World Center of Subaltern Thinking

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Quito, Ecuador; November, 2005

 World Center of Subaltern Thinking

Developing indignation, solidarity and sovereignty—power—among the powerless
 

Introduction

 

Does subaltern thinking exist? Generally ideas for the subaltern or about the subaltern abound, yet these thoughts are not of the subaltern. They were not generated by them or from the perspective of their histories, knowledge, experience, suffering, or aspirations. Subaltern thinking has been denied by the tabula rasa that considers “others” as people without knowledge with the aim of institutionalizing a pedagogical relationship of the dominant over the dominated. In this way, the justification acquires overtones of being necessary for the dominated and allows the dominators to play the role of rescuer. Political action and pedagogy are fundamental gestures emergent within a morality wherein those who are deemed “good” and knowledgeable offer salvation to those who are deemed inferior and ignorant. This is how a paternalistic posture persists in every day forms of domination.

 

This relationship of moral, political and pedagogical domination contradicts our ways of life in profound ways, leading the subaltern to believe that we depend on universal, systematic and neutral ideas—ideas that are foreign to our context and exempt from a commitment to our present and our future. We find morality defined in relation to a justification of this dependency and in defense of convenience in the thinking of the strong. The power of the strong over the weak is thus legitimated, undermining the very being, thought, emotion and action inherent in our ways of life.

 

To propose a World Center of Subaltern Thinking is to develop different methods by which men and women in five continents can explore the possibility of interacting freely and creatively toward the end of researching and shaping alternative forms of knowledge—non disciplines and subaltern understandings.

 

Development of these spaces involves several dynamics:

  • Recovering hidden forms of knowledge;
  • Raising the visibility of non disciplines that were denied by hegemonic interests;
  • Building knowledge rooted in spaces of resistance and struggle, among others.

 

These spaces are not, however, about the subaltern, for this would perpetuate the very logic with which we are trying to break. Nor is this a space for them since this would imply subscription to a paternalistic tendency. The new spaces we are attempting to generate create an opening from the rightful position of the subaltern where heterogeneity versus homogeneity do not constitute a new orthodoxy. Subaltern forms of knowledge, non disciplines, understandings are therefore epistemological, ethical and political spaces of life. They constitute new institutional arrangements that proclaim a right to... instead of a right over....  This institutional vision requires a new form of institution, one that is vigilant of the fact that the very concept of institutionalization was what originally created dependency and suppression of subaltern people.

 

Institutionalization as a right to... among subaltern people has to do with creating spaces that cross the epistemological boundaries and ideological divisions of traditional academia. It is not simply a matter of talking about what has previously not been said. Nor is it solely about circulating clarifications about differences. To engage in non-disciplinary thinking with the non-disciplines is to contribute to the development of sovereignty among communities and individuals who have been condemned to subaltern positions. This sovereignty cannot take place through a Center. By the same token, it cannot succeed without an accounting of alternative knowledge systems, without creating a forum for these non-disciplines to be heard and reflected upon, without a space wherein their logos can begin to be considered as part of the Aristotelian political community. It ultimately consists of the possibility of constructing subaltern epistemologies that can be liberating of the subaltern position. While retaining their academic disposition, they are political. Therefore, it is about the hope of political and social sovereignty that begins with an epistemological sovereignty.

 

Lack of sovereignty as global social problem

The already scarce spaces of autonomy wherein individuals, families, communities, social groups, societies, regions or continents can influence their futures are being usurped at a voracious pace, unprecedented in the history of modern times. The “Free Trade Agreements” (FTAs), for instance, are neither agreements nor are they free nor are they about commerce. In general, FTAs, conceived as multilateral spaces, institutionalized in supranational formations and implemented by “international agents of national change,” embody the corporate structuring of the planet for the purpose of exploitation through exclusion. FTAs are the most recent and effective assault on the sovereignty of national societies, in general, and particularly on subaltern groups and people. The most critical decisions regarding our futures are being taken by actors who are removed from our local context, and from public scrutiny and citizen participation. In the meantime, representative democracy is in crisis. Those elected to represent our aspirations no longer represent us because they are held hostage by a supranational web of States that acts as a worldwide corporate government without a president and without elections. Those who decide are non-elected while those who are elected have no power to decide.

 

The so-called “era of knowledge,” which has generated the “information society,” does not make us all equal. Instead, it increases the asymmetries between those who know and those who do not know; between those who generate and use their own knowledge and those who are condemned to be mere receivers of foreign knowledge; between those who own the knowledge and those who only have the option to either benefit from this knowledge or wait to be included in the benefits by those who have the resources to assert their advantage. In other words, the change of an era (from the paradigm of industrialization to that of informationalization) elicits a fundamental question regarding the inevitable articulation of the issue of knowledge in relation to power.

