Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge: Debates on History and Power in Europe and the Americas

269 Pages·2015·1.588 MB·English

by  Marta Araújo, Silvia Rodríguez Maeso (eds.)

Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge
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Eurocentrism, Racism
and Knowledge
Debates on History and Power
in Europe and the Americas
Edited by
Marta Araújo
Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
and
Silvia Rodríguez Maeso
Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Selection and editorial matter © Marta Araújo and Silvia Maeso 2015
Individual chapters © their respective authors 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-29288-9
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-45098-5 ISBN 978-1-137-29289-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137292896
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15
Contents
List of Maps and Tables vii
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on Contributors ix
1 Eurocentrism, Political Struggles and the Entrenched
Will-to-Ignorance: An Introduction 1
Silvia Rodríguez Maeso and Marta Araújo
2 Epistemic Racism/Sexism, Westernized Universities and the
Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long Sixteenth Century 23
Ramón Grosfoguel
3 Violence and Coloniality in Latin America: An Alternative
Reading of Subalternization, Racialization and Viscerality 47
Arturo Arias
4 Social Races and Decolonial Struggles in France 65
Sadri Khiari
5 Towards a Critique of Eurocentrism: Remarks on
Wittgenstein, Philosophy and Racism 80
S. Sayyid
6 How Post-colonial and Decolonial Theories are Received
in Europe and the Idea of Europe 93
Montserrat Galcerán Huguet
7 Africanist Scholarship, Eurocentrism and the Politics of
Knowledge 114
Branwen Gruffydd Jones
8 Scientific Colonialism: The Eurocentric Approach to
Colonialism 136
Sandew Hira
9 Secrets, Lies, Silences and Invisibilities: Unveiling the
Participation of Africans on the Mozambique Front
during World War I 154
Maria Paula Meneses and Margarida Gomes
vi Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge
10 Conceptual Clarity, Please! On the Uses and Abuses of the
Concepts of ‘Slave’ and ‘Trade’ in the Study of the
Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery 178
Kwame Nimako
11 Making the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History
and Culture Compulsory: Tensions and Contradictions for
Anti-racist Education in Brazil 192
Nilma Lino Gomes
12 Race and Racism in Mexican History Textbooks: A Silent
Presence 209
María Dolores Ballesteros Páez
13 Social Mobilization and the Public History of Slavery in
the United States 229
Stephen Small
Index 247
List of Maps and Tables
Map
9.1 World War I military activities in the Mozambique war
theatre 167
Tables
8.1 Number of enslaved Africans deported from Africa
during the Transatlantic Slave Trade 140
8.2 Estimates of the number of victims of the system of
slavery in the Americas 148
11.1 1993 reform textbooks analyzed 212
11.2 2006 reform textbooks analyzed 213
vii
Acknowledgements
The editors of this collection would like to thank the Centre of Social
Studies of the University of Coimbra for encouraging our research.
We would also like to thank our colleagues who participated in this
collection for their contributions and for generously enriching our
understanding of the questions addressed in this volume.
This edited collection results from the academic work undertaken
during the research project ‘“Race” and Africa in Portugal: A Study on
History Textbooks’ (2008–12), which was funded by ERDF through
the Operational Competitiveness Programme – COMPETE, and by
national funds from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia – FCT
(PTDC/CED/64626/2006 | FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007098). It also
benefited from the research and networks established within the project
TOLERACE: ‘The Semantics of Tolerance and (Anti-)Racism in Europe:
Public Bodies and Civil Society in Comparative Perspective’ (2010–13),
funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007–2013]), under grant agreement no. 244633.
viii
Notes on Contributors
Arturo Arias is Tomas Rivera Regents Professor in Latin American
Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. His more recent academic
books are Taking their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America
(2007), and The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy (2000). He is currently
working on contemporary Latin American Indigenous narratives.
Marta Araújo is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies,
University of Coimbra, Portugal. She has published internationally on
education policy, institutionalized racism and Eurocentrism.
Margarida Gomes is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies,
University of Coimbra. She holds a degree in Art History from the
same university and a specialization in Cultural Affairs. Her current
research interests include post-colonial debates around the concepts of
cosmopolitanism and identity processes, especially from a literary and
philosophical perspective in African contexts.
Nilma Lino Gomes is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education of the
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Between 2004 and 2006,
she was the president of the Brazilian Association of Black Researchers
(ABPN). She is currently the Rector pro tempore of the University of
International Integration of Brazil-Africa Lusophony (UNILAB).
Ramón Grosfoguel is Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at the
University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Researcher at the Maison
de Science de l’Homme (MSH) in Paris. He has published many articles
and books on the Political Economy of the World System, International
Migration, Eurocentrism, Colonial Social Sciences and Race/Racism.
Sandew Hira, pen name of Dew Baboeram, is an independent scholar
and activist. He is director of the International Institute for Scientific
Research in The Hague and visiting lecturer at the Anton de Kom
University of Suriname. He studied Economics at the Erasmus University
Rotterdam. In 1982 he published his first book on the history of the
struggle against colonialism in Suriname from 1630–1940. Since then
ix