The Modern/Colonial/Capitalist World-System in the Twentieth Century

Global Processes, Antisystemic Movements, and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

Ramón Grosfoguel, Ana Margarita Cervantes-Rodríguez, Ramón Grosfoguel, Ana Margarita Cervantes-Rodríguez

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780313318047
• eBook ISBN: 9780313076657
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Commerce Général

An important building block for further advancing world-system theory, this book considers the theory from the perspectives of global processes and antisystemic movements, feminist theory, and the aftermath of the colonial system. The volume addresses three myths tied to Eurocentric forms of thinking: objectivist and universalist knowledges, the decolonization of the modern world, and developmentalism. All three myths, the authors argue, conceal the continued hierarchical and unequal relations of domination and exploitation between European and Euro-American centers and non-European peripheral regions. In this volume, world-system scholars address these and related aspects of the modern/colonial capitalist world-system. Addressing the myth of universalist knowledge, the volume reminds us that our knowledge is situated in the gender, class, racial, and sexual hierarchies of a specific region in the world-system, while the coloniality of power additionally situates our knowledge. The volume further argues that the postcolonial era retains the hierarchy of colonialism, and the possibility of national development without global structural changes is one of the greatest 20th-century myths. Taking these perspectives into consideration, the contributors examine and help to refine classic world-system theory.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Unthinking Twentieth-Century Eurocentric Mythologies: Universalist Knowledges, Decolonization, and Developmentalism Ramón Grosfoguel and Ana Margarita Cervantes-Rodríguez
• The Twentieth Century: Darkness at Noon? Immanuel Wallerstein
• I. Global Processes, Power Relations, and Antisystemic Movements
• II. Women’s Studies, Feminist Theory, and World-Systems Analysis
• III. The Aftermath of the Colonial System, Coloniality, and the Geopolitics of Knowledge
• Index
• About the Contributors