A Ch'ixi World is Possible: Essays from a Present in Crisis

Description

A New World is Possible (Un Mundo Ch'ixi es posible) is an illuminating manifesto by one of the founders of decolonial theory, Silvia Riveria Cusicanqui. It presents an inventive and urgent cartography of diverse worlds around which a decolonial reality can emerge. Riveria Cusicanqui proposes a bold new model of cultural hybridity driven by the experience of indigenous movements and thought in South America and a crucial intervention into questions of orality and of knowledge in performance, micropolitics and the everyday. For Cusicanqui, the concept of Ch'ixi, a term taken from geology and stonemasonry to describe the varying texture and colour of rock, is a figure with which to elaborate an argument about the mixing of cultures that come together but retain distinct aspects. The book makes vivid propositions for many contemporary debates around power, race and the decolonial and offers practicable ways to co-exist without sacrificing difference to the globalized capitalist economy and culture.

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (b. 1949) is a Bolivian feminist, sociologist, historian, and subaltern theorist of Aymara ancestry. She is Emeritus Professor of Sociology of UMSA, Bolivia. Nicolas Salazar Sutil (translator) is Associate Professor of Transformational Social Practices, University of Leeds, UK.

An uncompromising, masterful account of the new forms of colonial domination in the Andean region and the micro forms of resistance by which indigenous communities assert their radical alternative to constitutional power, A ci'ixi world is possible is a major contribution to anti-colonial theory. It exposes the strategies by which consensus is obtained, shows us the power of historical memory to recreate communal bonds, and inspires us to decolonize our mind. This is a book we all must read. * Silvia Federici, author of 'Caliban and the Witch' *