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Cultural Transpropriation
Cultural transpropriation is a term proposed by Argentine historian Ezequiel Adamovsky to describe a form of interethnic cultural exchange specific to the Latin American context, where cultural flux plays a crucial role in the making and redefinition of ethnic identities. Unlike cultural appropriation, which is typically framed in Anglo-American discourse as the exploitative or unacknowledged borrowing of cultural elements across rigid ethnic boundaries, cultural transpropriation refers to collective processes of self-transformation through the assimilation of elements from other groups. It is not an individual act of theft or commodification, but a shared endeavor embedded in histories of mestizaje, hybridity, and ethnogenesis, common in Latin American societies. Adamovsky argues that in…
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Autopoiesis
Autopoiesis, a term coined by Chilean biologists and philosophers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in the 1970s, refers to the self-generating and self-sustaining nature of living systems, emphasizing how organisms continuously reproduce and maintain themselves through internal processes. The term, derived from the Greek words auto (self) and poiesis (creation or production), signifies the ability of a system to define and regulate itself independently. In decolonial and design theory, thinkers like Arturo Escobar extend this concept to social and cultural systems, particularly in relation to autonomous design and communal world-making. For instance, Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities resisting extractive economies and globalized development models are practicing autopoiesis by maintaining their own…
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Hubris of Zero Degrees
The Hubris of Zero Degrees is a popular concept in decolonial theory, elaborated by thinkers such as Walter Mignolo and Santiago Castro-Gómez, to describe the illusion of objectivity and neutrality in Western knowledge production. It refers to the assumption that modern European science, philosophy, and historiography represent a universal, detached, and neutral perspective, rather than a historically and geopolitically situated way of knowing. The Hubris of Zero Degrees is foundational to the geopolitics of knowledge, as it reveals how power structures determine what is considered legitimate knowledge. This concept is crucial for understanding epistemic coloniality, as it exposes how Western academia continues to privilege European frameworks while dismissing other ways…
