Introduction
The answer to the question ‘What does it mean to decolonize?’ cannot be an abstract universal. It has to be answered by looking at other W questions: Who is doing it, where, why, and how?
– Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh, On Decoloniality, 2018, 108
Decolonial theory has become hegemonic within social theory. Previous post-development debates once deemed settled have resurfaced under the guise of decolonial thought. This debate piece offers a global historical materialist critique of decolonial theory. First, I look at a discussion of modes of production and social formations; second, I offer eight questions as a methodological inquiry for demystifying decolonial literature; finally, I apply these questions to excerpts from Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh’s On Decoloniality (2018) and two other pieces by Mignolo.
Implicit in this critique of decolonial theories is the thesis that theory must be reintegrated back into history. As Issa Shivji argues, ‘you cannot develop alternatives in the abstract. The life struggles of the working people in our countries are a school from which we can learn, theorize, and develop the so-called alternatives’ (Mazwi and Shivji, 2021, 4). According to Samir Amin (1976, 69), ‘rationality [read: theory] is in fact always relative to a particular mode of production and never transcends the framework of social relations distinctive of that mode.’ Both scholars, whose intellectual geography encompasses Dakar to Dar es Salaam, argue that rationality is embedded in a particular history (Al-Bulushi 2022, 2–3). Global historical materialism offers a mode of analysis for this epistemic project that has long been ignored: the ‘social formation’.
Modes of production and social formations
In all social formations (Gesellschaftsformen) there is one specific mode of production which predominates over the rest, whose relations thus assign rank and influence to the others. It is a general illumination which bathes all the other colors and modifies their particularity. It is a particular ether which determines the specific gravity of every being which has materialized within it.
– Karl Marx, Grundrisse, [1859] 1973, 106–107
Samir Amin was a prodigious Egyptian Marxist, professor and economic advisor. He worked at the Ministry of Planning in Bamako (Mali) from 1960–63, was the director of the IDEP (International Development of Economic Planning) in 1970, and he was a co-founder and director of the Third World Forum in Dakar. His theoretical work was in service of national liberation movements attempting to embark on autocentric development (or to delink from the law of globalised value).1 Amin saw his work as globalising Marx’s project; interpreting the silences of Marx’s unfinished work.
Amin’s first major intervention, Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism (1976), introduced two Marxian concepts crucial to his project of globalising historical materialism: mode of production and social formation. These concepts are also central to my argument of reintegrating theory – and decoloniality – back into history. According to Amin, the concept of the ‘mode of production’ is an abstract one, implying no historical or linear sequence.2 The mode of production describes a set of relationships between the forces (tools, technology, land) and (social) relations of production. He distinguishes five modes: (1) the primitive-communal mode; (2) the tribute-paying mode; (3) the slave-owning mode; (4) the simple petty-commodity mode (in lieu of Marx’s Asiatic Mode of Production); and (5) the ‘capitalist’ mode of production. Central for Amin was that these modes are idealised types, never existing in a pure state. He wrote
The societies known to history are ‘formations’ that on the one hand combine modes of production and on the other organize relations between the local society and other societies, expressed in the existence of long-distance trade relations. Social formations are thus concrete, organized structures that are marked by a dominant mode of production and the articulation around this of a complex group of modes of production that are subordinate to it. (Amin 1976, 16)
The social formation comprises two things: an amalgamation of modes of production(s) and social relations between a local society and other societies. I want to highlight two points. The first is the spatial component within Amin’s theory of social relations which is not social relations in the abstract but specific social relations that (unevenly) integrate a ‘local society’ and ‘other societies’ through the mechanism of long-distance trade. The second is the articulation of a ‘dominant mode of production’ and a ‘complex group of modes of production that are subordinate to it’. This articulation of uneven development, uneven exchange, and dependency marks a unifying theme in Amin’s contributions, and this articulation gets mystified in decolonial thought. For Amin (1976, 18), ‘analysis of a concrete formation demands that we discover how one mode of production predominates over the others, and how these modes of production are interconnected.’ In short, a social formation is never one mode of production – this would imply a pure type – but rather, a relationship between multiple modes that are unevenly interconnected and interdependent. Within historical materialism, the social formation as a unit of analysis is the grounds that renders theory legible. It is what Aijaz Ahmad (1992, 36) articulates as ‘the very conditions of intelligibility within which the fundamental facts of our time can be theorized’. As we move the analysis to decolonial literature, this legibility becomes a point of critique.
