The (De)coloniality of Conceptual Inequivalence: Reinterpreting Ometeotl through Nahua Tlacuiloliztli

Abstract

Xiang coins the term “conceptual inequivalence” to analyze the coloniality of translation between indigenous and European languages and cosmologies through a close survey of the colonial/modern reception and translation of the Nahua duality deity and principle Ometeotl. He argues that the negation of conceptual inequivalence accompanies the colonial imposition of Western cosmology to the indigenous one. Seeing this imposition as coloniality/modernity’s intellectual limitation in comprehending the complex Nahua cosmology, he considers conceptual inequivalence to be the space for decolonial resistance. “The (De)coloniality of Conceptual Inequivalence” tackles these issues through a learning to learn from Nahua cosmo-philosophy conceived in its pictorial writing system tlacuiloliztli, for which he includes statues like Coatlicue Mayor and the calendar stone.