Coloniality of Power Meets Dependency Theory

Description

The Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies presents Inés Valdez, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins, and Segundo Montoya Huamaní, an instructor of philosophy at the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco in Peru, for a conversation on "Coloniality of Power Meets Dependency Theory: Imperial Developmentalism, Marginality, and Marx's Commune in Quijano's Socialization of Power."

Attention to the Modernity/Coloniality School in U.S. scholarship has obscured the longer tradition of dependency theory and Latin American thinkers creative reworking of Marxism. This paper argues that Aníbal Quijano's Marxist and dependency theory work underlies a notion that remains central in his later works on the coloniality of power and bien vivir. Once socialization of power is thus reconstructed, it can be understood as a more historical and political notion and in contrast to the epistemological and identitarian thrust of other contributions to the question of colonialidad del poder. We trace three theoretical-historical threads that make up socialization of power. First, we argue that Quijano develops his notion of socialization via an engagement with Marx's critique of the state and enthusiasm with the Paris Commune. Second, we illustrate that this notion provides a fitting political response to or synthesis of Quijano's critiques of marginality and authoritarian developmentalism during his dependency years. Third, we show that Quijano's historical-structural account of reciprocity and socialization of power orients his emancipatory horizon until his death in 2018. Re-reading Quijano in this way reveals a productive juxtaposition that highlights a continuing dilemma of revolutionary politics, from 1870s Europe to 1970s Latin America.