The Politics of Modernity: Origins, Economics, and a New Humanism of Space and Subjectivity (original) (raw)
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International Review of Social History , 2021
This volume edited by Ivonne del Valle, Anna More, and Rachel S. O'Toole explores a twofold argument: how, while the Iberian empires pioneered early modern globalization, these empires were also globalized by interacting with and incorporating a myriad realities, agents, and cultures across the world. Iberian Empires and the Roots of Globalization delves into that question, departing from a conceptual framework built on three main assumptions: (i) the polycentric nature of the Iberian empires, (ii) the possibility of establishing a non-European, but Iberian genealogy of the globalization process, and (iii) the importance of recovering social and cultural perspectives to explain Iberian globalization, frequently dominated by economic-oriented approaches. In the view of the editors, globalization did not lead to a more homogenous world. Instead, it "created heterogeneity within a connected and complex system" (p. ). Having all these elements on the table, the book seeks to create a "space for inquiries into the non-European peoples" who forged Iberian globalization, and by extension the world's globalization. What compass have the editors chosen to guide a volume embracing such an ambitious research agenda? First, the editors have opted to privilege a multidisciplinary approach; this is one of the book's defining features. Art history, literary studies, and history cohabit under the book's umbrella to offer a "new movement of exchange" between fields (p. ). Largely grounded in the concerns of postcolonial theory, the volume's interest in the interpretative possibilities and limitations of early modern documents, including archival records, normative texts, material culture, and visual artefacts, comes as no surprise. As happens with books aiming to push disciplinary boundaries, many readers will find this choice appealing; others will find it more a statement of intention than a fruitful exercise. Secondly, variety defines the locations under consideration in the chapters. The variegated places in which the Iberian empires were present is well covered in the book, including present-day Mexico, China, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, India, and the Philippines. Besides focusing on those local observatories, this book also underscores the importance of some of the Iberian highways to globalization, such as the entanglements weaved across the Pacific Ocean, the infamous transatlantic slave trade, the Peruvian silver world commerce, and the global activities of Iberian and Catholic missionaries. Territories falling under the jurisdictions of the Spanish Empire, especially in Spanish America, are better represented than those spaces claimed by the Portuguese. Perhaps closer attention to the Portuguese experience in the Indian Ocean would have strengthened the contributions of María Elena Martínez and Bruno Feitler, who touch upon Goa in their studies. Likewise, some chapters concentrate on people of African origin in the Americas (Rachel O'Toole and Anna More), but a more detailed focus on the Iberian presence in West Africapartially explored in Feitler's and More's essayswould have dramatically rounded up an already rich variety of vantage points and case studies. Finally, in addition to combining methodologies and diversifying the cases and the locations under examination, variety also defines the collective profile of the authors. The volume includes scholars with and from different academic backgrounds, based in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, and the USA. To avoid making global history a new version of traditional northern-European narratives about the Rise of the West, historians need not only to widen the actors, objects, and geographies under study, but also the analytical and
This paper is aimed at analysing, from a philosophical and sociological point of view, the process of Western modernization in terms of a critical social theory. In order to do that, I will criticize the historical-sociological blindness characterizing contemporary theories of modernity (as in those of Weber and Habermas). The historical-sociological blindness regarding the reconstruction of the process of Western modernization is basically characterized by the separation between European cultural modernity and European social-economic modernization, to the deletion of colonialism as basis and consequence of the process of Western modernization, which leads to the idea that European modernity is a self-referential, self-subsistent and endogenous process of development. The central argument of this paper is that the theories of modernity cannot provide a normative paradigm for critical social theory based on cultural modernity because of this historical-sociological blindness. Therefore, the elaboration of a normative concept for critical social theory should start by unveiling, denouncing and deconstructing this historical-sociological blindness of the theories of modernity. KEYWORDS: Modernity. Modernization. Colonialism. Historical-sociological blindness. Decoloniality. RESUMO: Critica-se no artigo a cegueira histórico-sociológica assumida pelas teorias da modernidade contemporâneas (por exemplo, em Weber e Habermas), com o objetivo de tematizar filosófico-sociologicamente o processo de modernização ocidental em termos de uma teoria crítica da sociedade. A cegueira histórico-sociológica acerca da reconstrução do processo de
PosFAUUSP
Ao longo deste texto, acompanharemos a construção da hegemonia tecnocientífica do concreto armado no contexto do capitalismo dependente latino-americano. Nossa intenção é demonstrar alguns momentos históricos fundamentais que identificamos na construção dessa hegemonia, iniciada com o modernismo arquitetônico no segundo quartel do século passado, seguida pela sua consolidação, a partir da década de 1960, com as políticas habitacionais, finalmente, discutiremos o aprofundamento e a ampliação do seu horizonte, verificados também com as políticas de produção de moradia dos governos de conciliação, no início do século XXI. Nesse recorte temporal, pretendemos apenas identificar alguns elementos que marcaram a reorganização do setor produtivo-industrial da construção civil e da produção do espaço construído. Essa hegemonia representou a construção de uma nova etapa da tecnociência capitalista, carregada de um racismo epistêmico, que subjugou outras opções tenocientíficas, outras práticas ...
Modernity and colonialism: on the historical-sociological blindness of the theories of modernity
2017
This paper criticizes the historical-sociological blindness found in contemporary theories of modernity (as in those of Weber and Habermas) in order both to construct a sociological model for the process of Western modernization and to formulate a normative notion of cultural modernity which can favor the development of a critical social theory which is correlatively sociological and philosophical. The historical-sociological blindness regarding the theoretical-political reconstruction of the process of Western modernization is basically characterized by the separation between European cultural modernity and European social-economic modernization, which leads to the notion that European culture is not directly linked to social and economic modernization. Likewise, Western modernization is fundamentally an autonomous and endogenous constitutive process, bearing no correlation with other cultures-societies, as seen in the lack of references to the fact of colonialism. Such a separatio...
Contexto Internacional, 2019
This article examines a key element of the power relations underpinning international politics, namely coloniality. It delineates the coloniality of international politics, and elucidates the fundamental aspects of its operationalisation on the one hand, and its crystallisation into international politics on the other. The article is structured into three sections. First, it explores the meaning of coloniality, and outlines its fundamental characteristics. Next, it delineates a crucial operative element of coloniality, the idea of race, and the double movement through which coloniality is rendered operational-the colonisation of time and space. Finally, the article analyses two structuring problematisations that were fundamental to the crystallisation of coloniality in international politics the work of Francisco de Vitoria, and the Valladolid Debate. It argues that the way in which these problematisations framed the relationship between the European Self and the ultimate Other of Western modernity-the indigenous peoples in the Americas-crystallised the pervasive role of coloniality in international politics.
Journal of Latin American Studies, 2018