 

This articulation dissolves old dichotomies since it precludes thinking in terms of knowledge and ignorance. The dual division between those who know and those who do not has disappeared in view of the fact that the barriers that emerge today within the supposed openness to everything are multiple. For example, there are those who take advantage of the knowledge of others to increase their hegemonic and exclusionist power. There are those who do not know but think they know and present themselves as wise men to sell their old disciplines and technologies, which are damaging to the planet and conspire against the sustainability of life. And there are those forms of knowledge emanating from the margins, from those who do not have power—the subaltern, who attempt to survive above a systematic and neutral universality that has leaned on education as its greatest accomplice. They are the ones who are interested in knowledge that retains an intimate connection with life.

 

Thinking about the recovery and development of the knowledge produced by those without power can be significant in several ways. One is the recovery of knowledge that is indispensable for the life of the planet, which the Cartesian method denied and designated as mere superstition since it did not fit within mathematical and geometrical logic. Another is the deconstruction, de-colonization and reconstruction of our forms of knowledge, which have endured centuries of cultural colonization that skewed truths and certitudes in favor of the powerful. Finally, strengthening subaltern ways of life—the ways of life of those who have been excluded, victimized, silenced, rendered invisible, pillaged, tortured; the ways of life of the hungry, the poor, the miserable and those who have suffered injustice—“the condemned of the Earth,” as Fanon writes in acknowledgment of the fact that knowledge does not exist in isolation from life.

 

Thus, sovereignty of the subaltern as a social problem passes through the necessary question of knowledge, in so far as knowledge cannot be separated from power or from life. It is not that these disciplines and sciences have neglected the knowledge and the non-disciplines of the subaltern. Rather, denial of subaltern knowledge is indispensable for legitimating science. Consequently, the epistemological conflict is inevitable. Therein lies the urgency for innovation.

 

To summarize, the lack of sovereignty among subaltern groups and communities is a worldwide social problem that calls for global answers rooted in thought—for thinking is not an academic matter, but rather one that is integral to life in general.

 

Aim

  • To contribute to the sovereignty of subaltern groups and communities throughout the World.

Purpose

  • To build conceptual, methodological and cultural skills pertaining to the sovereignty of subaltern groups and communities. To this end, we propose to build a World Center of Subaltern Thinking, which through research and training can rescue epistemological practices and the most significant non-disciplinary knowledge from all five continents from political and ideological ostracism. In turn, this would allow for expanding the autonomy of subaltern groups, people, communities and individuals so that they can exert more influence on the fulfillment of their goals.

General Objective

  • To create intercultural, inter-institutional, trans-disciplinary, transnational and ethical spaces of interrelation and interaction for the deconstruction, de-colonization, and reconstruction of subaltern forms of interpretation and involvement. This will be accomplished through the creation of a World Center supported by a network of regional centers charged with researching, rescuing, contextualizing, reflecting upon, generating, reconfiguring, and sharing subaltern knowledge from the perspective of the epistemological and socio-political sovereignty of subaltern people, social groups, and individuals.

 

 

Specific Objectives

  1. To pursue paradigms—systems of truths—that circumvent the official, global institutionalization that has made us all vulnerable and relegated individuals, families, communities, social groups, people, societies, regions and continents to subaltern positions. And to propose, instead, other premises for the sustainability of humanity and the planet in general, and for the perpetuation of the ways of life of subaltern groups and communities more specifically.

 

  1. To generate—interactively—alternative interpretations to the hegemonic interpretations that prevail over the most relevant contemporary issues for transformation and sustainability of subaltern ways of life.

 

  1. To generate—interactively—alternative proposals for involvement in the transformation and sustainability of subaltern ways of life different from those of prevailing hegemonic proposals.

 

  1. To shape “another” generation of citizens—leaders, managers, scientists, politicians, professionals– under a method of innovation that is contextually, interactively and ethically relevant to the transformation and sustainability of subaltern ways of life.

 

Action Points

The World Center of Subaltern Thinking will achieve its institutional mission through a network of regional centers that support two basic activities: research and training.

