World-traveling and decolonial aesthesis: María Lugones’s contributions to building deep coalitions for the decolonization of higher education

Abstract

This conceptual paper aims to rethink the contours of coalition-building in higher education by drawing on the insights of decolonial thinker María Lugones. It is argued that these insights help challenge monolithic conceptualizations of decolonization, such as the “decolonization of the curriculum” or decolonization understood primarily as “land return.” The analysis advocates for a shift toward centering anticolonial intellectual and political efforts led by “other resisters” in historically different settings as part of the broader struggle to dismantle various forms of coloniality. Within this framework, decolonization work and other social justice projects in higher education are not definitive endpoints but ongoing processes that demand continuous interrogation and transformation of how scholars, educators, and activists engage with and inhabit academia. This theorization suggests a radical reimagining of intellectual practices among those resisting coloniality in higher education, emphasizing the need to embrace the relational and dynamic essence of coalition-building, while paying attention to possible risks.