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Eurocentrism — Transcript

by Graciela Monteagudo · 3,564 words · 670 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00i know maybe even before you read the
0:02text this weekend
0:04because it's a pretty complex text it
0:07has a lot of
0:08um concepts and it doesn't make a lot of
0:12sense for you to read a lot of stuff
0:14that maybe you cannot quite
0:16understand until you have some
0:18explanation
0:20so i thought i'd introduce kihana
0:22briefly and then try to explain the main
0:24concepts
0:25and upload this to moodle hopefully for
0:27your great benefit
0:29and so kikano is one of the few
0:33intellectuals that made his career
0:36by working at the university of cincia
0:40sociale de san marcos
0:42which is in peru most of the people that
0:45we are going to read
0:46whether they were born in the global
0:48cells like hijano
0:49or elsewhere they got their phds in the
0:53united states
0:54and only after that were they able to
0:57show the us academy how important their
1:00thinking was
1:01kejano managed to do this without going
1:04that route
1:05and without working much outside of some
1:08articles and the bulk of his
1:09theory came from his uh days
1:13as an intellectual in peru
1:16so this tells us a lot about ijano in
1:18the sense that he's probably one of the
1:20most
1:20well-versed people and probably one of
1:23the founders
1:24of what we call today the colonial or
1:27post-colonial theory
1:30um kijano is mostly interested in
1:33talking about
1:35his work on capitalism
1:38colonialism and racism
1:41a what we call globalization or
1:43neoliberal globalization nowadays
1:46this idea that most of what we produce
1:49or we need actually consume as a society
1:52here in the united states
1:54is nowadays produced outside of our
1:56borders
1:58at a greater uh saving amount people pay
2:02very little money for the stuff
2:03that is made abroad
2:06and at the same time we were left
2:08without jobs here
2:10in the united states and um
2:13you could also say that our economies
2:16have
2:16suffered all of our economies but what
2:19kejano focuses on
2:21is how this new way of what he calls
2:25imperialism or colonialism has affected
2:28the way that we
2:30think about each other the way that we
2:32operate with each other
2:33and most importantly how it has affected
2:37race and racism worldwide
2:40so he says that what's going on nowadays
2:43with this idea of using cheap labor
2:46and extracting cheap nature cheap stuff
2:49cheap resources from the global south
2:52is the same that was going on around the
2:55year 1600 and even earlier in the 1400s
2:59when the europeans start taking over the
3:01world and depriving people
3:04of the resources that they had
3:06previously in that region
3:08kikano says what we are seeing now is
3:10not very different
3:11more or less it's the same there are
3:13differences in the way that there's
3:15no form of colonialism no form of
3:18making your head in a way that resembles
3:21the head of this white people
3:24is not the difference things are still
3:26more or less the same
3:28he says that the move behind what's
3:31going on is
3:32the same ideology that we talked about
3:34last class
3:35which was eurocentrism the idea that if
3:38you hadn't developed
3:40in the way that the west had developed
3:42then what you had
3:44is a very poor people that
3:47need to be pushed or somehow help uh
3:50into capitalism
3:52otherwise their resources are wasted
3:55their people are wasted
3:56because they are not doing things in the
3:58same way
4:00as the white people did supposedly
4:03moving from
4:04societies that gathered and entered food
4:06hunted food
4:08into uh societies that no longer did
4:11that
4:11started planting raising animals and
4:14eventually as a result of many conflicts
4:16and many battles
4:18we end up with what we call civilization
4:20capitalist civilization
4:23he says that this is the same ideology
4:25that's going on now
4:26with our ways of exploiting people
4:28outside of our borders
4:30that nothing has changed much he also
4:33explains that racism is the main
4:36axis of oppression resistance so when we
4:40talk about axis of
4:42oppression resistance what we are saying
4:44is that there are certain
4:46ways in which we interact with each
4:48other that are oppressive
4:50so this could be for example if you feel
4:52that you are not a cisgender person
4:55having to conform to that kind of
4:59way of objectifying your body that other
5:01people have
5:02and want you to fit into certain labels
