The importance of epistemological translations in the Global South

Abstract

Over the centuries, the West imposed and sustained a dominant definition of knowledge which asserted that Western knowledge is the only legitimate knowledge that was taught as part of the process of “civilisation”, imposed in the colonies. After centuries of independence, Latin American societies and post-colonial realities and ideas promoted the open debate of this historical epistemological domination and enabled the circulation of other ideas coming from the peripheric world. In the Latin American context, these attempts to re-position knowledge that was formerly marginalised from the mainstream are very important and are still taking place, as the dominating universals were not completely destroyed yet. Based on a theoretical review, the aim of this article is to underline the importance of epistemological translations as they enable a horizontal dialogue among different systems of knowledge, and also promote the production of new ideas from the margins. More importantly, based on a literature review, this article introduces the idea of translation as a tool that promotes the democratisation of knowledge from the margins and shares Zapatista’s case to reflect on that.