Interview to Boaventura de Sousa Santos. (February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guilherme, Manuela; Dietz, Gunther
• Other Names: Guilherme Manuela guest-editor.; Dietz Gunther guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Arts and humanities in higher education. Volume 16:Number 1(2017)
• Page Start: 17
• Page End: 27
• Publication Date: 2017-02
• Subjects: Epistemologies of the South -- (pluri)versities -- universities -- intercultural -- transnational -- ALICE Project; Arts -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Periodicals; Humanities -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Periodicals; 700.711
• DOI: 10.1177/1474022216680598
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1474-0222

Abstract

In this interview, Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos addresses, on the one hand, the process of transnationalisation of universities and the neoliberalisation of the classical model of the European university. On the other hand, he stresses that the recognition of difference and internal pluralism of science, which have pervaded the universities during the last decades, is now losing steam. However, he believes that the emergence of the Epistemologies of the South he proposes may contribute to the re-foundation of a new university more suited to the ethos of the 21st century, since the reconstruction or reinvention of confrontational politics requires an epistemological transformation. Therefore, he proposes a new, polyphonic university (or better, pluriversity) as this epistemological transformation unfolds. This means that the political alliances of the future will have an epistemological dimension characterized by an articulation or combination of different and differently relevant kinds of knowledge.