In this essay, I argue for the need of a critical dialogue with the field of Postcolonial Studies considering, among other features, its tendency to neglect the study of contemporary forms of political domination and economic exploitation. A tendency that is even more present in the field of Organization Studies, which has been increasingly colonized by management. This text is located within the field of Latin American studies, adopting Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation and its ethical fundament as references. I also argue for the adoption of an anti-management attitude because the distinction between Northern/Southern management is irrelevant for the victims, for those suffering material impoverishment, forced to premature death, lack of dignity and a host of injustices.
En este ensayo, defiendo la necesidad de un diálogo crítico con el campo de los estudios poscoloniales, considerando, entre otros aspectos, su tendencia a descuidar el estudio de las formas contemporáneas de dominación política y explotación económica. Una tendencia aún muy presente en el campo de los Estudios Organizacionales, que ha sido colonizada cada vez más por la administración. Este texto hace parte de los estudios latinoamericanos, adopta la filosofía de la liberación de Dussel y sus fundamentos éticos como referencia. Asimismo, defiendo la adopción de una actitud anti-management porque la distinción entre management del Norte y del Sur es irrelevante para las víctimas, para aquellos que sufren un empobrecimiento material, quienes se ven obligados a muertes prematuras, a falta de dignidad y a un sinnúmero de injusticias.
Neste ensaio, argumento pela necessidade de um diálogo crítico com o campo dos Estudos Pós-Coloniais considerando, entre outros aspectos, sua tendência para negligenciar o estudo de formas contemporâneas de dominação política e exploração econômica. Uma tendência que ainda está mais presente no campo dos Estudos Organizacionais, que tem sido crescentemente colonizado pelo management. Este texto se localiza no campo dos estudos Latino-Americanos, adotando a Filosofia da Libertação de Dussel, e seus fundamentos éticos, como referência. Eu também argumento pela adoção de uma atitude anti-management porque a distinção entre management do Norte e do Sul é irrelevante para as vítimas, para aqueles que sofrem empobrecimento material, são forçados a mortes prematuras, falta de dignidade e a um conjunto de injustiças.
For some of us, this call for papers is an opportunity to revisit previous writings and ideas, to critically assess our own contribution and to move forward considering contemporary debates. As a Latin American, it is impossible to avoid a situated way of approaching the theme. However, this impossibility is not only due to the geopolitical locus of enunciation,[
What I am introducing is the need of a critical dialogue with the field of Postcolonial Studies considering, among other features, its tendency to neglect the study of contemporary forms of political domination and economic exploitation. A tendency that is even more present in the field of Organization Studies –OS–, which has been increasingly colonized by management. In the words of Misoczky, Flores and Goulart (
any research that does not contribute to the practice of management is
considered outside the field; the study of the organization of social struggles
is considered irrelevant; and critical management studies ends up being an
oxymoron - the critical dimension is jeopardized by the impossibility of
negating management and contributing to management; among others. (
By taking this context into account, I can now locate this text within the field of Latin American studies adopting the Philosophy of Liberation[
The option for Quijano’s coloniality of power and Dussel’s transmodernity is justified because they open possibilities for a politicized discussion that goes beyond culturalism and indicates the need of transcending the globalized capitalist power as an indispensable condition for the liberation of the victims of this system of power. Influenced by these perspectives, follows a critical appraisal of Postcolonial Studies and a brief overview of its presence in the field of MOS. Finally, the argument of this essay is for the need of an anti-management perspective that could contribute to liberate at least part of OS from the colonialism of management and, at the same time, express our co-responsibility, as academics and activists, with the liberation of the victims of the prevailing system.
In Latin America, a ground-breaking formulation came from the thought and the pen of Anibal Quijano, a Peruvian sociologist and humanist thinker known for having developed the concept of coloniality of power. I will introduce part of this seminal contribution in his own words, based on a text first published in 1992, when the commemoration of 500 years of the invasion of America was taking place.
What is termed globalization is the culmination of a process that began
with the constitution of America and colonial/ modern Eurocentred
capitalism as a new global power. One of the fundamental axes of this model of
power is the social classification of the world’s population around the idea of
race, a mental construction that expresses the basic experience of colonial
domination and pervades the more important dimensions of global power,
including its specific rationality: Eurocentrism. The racial axis has a
colonial origin and character, but it has proven to be more durable and stable
than the colonialism in whose matrix it was established. Therefore, the model
of power that is globally hegemonic today presupposes an element of coloniality.
