Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (Editor)

This is the third volume of the series Reinventing Social Towards New Manifestoes series. Another Knowledge is Possible explores the struggles against moral and cultural imperialism and neoliberal globalization that have taken place over the past few decades, and the alternatives that have emerged in countries throughout the developing world from Brazil and Colombia, to India, South Africa and Mozambique. In particular it looks at the issue of biodiversity, the confrontation between scientific and non- scientific knowledges, and the increasing difficulty experienced by great numbers of people in accessing information and scientific- technological knowledge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics

447 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2021

About the author

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned an LL.M and J.S.D. from Yale University and holds the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa, by McGill University.
He is director of the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra and has written and published widely on the issues of globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, social movements and the World Social Forum. He has been awarded several prizes, most recently the Science and Technology Prize of Mexico, 2010, and the Kalven Jr. Prize of the Law and Society Association, 2011.
His most recent project – ALICE: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences – was funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC), one of the most prestigious and highly competitive international financial institutes for scientific excellence in Europe. The project was initiated in July 2011 and ended in December 2016.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy, and human rights in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, German, Chinese, and Romanian.

Reviews

[Spencer Zimba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

[Rallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Boa has managed to put together a powerful collection of ethnographies which demonstrate that a whole world lives outside of our perception when we allow ourselves to be driven primarily by Western knowledge. I think the two most important contributions in this book are Boa's concept "diatopical hermeneutics", and the chapters which problematize the appropriation of indigenous knowledges on the behalf of capitalist exploitation and profit.