Knowledges, Sustainability, and Cognitive Justice

Recommended Prerequisites

Students should have solid training in their area of expertise (with an emphasis on anthropology, history and sociology) and should, additionally, have enough references of a transversal character that allow them to attend a transdisciplinary programme. They should also possess a command of both the English and Portuguese languages that enables them to read texts of a high level of complexity (level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).

Teaching Methods

This curricular unit will function in the form of a research seminar. A detailed syllabus will be provided at the beginning of the semester, including a detailed description of the way of functioning of the seminar together with a complete list of topics and texts to be dealt with in class. The classes include a short presentation by the lecturer, followed by presentations by the students; at the end of each session the lecturer synthesises the main points. The unit includes also visualization of films, as well as visits to museus, theaters and exhibitions.

Learning Outcomes

This seminar as 3 main goals: 1) to question the nuances and political uses of knowledge production in modern contexts and its relationship with the colonial/capitalist/patriachy project, both in the global North and in the global South, through a trans-scalar approach; 2) to study the production of knowledge(s) as a field of analysis that allows the detection of the production and reproduction of situations of inequality, regulated through the epistemic hierarchy imposed by the colonial system, 3) to broaden the study about the meanings and possibilities of sustainability and cognitive justice, from the (ac)knowledge(ment) of the epistemological diversity in the world. By the end of the semester the students should have enriched their horizon of references on the nitions of ‘being’ and ‘knowledge’, in order to, based upon the Epistemologies of the South, problematize the pluriversity of knowledges as well as of their contexts of production.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. (Re)visiting core concepts

1.1 Colonialism

1.2 Capitalism and colonialism

1.3 Colonialism and patriarchy

2. Knowledge of the world and of its conflicts

2.1. Theorizing the problems of the Global South: the challenges brought about by the Epistemologies of the South

2.2 The Modern University and its knowledges

2.3. (Re)situating the question of knowledge production: who, where, for whom?

3. The Epistemologies of the South as a possibility of epistemic translation

3.1. Deepening the knowledge of the Global South

3.2. From colonial injsutices to cognitive justice

4. Memories, social struggles and reconciliation processes in East Timor, in the context of Asia/Pacific

4.1. Other histories and memories: building an 'ecology of knowledges'

4.2. Local practices of memorialization

4.3. The long walk to reconciliation: the case of East Timor and Indonesia

Head Lecturer(s)

Marisa Ramos Gonçalves

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Periodic or by final exam as given in the course information: 100.0%

Bibliography

Amin, S. (1989), Eurocentrism. London: Zed Books.

Anderson, B. (1983), Imagined communities. London: Verso.

Andrade, M. P. (1998), Origens do nacionalismo africano. Lisboa: D. Quixote.

Blanchard, P.; Bancel, N.; Lemaire, S. (orgs.) (2005). La fracture coloniale. Paris: La Découverte

Cabral, A. (1976), Unidade e luta (2 vol.). Lisboa: Seara Nova.

Cesaire, A. (1978), Discurso sobre o colonialismo. Lisboa: Sá da Costa.

Chakrabarty, D. (2000), Provincializing Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mbembe, A. (2014) Crítica da razão negra. Lisboa: Antígona.

Santos, B. S. (org.) (2004), Semear Outras Soluções. Porto: Afrontamento.

Santos, B. S.; Meneses, M. P. (orgs) (2010), Epistemologias do Sul. Coimbra: Almedina.

Shaw, R.; Waldorf, L.; Hazan, P. (2010), Localizing Transitional Justice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Thiongo, N. W. (1986), Decolonizing the mind. London: Heineman.

Wiredu, K. (1996), Cultural Universals and Particulars. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.