(
In a previous text, Quijano (
For Quijano (
With America, “an entire universe of new material and intersubjective relations was initiated”. Therefore, the concept of modernity accounts for the changes in the material dimensions of social relations (i.e., world capitalism, coloniality of power) and for the changes that occur on all levels of social existence. In other words, “starting with America, a new space/time was constituted materially and subjectively: this is what the concept of modernity names” (
It is interesting to observe how Quijano’s analysis shares similarities with Marx (
the discovery of gold and silver in
America, the extirpation, enslavement and
entombment in mines of the indigenous population of the continent, the
beginning of the conquest and plunder of India,
the conversion of Africa into
a preserve for the commercial hunting of black-skins, all of this characterized
the dawn of the era of capitalist production. (
Back to Quijanos’s propositions, what we have is an approach that connects modernity and capitalism because capitalist determinations required a material and intersubjective social process that “could not have a place except within social relations of exploitation and domination” (
To summarize, coloniality is a neologism created to make sense of a constitutive feature of modernity which cannot be thought of outside the context of Eurocentric hegemonic patterns of knowledge and its claims of universality. This supposed universalism is what justifies the so called ‘civilizing missions’: first seen in Christianization, then in the myth of progress and modernization, still associated with the powerful symbolic carrier of promises of a better life (development). As a consequence, the study of coloniality implies
the challenge of thinking across (frontiers, disciplines, territories,
classes, ethnicities, epistemes, temporalities) in order to visualize the
overarching structure of power that has impacted all aspects of social and
political experience in Latin America since the beginning of colonial era. (
Quijano’s contribution indicates two directions simultaneously. One is analytical - the concept of coloniality opens up space ‘for the reconstruction and the restitution of silenced histories, repressed subjectivities, subalternized knowledge and languages’. The other is programmatic - it indicates the need for de-coloniality of power and knowledge (
As part of the critical debate on postmodernity and postmodernism, Dussel (
The project of a transmodern world includes a pluriversal episteme that goes beyond Eurocentric ethnocentrism to create a situated and dialogical knowledge based on diverse locations and perspectives and, at the same time, addresses certain core universal problems that are present in all places and cultures. In other words, the refusal of the Eurocentric universality claim does not imply the refusal of any universal claim: the transmodern project expresses the need of a universal common shared project against capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism and coloniality. As a project, transmodernity allows for the understanding of the emergence of cultures which had been historically depreciated and unvalued not as a miracle arising from nothingness, but rather as a return of these cultures to their status as world-actors. The liberating moment of modernity implies the recognition of Alterity, of this Other who ratifies and proves its existence and allows for the construction of a transmodern world. It expresses a utopian horizon as a new age of the world “beyond the postulations of modernity, capitalism, Eurocentrism and colonialism”. An age in which “the requirements of the existence of life on earth demanded a new ontological attitude regarding the existence of nature, labour, property and diverse cultures”. It is also an age in which, thanks to the new economic relations that would overcome capitalism, “there will be no exploitation of the most vulnerable” in the name of profit (
Both Quijano and Dussel followed the political and dialectical scope of dependency theory, and this is a very important aspect because it allows them to go beyond epistemic/knowledge coloniality and to firmly inscribe their propositions in concrete relations of exploitation and domination that manifest themselves in multiple ways, such as social hierarchies, racial discrimination, economic exploitation, gender violence, cultural subordination, and the destruction of nature.
Having briefly presented the propositions of these authors, I will introduce some critical reflections on the project of Postcolonial Studies.
‘Post-colonialism’ as a term and a conceptual category originated as part of the process of independence struggles of African and Asian colonies after the II World War to characterize changes in the states and economies of ex-colonies of the so-called ‘Third World’. Although Latin America was part of the Third World, because most of its nations had achieved political independence during the first part of the XIX Century, it has not been included. This is a first criticism of the idea of post-colonialism. Another one is that from the historical perspective, we cannot ignore that colonialism is still a concrete reality and that the desire of autonomy still informs the lives of many people around the world (maybe the more evident cases are Puerto Rico and Palestine).
Around three decades after the II World War, the second usage of the term ‘postcolonial’ was developed in the Anglophone world in connection with critical studies of colonialism and colonial literature, under the influence of postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives. Let us remember the historical context in which it happened: “the breakdown of really existing socialism; the ascendance of conservative politics in Britain (Thatcherism) and the United States (Reaganism); and the overwhelming appearance of neoliberal capitalism as the only visible, or at least seemingly viable, historical horizon”. As part of this context, Postcolonial Studies abandoned any perspective regarding the possibility of liberation from the material conditions of oppression. Another aspect to consider is that its distinctive identity as an academic field is “marked by the unusual marriage between the metropolitan location of its production and the anti-imperial stance of its authors, many of whom were linked to the Third World by personal ties and political choices”. In this phase, “while historical work has centred on British colonialism, literary criticism has focused on Anglophone texts, including those from Australia and the English-speaking Caribbean” (
Contemporary Postcolonial Studies encompass problems as different as the formation of minorities in USA and African philosophy. But, while it expanded towards new areas, it retreated from analysing their relations within a unified field, stressing on the study of parts, following the scepticism towards any grand narrative and “not always discriminating between Eurocentric claims to universality and the necessary universalism arising from struggles against world-wide capitalist domination” (
Grafoguel (2014) defends the need of decolonizing Postcolonial Studies. His main argument relates to the fact that modernity did not start at the mid XVIII Century with British colonialism in India –as Spivak and Babha consider–, nor at XIX Century when Napoleon arrived in Egipt –as Said considers–, but in 1492. According to him, the consequences of the invasion of America are constitutive of the European colonial expansion to India and the Arab world. There are also epistemic traps in these criticized assumptions, which include the acceptance of the emancipatory logic inner to the Enlightenment modern project. Following these misunderstandings, it is easy to understand the acritical inclusion of poststructuralism as their main reference. Besides, the privilege of epistemology over the sources of real colonial expressions allows the presentation of their provincial readings as if they were universal.