 

  • Research. The first step in overcoming a complex situation, problem or challenge is to understand it. The regional centers will use complex thinking and a constructivist approach toward completing historical research and generating proposals on essential points for understanding and transforming subaltern ways of life from the standpoint of their own histories, experiences, knowledge and goals. Basically, efforts toward research-reflection-action combine the deconstruction, de-colonization and reconstruction of topics strongly linked to lack of sovereignty among subaltern groups and communities. For instance, the Epistemological Question is an issue that crosscuts all regional centers since it aims to develop subaltern epistemologies that would allow for expanding an understanding of the genesis of vulnerability among subaltern ways of life and contribute to subaltern initiatives to expand their autonomous spaces. Similarly, the Institutional Question crosscuts all regional centers in the sense that it deals with the “game rules” that influence development and often shape the ways of being, feeling, thinking and doing—ways of life—of individuals, families, communities, social groups, and societies. However, each regional center will orchestrate the specific issues that most affect subaltern ways of life in each region. One example is the Agricultural Question, which remains critical for understanding the greatest vulnerability of subaltern communities throughout the planet.
  • Training. One cannot remain neutral with respect to the future. The World Center of Subaltern Thinking has a commitment with the future of subaltern groups and communities. Contrary to the Positivist motto, “know in order to control,” and the Imperialist motto, “know in order to dominate,” the motto of the World Center for  Subaltern Thought is “understand in order to transform.” This means that the Center’s intellectual project has an epistemological-political-ethical character. Researching and making proposals is not enough. The Center must contribute to the development of conceptual, methodological and cultural skills applicable to the practice of autonomy among subaltern groups and people. This implies avoiding a model of cooperation that “gives itself to sin” creating absolute dependency. Nor do we want to promote a model that “switches out the lure” to determine the type of fish one will attract. Instead, the objective is to share “the art of making lures” so that local talent, with intimate knowledge of its waters and its fish, will be the one with the skill to fill its tackle box with lures in sizes and shapes that are befitting of its realities, its needs, and its goals. The regional centers should contribute to strengthening, expanding and transforming skills that already exist among subaltern communities. Relevant strategies, suitable to each historical, social, material, political, technological and cultural context will be decided upon in each region

 

Interpretive Frame

Each regional center that becomes integrated into the World Center of Subaltern Thinking will negotiate and establish a collection of ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiomatic premises to inspire and guide its regional action. All centers, nonetheless, will share certain general premises that can ensure unity in the midst of the interpretive diversity expected from the collection of centers—diversity emanating from Subaltern Thinking as frontier thinking from the margins, from the perspective of the victims. If the issue of Sovereignty of subaltern groups is to justify the creation of a World Center of Subaltern Thinking, then the regional centers that make it up must share, at a minimum, an epistemological-ethical-political frame that gives coherence to the ensemble of research and training efforts, and to the achievement of its aims, purpose, and objectives.

  • General guiding premises

o   Sustainability implies nurturing the relations, conditions, and meanings that they generate and maintain, and that give significance to existence.

o   The point of reference is context; interaction is the strategy; and ethics are the guarantor of transformation that is consistent with subaltern ways of life.

o   Living is learning—in interaction with a changing environment. To learn is to change; and to change is to continue to learn so that one will not be a candidate for extinction in the domain of ones existence.

o   Development and learning are not universal. They are contextual and interdependent.

o   In the “world of development,” universal problems are nonexistent. Problems are local and contextual, and consequently their solution requires contextualized interpretation and local management.

o   Meaningful knowledge is generated and appropriate in the context of its application and its implications.

o   Relevant innovation emerges from processes of social interaction wherein social and institutional actors that demand change participate.

o   Reality is socially constructed and can be socially transformed.

o   It is not possible to overcome complex situations using the method of interpretation and intervention that gave rise to it in the first place.

o   The emphasis on context in the constructivist paradigm implies learning by inventing, based on local histories, knowledge and goals.

o   The “idea of development” enables domination through a “superior-inferior dichotomy” that generates a hierarchy among human groups (civilized-primitive, developed-underdeveloped).

o   The “superior-inferior dichotomy” is an epistemological-ideological creation that transforms the domination of the powerful into the hegemony of the generous.

o   The emphasis of development from wins over the notion of development for or in a community.

o   Sentimental? Thinking endures over sentimental thinking when it comes to understanding phenomena based on human perception, decisions and actions. Soft thinking prevails over unique thinking.

o   If vulnerability emerges from anthropogenic problems—problems created by human action—then, sustainability can only come from human interaction based on a commitment to the sustainability of all forms and ways of life.

o   Participatory democracy endures over representative democracy in the transformation and sustainability of subaltern ways of life.

o   The authority of the argument asserts itself over the argument of authority when it comes to ensuring the internal coherence of a proposal and its correspondence with the context of its application and its implications.

o   End objectives overrule middle objectives.

o   The pedagogical questions that shape “builders of paths,” overcome the pedagogical answers that produce “followers of paths.” 

