Conflicting reactions to chi’ixnakax utxiwa

Abstract

I have read the article by Cusicanqui, who is a feminist sociologist, historian, and subaltern theorist who draws upon anarchist theory in combination with indigenous Quecha and Aarymara cosmologisms in her analytical work. Because Cusicanqui focused on Bolivia, the article provided me with an opportunity to view African Global Southern sociolinguistics through the experiences of a different site in the Global South and to compare, philosophically, sociolinguistic practices in two sites of the Global South, Bolivia and Africa. In a series of articles (see Severo & Makoni, 2014; Makoni & Severo, 2015, 2017), Severo and I compared Brazil and an African nation, Angola, and were able to illustrate, at least to our satisfaction, that, even though both Brazil and Angola shared Portuguese colonial experiences, their current political linguistic dispensations were radically different, underscoring the importance of not viewing the Global South as a homogeneous entity. The diversities within the Global South, for example, in Africa, also are likely to have an impact on knowledge production and circulation. For example, at international conferences, one is more likely to meet scholars from South Africa than from other African countries because it is easier to secure funding and visas for travel by South African scholars than it is for African scholars in other regions of Africa. Scholarship on Africa is, therefore, strongly skewed toward South Africa. The Global North also should be construed as a hierarchized space. This is not to deny the analytical value of the Global North/Global South distinction but, rather, to draw attention to the importance of diversity within each entity (Mignolo & Walsh 2018). Methodologically, it may, therefore, be inadequate to simply state that we are dealing with either the Global North or the Global South. It is more appropriate to emphasize the sociological, economic, and historical configurations of the sites in which the analysis is situated. Our social location has a bearing on our knowledge production and the research we conduct and the answers we are amenable to accept. I perceive myself