Walter Mignolo

Born	May 1, 1941(1941-05-01) Corral de Bustos, Argentina
Web	Aaaaarg, Academia.edu, Wikipedia

Walter D. Mignolo (1941, Corral de Bustos, Argentina) is a semiotician (École des Hautes Études) and professor at Duke University, who has published extensively on semiotics and literary theory, and worked on different aspects of the modern and colonial world, exploring concepts such as global coloniality, the geopolitics of knowledge, transmodernity, Border-Thinking, pluriversality, decoloniality, and decolonial aesthetics.

Mignolo’s work has been devoted, in the past 30 years, to understanding and unraveling the historical foundation of the modern/colonial world system and imaginary since 1500. In his research, modern/colonial world system and imaginary is tantamount with the historical foundation of Western Civilization and its expansion around the globe. His approach stands on four basic premises: a) the there is no world-system before 1500 and the integration of America in the Western Christian (European) imaginary; b) that the world-system generated the idea of “newness” (the New World) and of modernity and c) that there is no modernity without coloniality—coloniality is constitutive no derivative of modernity; d) the modern/colonial imaginary was mounted and maintained on the invention of the Human and Humanity that provided the point of reference for the invention of racism and sexism together with the invention of nature.

Briefly stated, Mignolo’s research has been and continues to be devoted to exposing modernity/coloniality as a machine that generates and maintains un-justices and to exploring decolonial ways of delinking from the modernity/coloniality. Because the political dimension of his work, in the past fifteen years Mignolo’s energy has been increasingly devoted to the public sphere working with artists, curators, and with journalists, writing op-eds and giving frequent interviews in English and Spanish, co-organizing and co-teaching Summer Schools in Middelburg, Bremen, and at UNC-Duke. He is also frequently delivering workshops for faculty and graduate students in South and Central America, Asia, and Europe.

Mignolo was awarded the Katherine Singer Kovaks prize (MLA) for The darker side of the renaissance: literacy, territoriality and colonization (1996) and the Frantz Fanon Prize by the Caribbean Philosophical Association for The Idea of Latin America (2006). His work has been translated into German, Italian, French, Swedish, Rumanian, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Korean. He is an Honorary Research Associate for CISA (Center for Indian Studies in South Africa), Wits University at Johannesburg. Recently, he has joined the Dialogue of Civilizations (DOC) Program Council as a senior adviser and was distinguished with an Honoris Causa degree in the Humanities (Filosofia y Letras) by the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. (2020)

Works

Books, catalogues

• Elementos para una teoría del texto literario, Barcelona: Crítica, 1978, 383 pp, ARG. (Spanish)

• Literatura fantástica y realismo maravilloso, Madrid: La Muralla, 1983, 50 pp. (Spanish)

• Textos, modelos y metáforas, Veracruz, MX: Universidad Veracruzana, 1984, 268 pp. (Spanish)

• Teoría del texto e interpretación de textos, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1986, 298 pp. (Spanish)

• editor, with Elizabeth H. Boone, Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, Durham: Duke University Press, 1994, viii+324 pp. Review: Restall (Ethnohistory). (English)

• The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, Colonization, University of Michigan Press, 1995, 426 pp; 2nd ed., 2003, xxii+463 pp. [1]. Reviews: Ortiz de Montellano (Americas), Nayar (J Am Folklore), Hulme (J Latin Am Cult Stud), Grafton (NY Rev of Books). (English)
  • El lado más oscuro del renacimiento: alfabetización, territorialidad y colonización, Popayán, CO: Editorial Universidad del Cauca, trans. Cristóbal Gnecco, 2016. (Spanish)
  • Wen yi fu xing de yin an mian: Shi zi jiao yu, di yu xing yu zhi min hua [文艺复兴的隐暗面: 识字教育, 地域性与殖民化], trans. Ran Wei, Beijing: Bei jing da xue chu ban she, 2016, 461 pp. (Chinese)

• Local Histories / Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking, Princeton University Press, 1999, xix+371 pp. (English)
  • Historias locales / disenos globales: colonialidad, conocimientos subalternos y pensamiento fronterizo, Madrid: Akal, 2003, 452 pp. (Spanish)
  • Histórias locais / projetos globais: colonialidade, saberes subalternos e pensamento liminar, trans. Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira, Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2003, 505 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • 로컬 히스토리/글로벌 디자인: 식민주의성, 서발턴 지식, 그리고 경계사유, trans. 이성훈, Seoul: 에코리브르, 2013, 653 pp. (Korean)