Consequently, some have asked What is the relation between the state of the field and the state of the world? This is a very needed reflection, considering that the consolidation of the field of Postcolonial Studies happened between the end of the cold war and 9/11, a period in which the prospect of negotiated processes, such as the ones of South Africa and Northern Ireland, may have led to the belief of the possibility of thinking after colonialism. However, as the world changed with the post-9/11 return to expansionist imperial policies, we should also address the failures of Postcolonial Studies (
Homi Bhabha (
Other errors and misunderstandings of Postcolonial Theory/Studies can be highlighted: i) an epistemic error – the confusion of postcolonial theory and the condition of postcoloniality, dividing “between the narrative of the other in the European narrative and the people who live in the other places –the Global South– who cannot claim to be the other” (
To summarize, the field focused so exclusively on northern European colonialism, mostly anglophone, that “it ended up looking at colonialism through provincial eyes” and neglecting other colonialisms. Informed by fashionable ‘turns’ and ‘posts’ of the 1980s, the field focused on fragments of the colonial past, unable to examine present postcolonial empires as changing imperialist formations (
A view of colonialism as starting from the XV century “would offer a different understanding of modern colonialism and colonial modernity”. Some obvious landmarks, besides the invasion of America, would be: 1804 Haiti’s political independence, 1825 continental Latin America’s political independence, and 1947 India’s political independence. Also, if we could recognize that 9/11 names not only 2011 but also 1973 Chile’s overthrown of Salvador Allende by an USA-backed coup, “we would be better prepared to place the post 9/11 resurgent imperialism in a larger imperial landscape”. Expanding the field’s temporal and spatial referents – bringing not only Latin America, but also Africa into a discussion that has been too Anglocentric, can potentially transform the conceptual categories and, mainly, connect fragments to wholes, the discursive to the material, and local narratives to grand narratives (
In the words of Said (
As I mentioned in the beginning of this essay, the universal material principle enunciated by Dussel (
So, what about postcolonialism and Management and Organization Studies –MOS–, a field that has been so committed with colonial and imperial practices from nation-states and transnational corporations? A review published in 2011 identifies the main trends until then (
It is also recognizable the selective way in which Postcolonial Theory has been incorporated in the field of MOS. On the one hand, postcolonial organizational analysts have very much relied upon the ‘Holy Trinity’ of Said, Bhabha and Spivak as resources to engage in textual/discourse-based critiques, maybe as a consequence of the fascination with language and its constitutive effects that came with the interest in poststructuralism (
Among the earliest deployments of postcolonial references, it is worthy to mention the work of Frenkel and co-authors, which included the identification of hybrid patterns of knowledge developed in Israel after British and US models of productivity were incorporated (
Another frequently mentioned author is Prasad (
Just with the purpose of illustrating the argument, some other examples are mentioned here. Adopting the notion of a ‘third space’, Seremani and Clegg (
These examples indicate the same trend we find in Postcolonial Studies: the celebration of fragments and cultural constructs. There is also a predominant focus on means to perfect management practices and theories. As a result, the hybridism between MOS and postcolonialism ends up being very functional to the reproduction of a global systemic order based on violence, cultural and political domination, and economic exploitation. Other examples of the disconnection of the coloniality of knowledge and the coloniality of power are studies that look for the reversal of colonialist hierarchies of knowledge in the management of transnational corporations, without considering the role of these corporations in the coloniality of power and new imperial practices.
In my interpretation, the influence of postcolonial ideas in the field of MOS is a renewal of the persistent trend of domesticated critique (
In the Latin American OS context, the formal introduction of the topic of coloniality can relate to the publication, in the same year, of two articles that share similar approaches. Ibarra-Colado (
Misoczky and Dornelas-Camara (
It is necessary to remember what was stated in the beginning of this essay regarding an anti-management attitude. Without taking this position into consideration, the critiques of postcolonialism, of its presence in the field of MOS, and of the misappropriation of Quijano and Dussel’s propositions by some Latin American scholars of this field may look as an exercise of pure arrogance or, at least, of bad mood.