5:05that's one
5:05axis of oppression resistance gender
5:08is another axis race is another axis
5:12according to gigano race and racism
5:16are the most important axes of
5:18oppression and resistance
5:20at the moment because of the way that we
5:23were colonized
5:24all of us outside of the great countries
5:27of the west
5:28the way we were colonized uh makes
5:31this idea of racism almost inseparable
5:35from the idea of capitalism
5:38another very important concept that he's
5:40going to use all throughout
5:42is the concept of coloniality of power
5:46that means the capacity that those in
5:48power
5:49have not only to conquer your body
5:52your resources your land your family
5:55anything that they want to take from you
5:58by brutal force
5:59but they also have a way of convincing
6:02you
6:02that you need their help remember you
6:05rudyard
6:06sorry rudyard kipling for example he was
6:10talking in
6:11in in the 1800s in england about the
6:13white man's
6:14burden this poor white man that had to
6:18go
6:18into the jungles of india into the
6:20jungles of
6:22different countries in africa just to
6:24make sure
6:25that this poor people of color
6:28will help out of their misery because
6:31everybody knows that if you don't live
6:32like a capitalist white
6:34human being then you are not really
6:36happy so this idea of the coloniality of
6:39powers this capacity that we have
6:42uh as white europeans as white people
6:46to corpse somebody's life
6:49somebody's vision of themselves
6:51somebody's vision of their own society
6:53to make them feel inferior and thus
6:55dominate them better
6:58so again just as a quick reminder um
7:01kikano's talking about a period that
7:03starts in the 1400 more or less
7:06with the first uh people who are
7:08captured by the spanish and the
7:10and the portuguese and then it extends
7:12throughout most of
7:14uh europe and also the united states
7:18and this process the formal process of
7:20what we call
7:21uh colonialism or imperialism really
7:24doesn't
7:25end until the late 1800s and even uh
7:28earlier some people think um so this is
7:31just a reminder that kikano's talking
7:33about a worldwide process
7:35through which capitalism expanded
7:37throughout the world
7:39so again the two main axes of oppression
7:41race the colonizer thinks he's superior
7:44to the colonized
7:46and this is how many identities are
7:48created especially in the global south
7:50and especially in latin america
7:52where kijano is thinking about
7:54capitalism
7:55so before the spanish arrived our people
7:58would be called
7:59the agitas or be called
8:02caribbeans they had given themselves a
8:05number of names
8:06but the moment the colonizer arrives
8:09they change
8:10the dynamics of society to the point
8:12that they create what we call these
8:14new identities there was nobody an india
8:17an indigenous person a a native
8:20american these were just the inhabitants
8:23of the land
8:24that called themselves according to the
8:25different names of the groups that they
8:27were into
8:28uh i could be a cheyenne woman uh
8:31somebody else could have been a
8:32caribbean
8:33uh in in in in the caribbean area
8:36precisely
8:38but they that's not they didn't see
8:40themselves as
8:41indians or indigenous or native american
8:44these
8:44new categories indigenous mestizo the
8:48mixed blood
8:49the spanish the white all those are
8:52categories that reflect
8:53the deep transformations that those
8:55societies went through
8:57which ended up dehumanizing this
9:00individual who was found in those
9:01areas and turning them into an india
9:05something that we didn't even know
9:06existed in latin america because as you
9:09know
9:10columbus stumbled upon the americas he
9:13was looking for a
9:14direct route to india and he didn't know
9:17that there was a continent in the middle
9:19which was us
9:21so he says that this new situation
9:23created a new structure of labor that he
9:25calls world capitalism
9:27where uh production and extraction and
9:30exploitation a change in a global way
9:34that was very different for
9:35from what we've seen before and he says
9:38there's a new
9:39uh what we call a birth of a new
9:42technology of domination and
9:44exploitation which is
9:46race combined with labor and
9:49going to explain how this labor this
9:52work that we do for the um for the
9:55colonizer
9:57is intricately uh
10:00connected with the domination that
10:02happened and the colonization that
10:04happened
10:05and the fact that these people make very
10:07little money compared to white people