• editor, Capitalismo y geopolítica del conocimiento: el eurocentrismo y la filosofia de la liberación en el debate intelectual contemporaneo, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2001; 2nd ed., 2014, 296 pp. [2] (Spanish)

• editor, with Saurabh Dube and Ishita Banerjee Dube, Modernidades coloniales: otros pasados, historias presentes, México: El Colegio de México, 2004, 306 pp. (Spanish)

• The Idea of Latin America, Wiley-Blackwell, 2005, xx+198 pp. Reviews: Shaw (Mester), Salvatore (A Contracorriente). (English)
  • La idea de América Latina: la herida colonial y la opción decolonial, trans. Silvia Jawerbaum and Julieta Barba, Barcelona: Gedisa, 2007, 241 pp. (Spanish)
  • 라틴아메리카, 만들어진 대륙: 식민적 상처와 탈식민적 전환, trans. 김은중, 그린비, 2010, 304 pp. [3] (Korean)
  • L'idea di America Latina: geostoria di una teoria decoloniale, trans. Flavio Fiorani, Milan: Mimesis, 2013, 224 pp. (Italian)

• with Catherine Walsh and Alvaro Garcia Linera, Interculturalidad, descolonización del Estado y del conocimiento, intro. Walter Mignolo, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2006, 128 pp, 123 pp. [4] (Spanish)

• Descolonialidad del ser y del saber, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2006, 115 pp. [5] (Spanish)

• "Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-Coloniality", Cultural Studies 21:2, Mar/May 2007, pp 449-514. (English)
  • Desobediencia epistémica: retórica de la modernidad, lógica de la colonialidad y gramática de la descolonialidad, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2010; 2nd ed., 2014, 104 pp. Reviews: Panotto (Postcol Net), Caamaño (Alpha), Martinez Peria (R Hisp Filosófico), Peressotti (Cardinalis). Publisher. (Spanish)
  • Epistemischer Ungehorsam. Rhetorik der Moderne, Logik der Kolonialität und Grammatik der Dekolonialität, trans. Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel, Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2012, 206 pp. [6] (German)
  • Avlänkning, trans. Patricia Lorenzoni, Hägersten: Tankekraft, 2014, 175 pp. [7] (Swedish)
  • La désobéissance épistémique: rhétorique de la modernité, logique de la colonialité et grammaire de la décolonialité, trans. Yasmine Jouhari and Marc Maesschalck, Peter Lang, 2015, 185 pp. Publisher. (French)
  • Dezobedienţa epistemică: retorica modernităţii, logica colonialităţii şi gramatica decolonialităţii, trans. Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2015, 135 pp. [8] (Romanian)

• editor, with Margaret R. Greer and Maureen Quilligan, Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, University of Chicago Press, 2008, vii+478 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Blakely (H-Soz-u-Kult), Peirce (Am Hist Rev). (English)

• editor, Género y descolonialidad, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2008; 2nd ed., 2014, 94 pp. [9] (Spanish)

• editor, La teoría política en la encrucijada descolonial, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2009, 162 pp. [10] (Spanish)

• editor, with Heriberto Caira, Las vertientes americanas del pensamiento y el proyecto des-colonias, Madrid: Trama, 2009, 272 pp. (Spanish)

• editor, with Arturo Escobar, Globalization and the Decolonial Option, London/New York: Routledge, 2009, 412 pp. The first book in English profiling the work of a research collective that evolved around the notion of coloniality, understood as the hidden agenda and the darker side of modernity. First published as a special issue of Cultural Studies (21:2-3). Publisher. Review: Merino (Sociology). (English)

• The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, Durham: Duke University Press, 2011, xxxvii+408 pp, ARG. Reviews: Castro-Klarén (MLN), Chatterjee (Am Ethnologist). (English)
  • Seogu geundaeseong ui eoduun imyeon [서구 근대성의 어두운 이면: 전 지구적 미래들과 탈식민적 선택들], Seoul: Hyeonamsa, 2018. (Korean)

• El vuelco de la razón: diferencia colonial y pensamiento fronterizo, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2011, 189 pp; 2nd ed., 2019, 208 pp. [11] (Spanish)

• De la hermenéutica y la semiosis colonial al pensar descolonial, Quito: Abya-Yala, 2011, 151 pp; 2nd ed., 2013. [12] (Spanish)

• with Madina V. Tlostanova, Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas, Ohio State University Press, 2012, vii+281 pp. (English)

• editor, with Alanna Lockward, BE.BOP 2012. Black Europe Body Politics, Berlin: Kultursprünge im Ballhaus Naunynstraße, 2012, 38 pp. Exh. catalogue. [13]. (English)

