Mapping Theories of Liberation:Anticolonial, Postcolonial, Decolonial

Abstract

To begin this inquiry, I would like to propose a brief and schematic mapping of the debates within which we wish to situate ourselves in an attempt to reframe their terms. From this perspective, we must distinguish at least three currents of thought that constitute distinct stages of a trajectory through which the Third Worlds- what is today called the “Global South”-have created, if not a movement of thought, then at least a radical reorientation of knowledge which remains open-ended. While its forms are manifold, the primary goal of these movements is both to dismantle the Eurocentrism of dominant knowledge in the social sciences and philosophy and to rethink history from non-European sites, primarily in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Americas. This mapping is not intended to be static, much less exhaustive or definitive. Rather, it is a kind of methodological mapping that will then allow us to show how the theoretical contribution of Algeria and the Maghreb to these debates may lead to a disruption of the chronological order implied by this sequencing. I thus propose a new concept, imperiality, as a contribution to the critical thought of our time.