as logo’, unpublished manuscript, Delhi, 2003; W Fischer & T Ponniah (eds), Another World Is Possible: Popular Alternatives to Globalization at the World Social Forum, London: Zed Books, 2003; and A Anand, J Sen, P Waterman & A Escobar, Are Other Worlds Possible? The Past, Present, and Possible Futures of the World Social Forum, Delhi: Viveka, in press.

B de S Santos, Towards a New Legal Common Sense, London: Butterworth, 2002; E Leff, Saber Ambiental, Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1998; and A Escobar, ‘Other worlds are (already) possible: cyber-internationalism and post-capitalist cultures’, paper presented to the Cyberspace Panel, Life After Capitalism Programme, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 2003. Also available at http://www.zmag.org/lac.htm.

Santos, Towards a New Legal Common Sense.

A Joxe, Empire of Disorder, New York: Semiotext(e), 2002.

A Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.

J Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1973; and Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1987.

M Foucault, The Order of Things, New York: Vintage Books, 1973; and M Heidegger, ‘The age of the world picture’, in Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, New York: Harper and Row, 1977, pp 115–154.

G Vattimo, The End of Modernity, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. See Escobar, ‘Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise: the Latin American modernity/coloniality Research Program’, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, in press, for further discussion.

Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity.

A Appadurai, Modernity At Large, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

I believe a Eurocentred view of modernity is present in most conceptualisations of modernity and globalisation in most fields and on all sides of the political spectrum, including in those works that contribute novel elements for rethinking modernity. See M Hardt & A Negri, Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. In this latter case, Eurocentrism surfaces in the authors' identification of the potential sources for radical action, and in their belief that there is no outside to modernity (again, a` la Giddens). In other cases Eurocentric notions of modernity are implicit in otherwise enlightening views of globalisation. See I Wallerstein, ‘Globalization, or the Age of Transition? A long-term view of the trajectory of the world system’, International Sociology, 15 (2), 2000, pp 249–265.

Santos, Towards a New Legal Common Sense, pp 1–20. Santos distinguishes his position from those who think that there are modern solutions to modern problems (Habermas, Giddens) and from those ‘celebratory postmoderns’ (Baudrillard, Lyotard, Derrida), for whom the lack of modern solutions to modern problems is not itself a problem, but rather a solution of sorts.

See Wallerstein's analysis of Kondratieff cycles, in Wallerstein, ‘Globalization, or the Age of Transition?’.

See M Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996; and Santos, Towards A New Legal Common Sense, pp 165–193.

Santos, Towards A New Legal Common Sense, p 453.

Ibid, pp 447–458.

A Joxe, Empire of Disorder, pp 78, 213.

Ibid, p 107.

Ibid, p 157.

Ibid, p 171.

Ibid, p 200.

For recent treatments of the current situation in Colombia, see JL Garay (ed), Colombia: Entre la Exclusio´n y el Desarrollo, Bogota´: Contralori´a General de la Repu´blica, 2002; C Ahumada et al, ¿Que´ Esta´ Pasando en Colombia?, Bogota´: El Ancora Editores, 2000; F Leal, (ed), Los Laberintos de la Guerra: Utopi´as e Incertidumbres sobre la Paz, Bogota´: Tercer Mundo, 1999; and the special issue of Revista Foro on ‘Colombia’s New Right', 46, January 2003.

Plan Colombia is a US-based multibillion dollar strategy intended to control both drug production and trafficking and guerrilla activity. Spearheaded by the Colombian and US governments, Plan Colombia actually constitutes a strategy of militarisation and control of the Andean region as a whole (including the Amazon region linked to the Andean countries). Its first installment of $1.3 billion (2000–02) was largely spent on military aid. Even the small percentage of the funds allocated to social development was largely captured by ngos set up by capitalist groups to extend their control over valuable territories and resources, as in the case of the palm growers in the Southern Pacific region. Among the aspects most criticised of Plan Colombia by Colombian and international organisations are the indiscriminate programme of fumigation, the increased militarisation it has fostered, and the overall escalation of the armed conflict it has brought about, particularly in Colombia. It is a centrepiece of the Uribe administration (2002–06).