• editor, with Pedro Pablo Gómez, Estéticas y opción decolonial, Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, 2012, 303 pp. (Spanish)

• editor, with Pedro Pablo Gómez, Estéticas decoloniales, Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, 2012, 92 pp. Exh. catalogue. Review: Belenguer (Otros logos). (Spanish)

• editor, with Alanna Lockward, BE.BOP 2013. Black Europe Body Politics. Decolonizing the "Cold" War, Berlin: Kultursprünge im Ballhaus Naunynstraße, 2013, 46 pp. Exh. catalogue. [14]. (English)

• Habitar la frontera: sentir y pensar la descolonialidad (Antología, 1999-2014), eds. Francisco Carballo and Luis Alfonso Herrera Robles, Barcelona: CIDOB, and Chihuahua: UACJ, 2015, 505 pp. Selected essays. Publisher. Review: Quero (CIDOB). (Spanish)

• Trayectorias de re-existencia: ensayos en torno a la colonialidad/decolonialidad, ed. & intro. Pedro Pablo Gómez, Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, 2015, 208 pp. Selected essays from 1992-2014. (Spanish)

• editor, with Alanna Lockward, BE.BOP 2016. Black Europe Body Politics. Call & Response, Berlin: Art Labour Archives, 2016, 46 pp. Exh. catalogue. [15], [16]. (English)

• with Catherine Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concept, Analytics, Praxis, Durham: Duke University Press, 2018, xiii+291 pp. (English)

• with Pedro Pablo Gómez, Reconstitución estética decolonial, Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, 2021, 126 pp, PDF. (Spanish)

• The Politics of Decolonial Investigations, Durham: Duke University Press, 2021, 672 pp, EPUB. Publisher. (English)

• Jie zhi: quan qiu zhi min xing yu shi jie shi xu [解殖: 全球殖民性與世界失序; Global Coloniality and The World Disorder: A Decolonial Take], Xin zhu shi: 國立陽明交通大學出版社, 2021, 394 pp. (Chinese)

Journal issues

• editor, with Cedomil Goić, Dispositio 28-29: "Literature and Historiography in the New World", University of Michigan, 1986, 232 pp. (English)
• editor, with Madina Tlostanova, South Atlantic Quarterly 105(3): "Double Critique: Knowledges and Scholars at Risk in Post-Soviet Societies", Jul 2006, iv+182 pp. [17] (English)
• editor, Cultural Studies 21(2-3): "Globalization and the De-Colonial Option", 2007. Introduction. Subscription access. Published as a book (2009). (English)
• editor, with Rolando Vazquez, "Decolonial AestheSis", Social Text Online, Jul 2013. Dossier. (English)

Papers, essays, statements

• "The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Colonization and the Discontinuity of the Classical Tradition", Renaissance Quarterly 45:4, University of Chicago Press, Winter 1992, pp 808-828. (English)

• "The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism", Public Culture 12:3, 2000, pp 721-748. (English)
  • "Une Cosmopolis à faces multiples: pensée frontalière et cosmopolitisme critique", trans. Claude Mouchard and Hédi Kaddour, Poesie 152, 2015, pp 118-138. (French)

• "Coloniality of Power and Subalternity" in The Latin American Subaltern Studies Reader, Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. (English)

• "The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference", South Atlantic Quarterly 101:1, Winter 2002, pp 57-96. (English)

• "Museums in the Colonial Horizon of Modernity", cimam.org, 2005; rev. as "Museums in the Colonial Horizon of Modernity: Fred Wilson's Mining the Museum (1992)", ch 4 in Globalization and Contemporary Art, ed. Jonathan Harris, Maiden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, Mar 2011, pp 71-85; repr. in Fred Wilson: A Critical Reader, ed. Doro Globus, London: Ridinghouse, 2011, pp 374-391. First delivered as a talk at the annual conference of the International Committee of ICOM for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) in São Paulo in Nov 2005 upon the invitation of Manuel Borja-Villel. [18] [19] [20] (English)
  • "Museus no horizonte colonial da modernidade garimpando o museu (1992) de Fred Wilson", trans. Simone Neiva Loures Gonçalves and Gisele Barbosa Ribeiro, Museologia & Interdisciplinaridade 7:13, May 2018, pp 309-324. [21] (Brazilian Portuguese)

• "Prefacio", in Pensamiento crítico y matriz (de)colonial: reflexiones latinoamericanas, ed. Catherine Walsh, Quito: Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar-Abya Yala, 2005, pp 7-11. (Spanish)

