This paper examines the intellectual and social context surrounding research on alternatives to western epistemologies. The paper outlines the challenges facing the western critical tradition – the old and the new; the loss of critical terms; the ghostly relation between critical theory and social change; the end of endless capitalism; the end of endless colonialism. The paper contrasts “the sociology of emergence”, i.e. the increase of knowledge, practices and agents, with “the sociology of absences”, i.e. forms of non-existence (e.g. “the ignored”, “the residual”, “the inferior”, “the local”, “the unproductive”). Finally, in considering new epistemological perspectives, the paper suggests that the epistemologies of the South are based on “the ecology of knowledge” and “intercultural translation”.

Keywords:alternatives, capitalism, colonialism, the South, sociology of emergence, epistemologies, intercultural translation

>Read More 

Original Contents by Études Rurales, 187, 21-50