Problemática da geopolítica do conhecimento: papel do giro decolonial para descentralização epistémica em Walter Mignolo

Abstract

This monograph critically analyzes the Geopolitics of Knowledge and investigates the role of the Decolonial Turn, proposed by Walter Mignolo, as a path to epistemic decentralization in the global and Mozambican context. Starting from the premise that modernity is inseparable from coloniality, it argues that the latter operates as a persistent structure of domination that shapes hierarchies of knowledge, power, and being. The study revisits the formation of the Modernity/Coloniality Group, highlighting contributions from Quijano, Mignolo, Maldonado-Torres, and Grosfoguel, as well as the emergence of Afro-diasporic horizons of resistance, including Du Bois, Garvey, and the Harlem Renaissance movement. It demonstrates that Eurocentric modernity, sustained by the "myth of the zero point," privileged Western epistemologies and produced systematic epistemicide by delegitimizing local knowledge. Through the concepts of coloniality of knowledge, being, and power, it becomes evident how such logics structure contemporary institutional practices, including in Mozambique, where political independence was not accompanied by true cognitive autonomy. The research argues that the Decolonial Turn constitutes an ethical-political project of epistemic reconstruction, promoting ecologies of knowledge, cognitive justice, and pluriversity (pluridiversity). It concludes that overcoming the geopolitics of knowledge requires the recognition of colonial difference, a critique of modern epistemic neutrality, and the strengthening of situated epistemologies capable of rescuing local histories and reinscribing the Global South as a legitimate producer of knowledge.