• "Islamophobia/Hispanophobia: The (Re) Configuration of the Racial Imperial/Colonial Matrix", Human Architecture 5:1, 2006. (English)

• "De-Linking: Don Quixote, Globalization and the Colonies", Macalester International 17:1, 2006, pp 3-35. (English)

• "El pensamiento decolonial: desprendimiento y apertura: un manifiesto", in El giro decolonial: reflexiones para una diversidad epistémica más allá del capitalismo global, eds. Santiago Castro-Gómez and Ramón Grosfoguel, Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre, and Universidad Central, Instituto de Estudios Sociales Contemporáneos y Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Instituto Pensar, 2007, pp 25-46; rev. as "La opción de-colonial: desprendimiento y apertura. Un manifiesto y un caso" [The Decolonial Option: Detachment and Opening: A Manifest and a Case Study], Tabula Rasa 8, Bogotá, 2008, pp 243-281. (Spanish)

• "La opción descolonial", Letral 1, 2008. (Spanish)

• "Dispensable and Bare Lives: Coloniality and the Hidden Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity", Human Architecture 7:2, 2009. (English)

• with Madina Tlostanova, "Global Coloniality and the Decolonial Option", Kult 6: "Epistemologies of Transformation: The Latin American Decolonial Option and its Ramifications", Roskilde University, Fall 2009, pp 130-147. (English)

• "Coloniality: The Darker Side of Modernity", in Modernologies: Contemporary Artists Researching Modernity and Modernism, Barcelona: MACBA, 2009, pp 39-49. [22] (English)
  • "La colonialidad: la cara oculta de la modernidad", in Modernologías. Artistas contemporáneos investigan la modernidad y el modernismo, Barcelona: MACBA, 2009, pp 39-49. [23] (Spanish)

• "Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and De-Colonial Freedom", Theory, Culture & Society 26:7-8, 2009, pp 1-23. (English)
  • "Desobediência epistêmica: a opção descolonial e o significado de identidade em política", trans. Ângela Lopes Norte, Revista Gragoatá 22:1, 2007, pp 11-41; repr., Cadernos de Letras da UFF 34, 2008, pp 287-324. (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • "Desobediencia epistémica (II), pensamiento independiente y libertad de-colonial", trans. Iván Jacobo Herrera, Otros logos 1:1, Neuquén, AR, Dec 2010, pp 8-49. (Spanish)

• "Aiesthesis decolonial", Calle14 4(4): "Arte y cultura", ed. Pablo Pedro Gómez, Bogotá, Mar 2010, pp 10-25, PDF; repr. in Arte y estética en la encrucijada descolonial II, ed. Pedro Pablo Gómez, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2014; repr. in Mignolo, Habitar la frontera: sentir y pensar la descolonialidad (Antología, 1999-2014), Barcelona: CIDOB, and Chihuahua: UACJ, 2015, pp 399-413. (Spanish)

• "Decolonial Aesthetics: Unlearning and Relearning the Museum Through Pedro Lasch's Black Mirror/Espejo Negro" / "Estética descolonial: desaprendiendo y reaprendiendo el museo a través del Black Mirror/Espejo Negro de Pedro Lasch", in Black Mirror/Expejo Negro, ed. Pedro Lasch, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute/Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Aug 2010, pp 86-103. Catalogue text. (English)
  • "Dekoloniale Ästhetik: das Museum verlernen und wiedererlernen durch Pedro Laschs Black Mirror/Espejo Negro", in Kunst, Krise, Subversion: zur Politik der Ästhetik, eds. Nina Bandi, Michael G. Kraft and Sebastian Lasinger, Bielefeld: transcript, 2012, pp 129-147. (German)

• signatory, "Decolonial Aesthetics (I)", TDI+Transnational Decolonial Institute, 22 May 2011. Manifesto. Signed by Alanna Lockward, Rolando Vásquez, Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Marina Gržinić, Michelle Eistrup, Tanja Ostojić, Dalída María Benfield, Raúl Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet, Pedro Lasch, Nelson Maldonado Torres, Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, Hong-An Truong, Guo-Juin Hong, Miguel Rojas-Sotelo and Walter Mignolo. [24] (English)
  • "Estetica decolonială (I). Un argument ca manifest", IDEA 39, Cluj: IDEA, 2011, pp 89-97. (Romanian)
  • "Estética(s) de/descoloniale(s) (I)", trans. Laura Judit Alegre, c.2013; repr. as "Apuntes sobre la formación y transformación del lado más oscuro de la modernidad: la colonialidad" in BE.BOP 2012-2014: El cuerpo en el continente de la conciencia negra, ed. Alanna Lockward, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2016. (Spanish)
  • "Estética Descolonial", contramare.net, 7 Jun 2017; repr. in Cultura: Jornal Angolano de Artes e Letras 152, Jan 2018, 9-11. (Portuguese)

