An underlying assumption undergirding institutions of higher education is that they serve as a means to upward socioeconomic mobility and, in turn, a way to address poverty that is tied to certain racialized/sexualized bodies. Although the education crisis is not an American or European problem in the geographic sense, but instead a global problem that plays itself out differentially across space and time, this volume focuses on the westernized university, in the US and abroad. It asks questions about what is westernized about the university, what its aims are, and how those who work in, through and outside these sites of knowledge production-with local or global social movements-can participate in the slow, careful process of decolonizing the westernized university. Decolonizing the Westernized University: Interventions in Philosophy of Education from Within and Without provides a sharper understanding of the crisis and the responses to the westernized university at multiple sites around the world. As an intervention in the philosophy of education discourse, which tends to assume the university is a neutral space, this collection will be of particular value to students and scholars working in philosophy of education, Latina/o philosophy, Africana philosophy, social epistemology, education, cultural studies, and ethnic studies, as well as to intellectual activists in the United States, south of the border, and around the world.

An important building block for further advancing world-system theory, this book considers the theory from the perspectives of global processes and antisystemic movements, feminist theory, and the aftermath of the colonial system. The volume addresses three myths tied to Eurocentric forms of thinking: objectivist and universalist knowledges, the decolonization of the modern world, and developmentalism. All three myths, the authors argue, conceal the continued hierarchical and unequal relations of domination and exploitation between European and Euro-American centers and non-European peripheral regions. In this volume, world-system scholars address these and related aspects of the modern/colonial capitalist world-system. Addressing the myth of universalist knowledge, the volume reminds us that our knowledge is situated in the gender, class, racial, and sexual hierarchies of a specific region in the world-system, while the coloniality of power additionally situates our knowledge. The volume further argues that the postcolonial era retains the hierarchy of colonialism, and the possibility of national development without global structural changes is one of the greatest 20th-century myths. Taking these perspectives into consideration, the contributors examine and help to refine classic world-system theory.

Encouraging a conversation among scholars working with questions of transnationalism from the perspective of gender and race, this book explores the intersectionality between these two forms of oppression and their relation to transnational migration. How do sexism and racism articulate the experience of transnational migrants? What is the complex relationship between minorities and migrants in terms of gender and racial discrimination? What are the empirical and theoretical insights gained by an analysis that emphasizes the 'intersectionality' between gender and race? What empirical agenda can be developed out of these questions? Bringing a transnational lens to studies of migration from an intersectional perspective, the contributors focus on how power geometries, articulated through sexisms and racisms, are experienced in relation to a migration and/or minority context. They also challenge the rather fixed notions of what constitutes an intersectional approach to the study of oppressions in social interactions. Finally, the book's inter- and multi-disciplinary range exhibits a variety of methodological 'takes' on the issue of transnational intersectionalities in migration and minority context. Taken together, the volume adds theoretical, empirical and historical insight to ethnic, racial, gender and migration studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.

Encouraging a conversation among scholars working with questions of transnationalism from the perspective of gender and race, this book explores the intersectionality between these two forms of oppression and their relation to transnational migration. How do sexism and racism articulate the experience of transnational migrants? What is the complex relationship between minorities and migrants in terms of gender and racial discrimination? What are the empirical and theoretical insights gained by an analysis that emphasizes the 'intersectionality' between gender and race? What empirical agenda can be developed out of these questions? Bringing a transnational lens to studies of migration from an intersectional perspective, the contributors focus on how power geometries, articulated through sexisms and racisms, are experienced in relation to a migration and/or minority context. They also challenge the rather fixed notions of what constitutes an intersectional approach to the study of oppressions in social interactions. Finally, the book's inter- and multi-disciplinary range exhibits a variety of methodological 'takes' on the issue of transnational intersectionalities in migration and minority context. Taken together, the volume adds theoretical, empirical and historical insight to ethnic, racial, gender and migration studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.

Contributors Immanuel Wallerstein, Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo, Agustin Lao, Lewis Gordon, James V. Fenelon, Roberto Hernandez, James Cohen, Santiago Slabosky, Susanne Jonas, and Thomas Reifer. By the mid-twenty-first century, white Euro-Americans will be a demographic minority in the United States and Latino/as will be the largest minority (25 percent). These changes bring about important challenges at the heart of the contemporary debates about political transformations in the United States and around the world. Latino/as are multiracial (Afro-latinos, Indo-latinos, Asian-latinos, and Euro-latinos), multi-ethnic, multireligious (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, indigenous, and African spiritualities), and of varied legal status (immigrants, citizens, and illegal migrants). This collection addresses for the first time the potential of these diverse Latino/a spiritualities, origins, and statuses against the landscape of decolonization of the U.S. economic and cultural empire in the twenty-first century. Some authors explore the impact of Indo-latinos and Afro-latinos in the United States and others discuss the conflicting interpretations and political conflicts arising from the "Latinization" of the United States.

