Anibal Quijano in his labyrinth: Theoretical metamorphoses and political utopias

Abstract

This article discusses some developments in the intellectual and political trajectory of Anibal Quijano (1930-2018). It seeks to reconstruct the context of the social sciences' "crisis of paradigms" and the decline of the Marxist left, both markedly manifest in the 1980s, by examining how the Peruvian sociologist found solutions to the historical crossroads posed to a generation of activist social scientists in Latin America. It is hypothesized that the crystallization of a cycle of political defeats made possible for Quijano a new theoretical redirection towards understanding the history of Latin America in its political and epistemic framework. Finally, the author's movements of approach toward and detachment from the Marxist tradition based on the perspective of "coloniality of power" is analyzed.