10:09especially at the time
10:10is something that he kind of thinks is
10:12very very connected with this idea
10:14of a new axis of show
10:17annex and labor exploitation
10:21so this is how he explains the
10:22coloniality of labor
10:24he says that unpaid labor was assigned
10:27to colonial races
10:28that means the spanish arrived they
10:31enslaved
10:32part of the population and they allowed
10:34them to feed themselves
10:35but that was it there was no payment of
10:38any kind of salary they were taken care
10:40of so to speak
10:42on the other hand labor was controlled
10:45by salaried whites
10:46latin america was very different if you
10:48recall from the united states conquest
10:52people didn't arrive by the million to
10:54latin america
10:55very few white people strongly armed
10:58with the church
10:59the catholic church supporting them very
11:02closely
11:03those were the people that were
11:04controlling the labor
11:06of themselves and getting paid for that
11:08labor but also controlling the enslaved
11:11labor
11:12of the folks who were living there
11:13before
11:15so all this money that they are taking
11:17out of the colonies as they call them
11:19is money that goes to the center of the
11:22capitalist economy in europe
11:24especially the netherlands and through
11:27that
11:28money enormous amounts of gold and
11:31unpaid labor
11:32that were confiscated from the americas
11:35that
11:35ends up in europe and finances
11:38uh the revolution the industrial
11:41revolution
11:42all the machines we've seen now all the
11:44incredible technological advances
11:47all that that started in in the years of
11:50the
11:50what we call our original accumulation
11:52of capital the moment where
11:54capital gets everything from out of the
11:57earth that they can
11:58to give impulse to their own uh capital
12:01you cannot have capital without initial
12:03capital they just got that from the
12:06americas both from labor
12:07and exploitation of resources so
12:11uh what gikano is saying is that global
12:12capitalism is colonial and
12:15modern and eurocentric all of it
12:17together
12:18because it's based on the exploitation
12:20of colonial labor
12:21and the extrapolation of these precious
12:24metals
12:25so what he says is global capitalism
12:27functions on racist colonial views
12:30that assume that inferior races that are
12:33serbs or slaves even after the
12:36independence will never quite move
12:38out of that situation in my family for
12:41example were
12:43part of my family was of indigenous
12:44descent and
12:46when my mother had nothing absolutely
12:48nothing she was a maid working for
12:51middle-class families while my dad that
12:54was
12:55brought with the second colonization we
12:58could call it
12:59of latin america in the 50s and was from
13:01a white family
13:03european white family he already had a
13:05small workshop by the time that met
13:08this just gives you an idea and if you
13:09look at the leadership of latin america
13:12with exceptions now
13:13some of the more interesting
13:16precedents you will see that they're all
13:18white skinned
13:20that means that since the days of the
13:22colony
13:23my family has been working for these
13:25people that had a lot of money
13:27the side of my family that came from my
13:29mom's side
13:30so we were never able not even
13:34after my mom was born in in the early
13:3720s or past century
13:39to break free of that initial situation
13:41of bondage
13:44um so he also talks about
13:47intersubjective relations of domination
13:49big words i'll try to explain he says
13:52that europeans expropriated
13:54cultural discoveries stuff that was
13:57already
13:57part of the culture of people in india
14:00or part of the culture and people in
14:01latin america
14:02that was sort of like packed also not
14:05just the gold
14:06but also these experiences these amazing
14:08experiences were also
14:10packed and sold outside of the
14:13of the colonies is so he talks about
14:16repressive
14:17colonized forms of knowledge production
14:20that means
14:20the way that american indians for
14:22example connected with each other
14:24those uh situations were also situations
14:27of colonization
14:29that somehow white people mess with
14:31those
14:32forms of knowledge and change them for
14:34example we all know
14:36that many native american cultures had a
14:38space for being for what they call
14:40the two spirits somebody that doesn't
14:43hold uh
14:44what we would consider a fixed sexuality
14:47if anything we could call them gender
