¿Qué hacer con los universalismos occidentales? Observaciones en torno al "giro decolonial"

Abstract

In this paper I want to respond to certain tendency often articulated in decolonial critical studies that links any universalist claim to the ideology proper to the history of colonialisms and its pervasive effects in the present. I would like to contend this tendency and reivindicate the need for universality and universal claims, if the task of decolonizing modernity does not want to lose its political relevance. I will start by asking what does it mean to think identity exclusively from a particularist perspective and what are the political and philosophical consequences of such an attempt. I will then move on to explore and reivindicate the question of universality, differentiating it from what I call here, following Laclau, "universalisms". This will allow me to finally articulate my position in relation to, but also as taking distance from, Dussel's notion of "transmodernity". My intention is ultimately to reclaim universality as a pre-requisite and condition of possibility for the articulation of any political emancipatory project.