Rethinking relationship between decoloniality and hegemony

Abstract

The present study holds that in order to transform decolonization in a social practice that is historically emancipating, it should be articulated with the construction of counter-hegemony that starts from the recognition of the inextinguishable socio-cultural plurality and the ineluctable possibility of difference and political conflict, and therefore recognition of the impossibility of building full and abstract universal orders. The construction of counter-hegemony is possible through the translation operation proposed by Santos, that assumes the identification and increase of which this author denominates the contact zones. Santos’ counter-hegemony proposal may be enhanced applying Laclau’s theory in order to reflect in a more consistent way the political-epistemic articulation work, that is not just translation but the construction of a democratic and agonistic hegemony, following Chantal Mouffe that inevitably entrails the production of historical-concrete universals.