14:50neutral we could call them uh people who
14:54bend gender roles people who experience
14:56sexuality and in a non-mainstream way
14:59these were practices that in some in
15:02some of the cultures up north
15:04were accepted and the instead what
15:06happened was when white people arrived
15:08they considered that
15:10a terrible depravity and people who
15:12helped that those kind of subjectivities
15:14many times were killed
15:15or at least forced not to practice
15:18openly
15:19what they wanted to practice so um
15:22this also happened in very similar ways
15:25with religions
15:26uh the white people's religion
15:28catholicism was imposed on other people
15:30and if you didn't accept them then you
15:31were the devil
15:32and you were killed at the stake so uh
15:35in a way
15:36um the place
15:39he places colonial lifestyle as the past
15:43of an european lifestyle something of
15:46the past
15:47that they were not able to move forward
15:49along with the people that they were
15:51conquering because they didn't um
15:54they didn't feel proud they felt proud
15:57about themselves
15:58but wanted to totally re-educate if you
16:00want to put it in those terms
16:02those folks who are different from
16:04themselves
16:06so um he says that and this is super
16:09important
16:09and it's something that you will
16:11probably have to find in the text and
16:13side
16:14he says that there are two founding
16:15myths to eurocentrism
16:17the idea that the history of human
16:19civilization
16:20is a trajectory that departed from the
16:23state of nature and culminated in europe
16:26so if you remember uh rousseau log
16:29and and um and hops
16:32the three of them were critical of what
16:35they think of as a state of nature
16:38they believe that before capitalism
16:40before civilization
16:43you you had uh people who were living
16:45like animals and not like human beings
16:48so anybody who was in the equatorian
16:51guineas
16:52or in latin america or in central
16:54america
16:55etc those were considered people who
16:57were inferior
16:59more closely connected with nature and
17:01with animals
17:02than uh human beings now we know it's
17:04nonsense to talk about state of nature
17:07because
17:08human beings were never in a state of
17:10nature we've always had culture
17:12if we don't have culture we cannot even
17:14raise our children
17:15it would be almost impossible if not
17:17completely impossible
17:19for a woman for example on her own or
17:21somebody who wants to raise a child
17:23on their own it would be impossible our
17:25children are born premature
17:27compared to other animals because our
17:30heads are huge
17:31and we are shrunk our
17:34hips in order to be able to deliver to
17:37walk
17:38on two feet which makes our delivery of
17:40children
17:41very very difficult because our uh
17:44hips are very narrow and our heads are
17:47huge
17:48because that was the main way that we
17:50adapted
17:51into an environment that was very
17:53aggressive towards us
17:55so there's nothing like state of nature
17:57humans have always lived in societies of
17:59different
18:00kinds with different cultural norms
18:02different ways of addressing each other
18:04it's just that the europeans who are
18:06right there they thought they were
18:08better
18:08and then they negated all kinds of
18:11sociability and cultural traits that
18:13these people that they were conquering
18:15had
18:16so that's one of the big myth that there
18:18was a state of nature which there never
18:20was for any human being
18:22across time and space the other one is
18:24the idea that
18:25when we see differences between europe
18:27and non-european people
18:30that we consider them racial so
18:33you know if you come to my house this
18:36week
18:37and you are robbed from me this week
18:41and then next week you pretend you don't
18:43know me very well
18:44you come see me and they say wow you're
18:46so
18:47so poor how come you don't have anything
18:50and then i would have to look at you and
18:51say well i don't have anything not
18:53because i'm lazy
18:54or because as a latin american
18:56particularly predisposed to being
18:59relaxed
19:00but because you stole everything from me
19:02last week so
19:03how can i build wealth if you are
19:05constantly stealing it from me
19:07and that's exactly what happened in the
19:09history of power
19:11in the west is that they took everything
19:14from everybody
19:15and then they turn around and say see
19:17they're animals they don't have any
19:18money they cannot progress