Local social movements in the Pacific seem to be clear about this. For them, displacement is part of a concerted counter-attack on the territorial gains of ethnic communities throughout the continent, from the Zapatista to the Mapuche. This happens because the socioeconomic projects of the armed actors do not coincide with those of the ethnic communities. This is why local social movements emphasise a principle of return as a general policy for the displaced groups of the Pacific, and the declaration of the region as a territory of peace, happiness and freedom, free of all forms of armed violence. See A Escobar, ‘Displacement and development in the Colombian Pacific’, International Social Science Journal, 175, pp 157–167 for an extended discussion of these issues.

This is a very sketchy presentation of this group's ideas in the best of cases. See Escobar in press for an extended discussion, including its genealogy, tendencies, relation to other theoretical movements, and current tensions. This group is associated with the work a few central figures, chiefly the Argentinean/ Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel, the Peruvian sociologist Ani´bal Quijano, and the Argentinean/US semiotician and cultural theorist Walter Mignolo. There is, however, a growing number of scholars associated with the group, particularly in the Andean countries and the USA. In recent years the group has gathered around several projects and places in Quito, Bogota´, Me´xico City, and in Chapel Hill/Durham and Berkeley in the USA. For the main ideas presented here, see E Dussel, ‘Europe, modernity, and Eurocentrism’, Nepantla, 1 (3), 2000, pp 465–478; Dussel, The Underside of Modernity, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996; Dussel, ‘Eurocentrism and modernity’, in J Beverly & J Oviedo (eds), The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America, Durham, SC: Duke University Press, 1993, pp 65–76; Dussel, 1492. El Encubrimiento del Otro, Bogota´: Antropos, 1992; Dussel, Introduccio´n a la Filosofi´a de la Liberacio´n, Bogota´: Editorial Nueva Ame´rica, 1983; Dussel, Filosofi´a de la Liberacio´n, Mexico: Editorial Edicol, 1976; A Quijano, ‘Coloniality of power, ethnocentrism, and Latin America’, Nepantla, 1 (3), 2000, pp 533–580; Quijano, ‘Modernity, identity, and utopia in Latin America’, in Beverly & Oviedo, The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America, pp 140–155; W Mignolo, ‘Local histories and global designs: an interview with Walter Mignolo’, Discourse, 22 (3), 2001, pp 7–33; Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000; Mignolo (ed), Capitalismo y Geopoli´tica del Conocimiento, Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Signo, 2001; E Lander (ed), La Colonialidad del Saber: Eurocentrismo y Ciencias Sociales, Buenos Aires: clasco, 2000; S Castro-Go´mez, Cri´tica de la Razo´n Latinoamericana, Barcelona: Puvill Libros, 1996; S Castro-Go´mez (ed), La Reestructuracio´n de las Ciencias Sociales en Ame´rica Latina, Bogota´: Universidad Javeriana, 2000; S Castro-Go´mez & E Mendieta (eds), Teori´as sin Disciplina, Latinoamericanismo, Poscolonialidad y Globalizacio´n en Debate, Mexico, DF: Miguel Angel Porru´a–University of San Francisco, 1998; and C Walsh, F Schiwy & S Castro-Go´mez (eds), Interdisciplinar las Ciencias Sociales, Quito: Universidad Andina-Abya Yala, 2002. Little of these debates has been translated into English. See Beverly & Oviedo (eds), The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America, for some of these authors' works in English. A volume in this language has been recently devoted to Dussel's work. See L Alcoff & E Mendieta (eds), Thinking from the Underside of History. Enrique Dussel's Philosophy of Liberation, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. The journal Nepantla. Views from South has featured the works of this group. See especially Vol 1, No 3, 2000. Another volume in English, by Grosfogel and Saldi´var, is in preparation. A feminist critique of Dussel is found in E Vuola, ‘Thinking otherwise: Dussel, liberation theology, and feminism’, in Alcoff & Mendieta (eds), Thinking from the Underside of History, pp 149–180.

Dussel, ‘Europe, modernity, and Eurocentrism’; and Quijano, ‘Coloniality of power, ethnocentrism, and Latin America’.

See Dussel, ‘Europe, modernity, and Eurocentrism; and Dussel, ‘Eurocentrism and modernity’.

