Critical Conjunctions: Foundations of Colony and Formations of Modernity

What is the relationship between colonialism and modernity? Is modernity an exclusive product of Western cultures? In scholarly understandings and commonplace conceptions, modernity has long appeared as a distinctive milestone of Western civilization. Accordingly, progress on the road to modernity has become the common measure to assess the worth of states and citizens, nations and peoples, in non-Western contexts.
Critical Conjunctions gathers leading scholars from Latin America and South Asia—representing a range of disciplines and perspectives—to address questions of colonial modernities. The essays examine such topics as the abiding Eurocentric premises at the heart of authoritative trade agreements, such as the International Monetary Fund, and the expression by contemporary Zapatistas of an alternative modernity. This special issue of Nepantla initiates a dialogue among regions, disciplines, and perspectives, mutually recasting colonialism and modernity.

Contributors. Santiago Castro-Gómez, Rubén Chuaqui, Saurabh Dube, Ishita Banerjee Dube, Madhu Dubey, Enrique Dussel, Edgardo Lander, Andrés Lira, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, Sudipta Sen, Ajay Skaria, Guillermo Zermeño