19:20well yeah if you take everything away
19:21from me i cannot progress uh the funny
19:24part is you took it away from me and now
19:26you're telling me that i cannot do the
19:28job
19:29so um that's what the most important
19:32myths
19:32surrounding eurocentrism and why uh
19:36european people started thinking along
19:38those lines
19:40um some other elements are very
19:43important to eurocentrism and the text
19:45we are reading
19:46is uh from state of nature to capitalism
19:49perspective
19:50the idea that it was linear and
19:52unidirectional that
19:54a western civilization knew that at some
19:57point they wanted to develop capitalism
19:59which is not even what happened there
20:01were tons of battles and we read more
20:04about that when we read silvia federici
20:07in in ways that uh made uh people
20:10sort of like um
20:13some authors started looking bad let's
20:15say after reading
20:16silvia federici you realize that it was
20:19a battle with
20:20an open outcome in during medieval ages
20:24western societies could have gone a
20:26completely different way
20:28if the peasants had had their say
20:31or if the working nation working class
20:34had their say instead of this it was
20:36dominated by people that had
20:38built a lot of money and had a lot of
20:41power
20:42and now they tell us a story from the
20:44viewpoint
20:46of themselves and you know what they say
20:48that
20:49um there's a proverb that says if
20:52uh lions don't learn how to write
20:56history will always be written by
21:00um the predators by the hunters
21:03in this case this is what we see we are
21:06told a story
21:07that makes a lot of sense and it looks
21:09very clean
21:10and unidirectional for the western
21:13people but in reality if we look at it
21:15from the perspective of the lions
21:18it doesn't look like that clear that
21:20this is always where they were going and
21:22they could have ended in a very
21:23different place
21:25some other characteristics that he
21:27connects with eurocentrism is the idea
21:29that
21:30you have capital and pre-capital
21:33europe and non-europe primitive versus
21:36civilized
21:37traditional versus modern so um
21:40western thinking attributes itself the
21:43most important things
21:45having built capital a being a european
21:48civilized people instead of a
21:50traditional society that doesn't move
21:52forward
21:53when in reality this capital if you
21:56remember what we said that they got to
21:58start their fabulous
21:59um revolution their fabulous
22:04new ways of encompassing the whole of
22:08the earth and dominating the whole of
22:09the earth
22:10they do all this instead of uh
22:13acknowledging that the money that they
22:15got to start
22:17all of this project was money that was
22:19taken at gunpoint and many times
22:22by death and violent death from our
22:25countries from the global south
22:26countries
22:28there's nothing modern about that and
22:30there was nothing traditional
22:31about these societies there were
22:33societies that were moving
22:34and changing just like the western
22:36societies were changing
22:38only we weren't going the same way
22:40that's the issue here
22:42um so they also naturalize cultural
22:44differences
22:45through the concept of race as i
22:47explained before they look at the
22:49uh disaster that they leave behind and
22:52then instead of acknowledging
22:54that all this capital was taken from us
22:56and thus the industrial revolution
22:58starts in europe and not in latin
23:00america
23:01if that were something that we were
23:02looking forward to instead of that they
23:05blame it on your race
23:06letting americans are lazy black people
23:09i don't know what
23:11other people do other things are even
23:13worse according to them
23:14and all of that is just to mask the fact
23:17that we were
23:18uh looted basically and exterminated
23:22many of us
23:23so um they show you uh something like
23:26this
23:27people are non-europeans that are
23:29leaving the past of europe so eventually
23:32they will move forward it's just that
23:33they need a little bit of a push
23:35the fact that the push was actually more
23:38than a push it was like a
23:39uh something running over you a truck
23:42running over you
23:43it doesn't seem to make much of a
23:45difference
23:46so i'll upload this now and hopefully it
23:49will help you
23:50understand the text and we'll talk about
23:54how to use
23:54this resource in the future bueno thank
24:02you
24:05you

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