Resumo

PORTO-GONCALVES, Carlos Walter. About knowledges and territories : diversity and emancipation arising from latin-american experience. Polis [online]. 2009, vol.8, n.22, pp. 121-136. ISSN 0718-6568.  doi: 10.4067/S0718-65682009000100008.

The article is about the relationship between episteme, space and power. It questions the assumption of universality as designed by the hegemonic European tradition -Eurocentrism- but refuses any other claim of unidirectional universality from wherever it comes. It proposes the idea of multiple possible universalities based on the incompleteness of every culture. The article invites to a critical attitude towards coloniality of knowledge and power, which are interwoven, and to the attention we must give to the place of enunciation of each speech, which is at the same time social and geographical. Its starts from the subalterne thinking and values the spaces of conflict as epistemically dense, adding that the debate about territories is perhaps the best expression of the naturalization of social relations and power that the territory upholds, signifying, in fact, how deep the changes taking place today are.

Palavras-chave : Coloniality of knowledge and power; subalterne thinking; episteme; geography and power.