Decolonizing knowledge: neoliberalism beyond the three worlds. Issue 2 (3rd May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kangas, Anni; Salmenniemi, Suvi
• Is Part Of: Distinktion. Volume 17:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 210
• Page End: 227
• Publication Date: 2016-05-03
• Subjects: assemblage -- coloniality -- domestication -- hybridity -- liminality -- neoliberalism -- postsocialism -- three worlds; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Social history -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2016.1184174
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1600-910X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article argues that critiques of neoliberalism tend to rely on and reproduce the coloniality of knowledge. It analyzes how recent academic scholarship has mobilized the notion of neoliberalism to make sense of postsocialist transformations and identifies in it an epistemological meta-geography that reproduces the three-worlds scheme, a specific Cold War era articulation of the colonial matrix of power. The article traces various ways in which this meta-geography has structured academic debates on postsocialist neoliberalism. It emphasizes the importance of moving beyond the spatial and temporal infrastructure of the three worlds, and identifies a set of epistemological alternatives that would enable decentering this infrastructure. In conclusion, the paper argues that although postsocialism has received relatively little attention in attempts to decolonize knowledge, it has potential to serve as a critical form of thought in destabilizing Eurocentric assumptions in theorizing neoliberalism and opening up spaces for imagining the world differently.