N Maldonado-Torres, ‘Imperio y colonialidad del ser’, paper presented to the XXIV International Congress, lasa, Dallas, TX, March 2003.

Email correspondence, 31 May 2003.

Dussel, Filosofi´a de la Liberacio´n.

Mignolo, ‘Local histories and global designs’, p 9.

Ibid, p 11.

On the application of the notion of diatopic hermeneutics to incommensurable cultural traditions, see also Santos, Towards a New Legal Common Sense, pp 268–274.

Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, p 308.

Ibid, p 22.

Ibid, p 329.

Ibid, p 309 [original emphasis].

‘Worlds and knowledges otherwise’ is the new subtitle of the journal Nepantla, published at Duke University. I am highly indebted to Walter Mignolo for the points in these concluding paragraphs (email correspondence, May 2003).

Gibson-Graham, ‘Politics of empire, politics of place’.

M Osterweil, ‘“Non ci capiamo questo movimento!” Towards theoretical and methodological approaches based in an ethnographic epistemology’, unpublished MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, 2003; and Escobar, ‘Notes on networks and anti-globalization social movements’, Presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 2000. Available from: www.unc.edu/∼aescobar/.

McMichael, ‘Can we interpret anti-globalisation movements in Polanyian terms?’, p 3.

See Escobar, Notes on Networks and Anti-Globalization Social Movements; and Escobar, ‘Other worlds are (already) possible’ for further explanation of this model and additional references. See L Peltonen, ‘Fluids without a cause? Tracing the emergence of a local green movement’, in Y Haila & C Dyke (eds), How Does Nature Speak? The Dynamics of the Human Ecological Condition, unpublished book manuscript, University of Helsinki, 2003 for an application of complexity to a particular social movement in Finland.

M de Landa, ‘Meshworks, hierarchies and interfaces’, at http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/; and de Landa, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, New York: Zone Books, 1997.

A caveat should be kept in mind: often ethnic minorities, women and the poor are the most marginalised from some of these trends, especially at the level of icts. Nevertheless, these same agents are often at the forefront of struggles over icts. See, for instance, Maria Sua´rez’s work with the fire radio and internet network in Costa Rica, 2003; and W Harcourt (ed), Women@Internet. Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace, London: Zed Books, 1999 for empowering uses of icts by women's groups. See also GL Ribeiro, ‘Cybercultual politics: political activism at a distance in a transnational world’, in SE Alvarez, E Dagnino & A Escobar (eds), Cultures of Politics/Politics of Culture: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, pp 325–352; and P Waterman, ‘Some propositions on cyberspace after capitalism’, paper presented to the Cyberspace Panel, Life after Capitalism Programme, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January, 2003. Also available at http://www.zmag.org/lacsite.htm.

Harcourt & Escobar ‘Women and the politics of place’; and Escobar, ‘Culture sits in places: reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization’, Political Geography 20, 2001, pp 139–174.

Gibson-Graham, ‘Politics of empire, politics of place’, p 15.

See Escobar, Culture Sits in Places.

Santos, Towards a New Legal Common Sense, p 459ff.

Santos, ‘The World Social Forum’.

Santos, Towards a New Legal Common Sense, p 234.

Santos, ‘The World Social Forum’, p 25.

Charles Price is attempting a hopeful reconceptualisation of the concept of ‘lumpenproletariat’ to explain the so-called ‘garrisons’ in the outskirts of Kingston; these are neighborhoods ruled by local bosses through a political, armed regime that combines particularistic provision of welfare, regulated forms of violence, and little or no state presence. Garrisons become, in this way, relatively self-ruling, self-organising urban enclaves. C Price, ‘What the Zeeks Rebellion reveals: issues of development, moral economy, and the lumpenproletariat in Jamaica’, paper presented at the Department of Anthropology Colloquium, Chapel Hill, NC, 21 October 2002.

The idea of rethinking Professor Amin's original proposal in terms of ‘selective de-linking and selective re-engagement’ emerged in a conversation with Ahmad Samattar and Amparo Mene´ndez-Carrio´n at Macalaster College in Minnesota, April 2002.