The westernized university is a site where the production of knowledge is embedded in Eurocentric epistemologies that are posited as objective, disembodied and universal and in which non-Eurocentric knowledges, such as black and indigenous ones, are largely marginalized or dismissed. Consequently, it is an institution that produces racism, sexism and epistemic violence. While this is increasingly being challenged by student activists and some faculty, the westernized university continues to engage in diversity and internationalization initiatives that reproduce structural disadvantages and to work within neoliberal agendas that are incompatible with decolonization. This book draws on decolonial theory to explore the ways in which Eurocentrism in the westernized university is both reproduced and unsettled. It outlines some of the challenges that accompany the decolonization of teaching, learning, research and policy, as well as providing examples of successful decolonial moments and processes. It draws on examples from universities in Europe, New Zealand and the Americas. This book represents a highly timely contribution from both early career and established thinkers in the field. Its themes will be of interest to student activists and to academics and scholars who are seeking to decolonize their research and teaching. It constitutes a decolonizing intervention into the crisis in which the westernized university finds itself.

The westernized university is a site where the production of knowledge is embedded in Eurocentric epistemologies that are posited as objective, disembodied and universal and in which non-Eurocentric knowledges, such as black and indigenous ones, are largely marginalized or dismissed. Consequently, it is an institution that produces racism, sexism and epistemic violence. While this is increasingly being challenged by student activists and some faculty, the westernized university continues to engage in diversity and internationalization initiatives that reproduce structural disadvantages and to work within neoliberal agendas that are incompatible with decolonization. This book draws on decolonial theory to explore the ways in which Eurocentrism in the westernized university is both reproduced and unsettled. It outlines some of the challenges that accompany the decolonization of teaching, learning, research and policy, as well as providing examples of successful decolonial moments and processes. It draws on examples from universities in Europe, New Zealand and the Americas. This book represents a highly timely contribution from both early career and established thinkers in the field. Its themes will be of interest to student activists and to academics and scholars who are seeking to decolonize their research and teaching. It constitutes a decolonizing intervention into the crisis in which the westernized university finds itself.

Contributors Immanuel Wallerstein, Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo, Agustin Lao, Lewis Gordon, James V. Fenelon, Roberto Hernandez, James Cohen, Santiago Slabosky, Susanne Jonas, and Thomas Reifer. By the mid-twenty-first century, white Euro-Americans will be a demographic minority in the United States and Latino/as will be the largest minority (25 percent). These changes bring about important challenges at the heart of the contemporary debates about political transformations in the United States and around the world. Latino/as are multiracial (Afro-latinos, Indo-latinos, Asian-latinos, and Euro-latinos), multi-ethnic, multireligious (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, indigenous, and African spiritualities), and of varied legal status (immigrants, citizens, and illegal migrants). This collection addresses for the first time the potential of these diverse Latino/a spiritualities, origins, and statuses against the landscape of decolonization of the U.S. economic and cultural empire in the twenty-first century. Some authors explore the impact of Indo-latinos and Afro-latinos in the United States and others discuss the conflicting interpretations and political conflicts arising from the "Latinization" of the United States.

"This book is a substantial contribution to the historical and interpretive sociology of the modern world. It is written as both a critique of the modernist paradigm, and as a reinterpretation of the contribution of Puerto Rico to the making of the modern world from a 'decentered' perspective."--Philip McMichael, author of "Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective

"Grosfoguel's grounding in the complexities of the Puerto Rican past and present provides us with original and generative scholarship that requires a new self-reflexive approach to knowledge and nationalism, to colonialism and capitalism, to citizenship and subjectivity. Within ethnic studies, Grosfoguel's approach is a crucial contribution to the progress of the field beyond ethnic particularism and toward the identification and understanding of the broader social forces that create social differences and give them their determinate social meanings."--George Lipsitz, author of "American Studies in a Moment of Danger "

"Grosfoguel's book should become the definitive work on Puerto Rican migratory circuits."--Jose David Saldivar, author of "Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies

"Grosfoguel discovers the relationship between the coloniality of power, the migratory movement to the Caribbean, the formation of new global cities like Miami, and tendencies toward a new geo-strategic configuration of a global scale."--Anibal Quijano, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University

"In this exciting look at Puerto Rico from a world-systems perspective, Grosfoguel examines colonialism with a fresh theoretical eye."--Immanuel Wallerstein, author of "The Modern World-System

An underlying assumption undergirding institutions of higher education is that they serve as a means to upward socioeconomic mobility and, in turn, a way to address poverty that is tied to certain racialized/sexualized bodies. Although the education crisis is not an American or European problem in the geographic sense, but instead a global problem that plays itself out differentially across space and time, this volume focuses on the westernized university, in the US and abroad. It asks questions about what is westernized about the university, what its aims are, and how those who work in, through and outside these sites of knowledge production-with local or global social movements-can participate in the slow, careful process of decolonizing the westernized university. Decolonizing the Westernized University: Interventions in Philosophy of Education from Within and Without provides a sharper understanding of the crisis and the responses to the westernized university at multiple sites around the world. As an intervention in the philosophy of education discourse, which tends to assume the university is a neutral space, this collection will be of particular value to students and scholars working in philosophy of education, Latina/o philosophy, Africana philosophy, social epistemology, education, cultural studies, and ethnic studies, as well as to intellectual activists in the United States, south of the border, and around the world.