Coloniality of power and power matrix

Coloniality of Power and the Power Matrix

Politics Power and Resistance: The shrinking World: Globalisation, Deconiality and Border Thinking

Vincent Brian Quiaem17236616

Globalisation

• Globalisation, as an international phenomenon, must be discerned as being primarily understood within western and Eurocentric ideals (Grosfoguel, 2012).

• Contemporary civilisation and politics cannot be discussed with exclusion to Globalisation.

• Ramon Grosfoguel argues that contemporary discourse on globalisation is inherently exclusionary (Grosfoguel, 2008).

Figure 1. Ramon Grosfugel (Boriculandia, 2013)

Power Matrix

• Common discourse on globalisation and capitalism as derived from Western and even Eurocentric critique (Grosfoguel, 2012).

• The world system as “a historical-structural heterogeneous totality with a specific power matrix” (Grosfoguel, 2008).

• Colonial power matrix as source of global inequality.

Economy and Coloniality of Power

• Hierarchy exists between Western and non-Western world based on binary opposition, according to Grosfoguel (Grosfoguel, 2008).

• Division of global labour within international capitalism is defined by racial/ethnic hierarchy within opposition (Grosfoguel, 2008).

Coloniality and Colonialism

• Colonialism: the presence of colonial administrative structures (Grosfoguel, 2008).

• Coloniality: “colonial forms of domination after the end of colonial administrations, produced by colonial cultures and structures in modern/colonial capitalist world-system” (Grosfoguel, 2008)

Neoliberalism in Global Power Matrix

• Global implementation of Neoliberal market principles through international institutions (WTO and IMF) as exemplifying “colonial power matrix.”

• US invasion of Iraq and implementation of Neoliberalism as forceful establishment of labour division once justification of removal of WMD and implementation of democracy are exhausted.

Reference List

• Boricolandia. (2013). ramc3b3n-grosfoguel [Image file.] Retrieved from: http://boricuolandia.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/a-puerto-rican-in-paris-2nd-part/

• Grosfoguel, R. (2008, July 04). Transmodernity, border thinking, and global continuity. Eurozine. Retrieved from http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-07-04-grosfoguel-en.html

• Grosfoguel, R. (2012). The dilemmas of ethnic studies in the united states: Between liberal multiculturalism, identity politics, disciplinary colonization, and decolonial epistemologies. Human Architecture, 10(1), 81-89. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/920750257?accountid=36155

• Harvey, D. (2007). Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 610, NAFTA and Beyond: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Global Trade and Development, pp. 22-44. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/stable/25097888