Fantasised alterity, inaudible voices. Notes for a critique of the coloniality of desire

Abstract

Adopting the decolonial theoretical framework, as far as gender issues are concerned, we will address an important issue: the sexual imaginaries which, from Western cultures, have been projected onto non-Western alterities. In this regard, we will discuss "fantasised alterities" and the "coloniality of desire" in order to connote certain processes of domination which have to do with the racialisation of sexuality and with the sexualisation of race. However, we will at the same time address the criticisms which have been brought against Western-centric hegemonic feminism from the "other feminisms", because the former has on too many occasions been a discourse complicit in the secular subalternization of all "non-white" women, that is, racialized. Moreover, this complicity has been rooted specifically in the ignorance and misunderstanding of the intersectionality of gender, sex, race and class.