 

  • Basic Concepts:

 

Subalterns

Knowledge

Non disciplines

Sovereignty

Trans-disciplinarity

Local

Global

Worldwide

 

  • Emphases and theories referenced

 

Critical Constructivism

Complexity

Deconstruction

De-colonization

Critical theory

Marxism

 

Frame of Involvement

  • Philosophy of involvement: imitation compromises sovereignty. As epistemological sites themselves, subaltern people prepare us for innovation. Involvement should take place in two spaces: research and training. Regarding research: What does it mean to conduct research from the viewpoint of subaltern thought? Why generate this knowledge? What other paradigms do we need to build? Regarding training: What is training from the standpoint of subaltern thinking?
  • Methodological premises:  there will be an opened field for discussion, critical and methodological innovation that overtakes limitations born from traditional methodological postulates validated as universal.
  • Social practices: the Centre will become and organism with consultative presence worldwide, a space where the subaltern, the non-voice ones can pronounce themselves with their own words.  The Centre is not a ventriloquist that speaks for the ones that can not, it’s an agora which bursts into exclusion and the exclusivity of the world palaestras.  As a not neutral entity the Centre settles its compromise with the subalterns and outcasts, the Centre is not indifferent towards resistance and struggle or to strategies and actions of the dominating ones, this establish an ethical place of enunciation regarding to its positions.

 

Organizational Frame

  • Facilitator node (World Coordination, academic and administrative team)
  • Regional nodes (Regional Coordination, academic and administrative team)
    • Africa
    • Latin America
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Middle East
    • North America
  • Basic Challenges:
    • Epistemological reflection about the construction of subaltern thinking.
    • Different problems from persons, communities, towns and nations located at the periphery facing a globalization which is economically capitalist and politically neoliberal.
    • Problems regarding to lack of work and south-north migrations.
    • Extreme use of the natural resources, violence as the ruling energetic pattern, spoliation and subjugation of the southern countries under northern countries interests.
    • The Agrarian issue and the relationship with life’s sustainability.
    • Global and local political resistance and struggle.
    • Environmental crises and political economy from popular ecology.
    • The question of inter-culturalismo, dialogue, alteridad and tolerance.
    • The issue of genre and sexual options underlying in economical, political and social relationships.
    • New contents, forms and processes of people’s emancipation.
    • The institutional question—the game rules of development.  The basic criterion for knowledge is context. Consequently, we find relevance in local knowledge. Drawing on this premise, we can affirm that there is knowledge from “outside” that is important due to its relation with context, and other forms of knowledge that are irrelevant since an authentic universality is contextual. Local knowledge is conducive to developing a sovereignty that does not assert itself to dominate others, but, instead, is at the service of and acts in solidarity with collective life. While knowledge of the powerful is to maintain hegemony, subaltern knowledge is to build, defend, and protect the life of those who are systematically victimized and excluded. Although formal education has had a liberating inclination, its contract with encyclopedic knowledge has turned education into an instrument that justifies discrimination, racism and exploitation.
  • Spaces of interaction
    • Biannual Conference
    • Regular Video Conferences
    • Online and printed publication in several languages
    • Online and local discussion forums
    • Formation processes
    • Research projects

 

Operational Frame

The Centre will organize through the participation of intellectuals, social movements and organisms that support its work.  It will count with a coordinator of the facilitator node and regional coordinators assigned in a democratic process.  Each coordinator will organize an academic and administrative team on which the facilitator and regional nodes will lean on.   Each biennale conference, in addition of becoming discussion space about fundamental problems faced by the Centre, should also evaluate and propose the general and specific actions and activities.

The Centre as an international organism will invite the supporting institutions as observant to each regional and worldwide meeting. The Centre will keep its independence from those institutions.  Academic institutions, social movements or apt persons can become members or the Centre; they must agree with the Centre premises and must regularly participate in the exchange of knowledge and experiences.  The Centre as a critical institution towards traditional institutionality, will reject and exclude any type of authoritarian practice such as those promoted by formal institutions and will be a freedom space where everybody, intellectuals and movements will have the same opportunities to express their ideas, proposals and disagreements.  The Centre’s goal is not to elaborate an amalgamated, homogeneous or hegemonic thinking.  Argumentation and dissentment are fundamental tools not only of its methodology but also of its ethics.

 Each regional node will organize according to its own cultural codes, nevertheless, its very necessary to include the genres equitable participation at the time in which responsibilities and team construction are done.  Any kind of religious, ethnic, cultural, sexual, political or economical exclusion is out of perspective according to the Centre premises.   According to each country’s legislation a legal form must be adopted in order to let the Centre work without problems (some countries require juridical status regarding to the funds administration or to the social aims from organizations).

The Centre will elaborate educative programs in its headquarters, así como a distancia.  The financing character of the Centre will come from donations and project elaboration, publications, educational programs and autogestión from its members.

 

Quito, Ecuador; November 2006.