My argument is that the possibilities, announced by Misoczky, Flores and Goulart (
This challenge demands the co-responsibility for the liberation of the victims of the prevailing system and transversal dialogues with the difference. More specifically, it demands the articulation of our knowledge production with the knowledge produced as part of the critical praxis of popular organization(s) which includes, among others, feminist struggles, the defence of threatened ways of living in connection with the defence of nature, the confrontation of racism in all its forms, the emergence of silenced indigenous voices and practices, the protection of immigrants, peasants and workers movements.
The negation of oppression begins with the affirmation of the exteriority of the Other. In the face-to-face encounters with the community of human life that expresses the Other, we can opt for solidarity and responsibility. However, this is not merely a subjective or charitable encounter. This responsibility includes the analysis and the denounce of the structures and processes that make it impossible for the victims to produce and reproduce their life in community, in the clear knowledge that the victims always have the original historical and concrete ethical consciousness. Therefore, “only those who have some ‘experience’ of an ‘us’ against the domination can reflexively think about the un-happiness of the Other: it is the thematic critique (scientific and philosophical, but both critical)” (
Following this indication, Misoczky and Böhm (
Acting as organic intellectuals, it
is this explicit thematic critique that we, from our position, can elaborate.
Thematic critical consciousness consists of three moments: an ethical-critical
consciousness of the oppressed, which is pre-thematic but substantively
original; a thematically explicit consciousness; and an existential thematic
critical consciousness. From that latter moment, it becomes possible the
construction of new collectives, including the oppressed and academic organic
intellectuals. (
Dussel (
This attitude would help to overcome the fact that “OS has remained relatively blind to the processes of organizing and the knowledge produced in the organizational practices from below” (
As we mentioned before, Dussel (
An action, an institutional or
systemic norm, is ethically operational and concretely feasible if it complies
(a) with the logical, empirical, technical, economic, etc., conditions, the
possibility of which is judged by the following (b) [deontic] requirements:
(b.1) ethical-material practical truth, and (b.2) formal-moral validity; within
a range that goes from (b.a) actions ethically
allowed (which are merely possible because they do not contradict ethical and
moral principles), until (b.b) mandatory actions,
which are ‘necessary’ for the actualization of basic human needs (materially –
the reproduction and development of life; formally – the participation of the
affected by the decision-making). (
Here we have
the centrality of organization, indispensable when the oppressed feel their
life is threatened and their critical
consciousness awakens. As Freire (
From the positivity of the ethical
principle of life, from the negativity of materially risking death, and from
the absence of power in relation to the institutional (corporate and
governmental) power, the victims realize the non-validity of the system,
experience being a people, confront the actual valid consensus and elaborate
the formal intersubjective consensus of the oppressed. In the process of
building this consensus, the people elaborate a new project, a future validity
that will guarantee life and will be collective at political and organizational
dimensions. (
I can now summarize the main points of this essay, starting with the importance of appropriating the contributions of organic intellectuals who dedicated their lives and
The insistence of Aníbal Quijano in the dialectical precedence of coloniality of power over epistemic coloniality is a clear indication of the insufficiency of culturalist approaches, which are prevailing in the field of OS. In that sense, it is easy to understand the last fashion in the boom of Postcolonial Studies, a fashion that contributes to silence the inconvenient negative critique that defines critical Latin American thought. In another episode of ideas out-of-place (
Certainly, the path we choose is always a political choice. In that sense, this is not only a positioned paper, but an obviously very political one. Having chosen the responsible solidarity with the community of victims informed by Dussel’s philosophy and ethics of liberation, I share with many academics of our field the commitment with the people who put their lives at risk to confront the global pattern of capitalist power. This commitment includes the negative critique of OS colonized by management (no matter if under fashionable apparently critical positions) and the aim of co-constructing relevant and meaningful knowledge for the activists and for their organizational practices. By adopting an analectical attitude, we find ourselves in the Freirean dialectics of denouncing and announcing (
Research paper.
According to Mignolo (
“Philosophy of Liberation set out from the locus enuntiationis
of the material victim, from the negative effect of authoritarianism,
capitalism and patriarchy. However, this is the root of a profound divergence
with Critical Theory that continues up to the present…, that of the material
negativity of colonialism…, a phenomenon which corresponds to metropolitan
capitalism, Modernity, and Eurocentrism” (
“The ‘content’ of ethics (the reproduction and
development of life) has, abstractly, its own universality and always
On this kind of distinction see, for example, Alcadipani and Reis Rosa (