• "Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing: On (De)Coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience", transversal 9, Vienna: eipcp, 2011; repr., Confero 1:1, 2013, pp 129-150. (English)
  • "Geopolitik des Wahrnehmens und Erkennens. (De)Kolonialität, Grenzdenken und epistemischer Ungehorsam", trans. Tom Waibel, transversal 9, Vienna: eipcp, 2011. (German)
  • "Geopolítica de la sensibilidad y del conocimiento. Sobre (de)colonialidad, pensamiento fronterizo y desobediencia epistémica", trans. Marcelo Expósito, transversal 9, Vienna: eipcp, 2011. (Spanish)

• "Epistemic Disobedience and the Decolonial Option: A Manifesto", Transmodernity, Fall 2011, pp 44-66. (English)

• "Re:emerging, Decentring and Delinking: Shifting the Geographies of Sensing, Believing and Knowing", Ibraaz, 8 May 2013. (English)

• with Rolando Vázquez, "Decolonial AestheSis: Colonial Wounds/Decolonial Healings", Social Text Online: "Decolonial AestheSis", Jul 2013.
  • "EsteSica decoloniale. Ferite coloniali/riparazioni decoloniali", trans. Marta Calderaro, Psiche: rivista di cultura psicoanalitica 4:1, Jan-Jun 2017, pp 303-318. [25] (Italian)

• "Enacting the Archives, Decentring the Muses: The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore", Ibraaz, 6 Nov 2013, PDF. An article related to a seminar the author conducted in the framework of the Program of Independent Studies, in June 2014, directed by Beatriz Preciado. (English)
  • "Activar los archivos, descentralizar a las musas: el Museo de Arte Islámico de Doha y el Museo de las Civilizaciones Asiáticas de Singapur", in Mignolo, Habitar la frontera: sentir y pensar la descolonialidad (Antología, 1999-2014), Barcelona: CIDOB, and Chihuahua: UACJ, 2015, pp 415-431. (Spanish)

• "From 'Human Rights' to 'Life Rights'", ch 9 in The Meanings of Rights: The Philosophy and Social Theory of Human Rights, eds. Costas Douzinas and Conor Gearty, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp 161-180. (English)

• "Decolonial Body-Geo-Politics At Large", forew. in Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions, eds. Sandeep Bakshi, Suhraiya Jivraj, and Silvia Posocco, Counterpress, 2016. (English)

• "Reconstitución epistémica/estética: la aesthesis decolonial una década después", Calle14 14:25, Bogotá, 2019, pp 14-33. (Spanish)

• "On Decoloniality: Second Thoughts", Postcolonial Studies, Apr 2020. (English)

• more

Conversations, interviews

• Elena Delgado, Rolando J. Romero, "Local Histories and Global Designs: An Interview with Walter Mignolo", Discourse 22:3, Fall 2000, pp 7-33. (English)
• Marina Gržinić, "Razveza epistemologije od kapitala in pluriverzalnost: pogovor z Walterjem Mignolom" / "De-linking Epistemology from Capital and Pluri-versality: A Conversation with Walter Mignolo", trans. Tanja Passoni, Reartikulacja 4, Ljubljana, Summer 2008, pp 19-22; "2. del" / "part 2", Reartikulacja 5, Ljubljana, 2008, pp 19-22; "3. del" / "part 3", Reartikulacja 6, Ljubljana, 2009, pp 4-7. (Slovenian)/(English)
• with Francisco Carballo, Una concepción descolonial del mundo: conversaciones de Francisco Carballo y Walter Mignolo, Buenos Aires: Del Signo, 2014, 158 pp. [26] (Spanish)
• Aïcha Diallo, "Decolonial Aesthetics/Aesthesis has Become a Connector Across the Continents. In Conversation with Walter Mignolo", C& América Latina, 8 Mar 2018. (English)
  • "La estética/estesia decolonial se ha convertido a un conector entre los continentes. Charla con Walter Mignolo", trans. Nicolás Gelormini, C& América Latina, 8 Mar 2018. (Spanish)
  • "A estética/estesia decolonial tornou-se um conector transversal entre os continentes. Conversa com Walter Mignolo", trans. Heitor Augusto, C& América Latina, 8 Mar 2018. (Portuguese)

Links

• Website
• Profile on Duke U