Decolonial scholars begin their critique with modernity in the form of modernity/coloniality which began in the sixteenth century (Mignolo and Walsh 2018, 109, 111).3 However, in doing so, these scholars have created another abstract universal. According to Mignolo, coloniality ‘is not a postmodern conceptual introduction, in the sense of rejecting macronarrratives. On the contrary, it claims the necessity of five hundred years’ macronarrratives of the colonial matrix of power’ (Mignolo and Walsh 2018, 107). Counterintuitively, this school of decolonial literature has reified a macro-narrative and needs to reassess: (1) the concrete ways coloniality unfolded historically and spatially and incorporated different social formations; (2) the processes by which societies, communities and individuals are connected through a worldwide civilisation (or a world capitalist system) at the end of the nineteenth century; and (3) how these formations structures their lives, life worlds and subjectivities (Amin 1976, 9).
A decolonial scholar may ask, why reify the macro-narrative by reinserting it into a world-system? My answer is simple: accumulation unfolds, operates and depends upon integration of separate social formations on a world scale (Bush, Bujra and Littlejohn 2011, 189).4 A systemic analysis is required because the law of worldwide value has a systemic logic. National liberation movements require planning and cooperation between social formations at a scale on and beyond the nation state (Amin 1976, 195–196).5 By reintegrating theory into history (from now on, social formations), we can trace and make theory legible.
Eight questions
Decolonial theory suffers from what Ali Kadri (2017, 1) calls ‘the infinite heterogeneity of actuality so that no conclusions can be drawn’. Said plainly, without grounding theory in particular social formations, there is no way to imagine, let alone materially work towards, a way out (often theorised abstractly as pluriversal futures). Decolonial and pluriversal abstracts return us to a theoretical playground in which ‘there is nothing for Theory [and theorists] to do except to wander aimlessly through the effects: counting them, consuming them, producing them’ (Ahmad 1992, 69). I offer eight questions to clarify what we mean when we talk about decolonial theory or decoloniality.
First, what is the goal (if there is one)? Second, what is the political programme to get there? Third, why is this term the preferred term? Fourth, who are the social actor(s)/class(es)/group(s) to give this political programme substance? Are there political parties or social movements present? If so, what are the possible configurations of coalitions and on what basis is this unity? Fifth, in what ways are the logics of coloniality present? Sixth, who/what is the enemy/contradiction? Seventh, how does this theory interact with the historic unfolding of social formations and with current configurations of accumulation on a world scale? This question aims to highlight the relationship between theory and (US-led) imperialism (Capasso and Kadri 2023, 151). Eighth, how can we make these relations plain in ways that our children can understand? (Tamale 2020, 9).6 These questions are not meant to be applied mechanically, nor do I suggest these are the only questions worth asking. They are aimed at bringing into view the real social relations that get hidden by abstract universals.
Four excerpts from Walter Mignolo
I now look at four excerpts from Mignolo and demonstrate the relevancy of these eight questions.7
Excerpt 1
In On Decoloniality, Mignolo argues:
The concept of coloniality opened up two trajectories at once: on the one hand, it brought into light the darker side of modernity and, on the other, it mutated decolonization into decoloniality and into decolonial thinking. It means that, paradoxically, decolonization during the Cold War was still articulated in terms and sensibility of modern thinking: it aimed at changing the contents rather than the principles in which modernity/coloniality was established. (Mignolo and Walsh 2018, 112)
If decolonisation during national liberation struggles is ‘articulated in terms and sensibility of modern thinking’, what is the goal of decolonial thinking for decolonising movements (Q1)? Concretely, what would changing the principles in which modernity/coloniality was established look like as opposed to the content? How could this be articulated in ways our children can understand (Q8)? We ground our questions/theory in history by looking at a specific example: the struggle by PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) for national liberation against Portuguese colonialism. In a mass meeting, Amílcar Cabral (1972, 5) explained the colonial situation in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde 1971 as follows:
the lack of protein and many basic foods holds back the development of our people. In some regions, there has been an 80% infant mortality rate. Throughout the golden age of Portuguese colonialism, we had only two hospitals with a total of 300 beds in the whole country and only 18 doctors, 12 of them in Bissau. As for schools, there were only 45 of them, and they were Catholic missionary schools, only teaching the catechism. There were 11 official schools for assimilado children.8 There were no secondary schools at all in [Guinea Bissau] until 1959; now there is one … There were only 2,000 children in schools throughout the country. And you can imagine the kind of teaching. It was a deliberate decision to prevent the development of our people, just as they did in Angola, Mozambique, and the other colonies.
An analysis of the historical development of social formations, for example, the subordination of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde to Portugal, would shed light on how this (neo)colonial situation unfolded and how it is reproduced. However, what would a ‘decolonial option’ look like for Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde under Portuguese rule? What is a potential decolonial political programme (Q2)? Who are the social actor(s)/class(es)/group(s) to give it substance (Q4)? Who/what is the enemy/contradiction (Q6)? How does a theory of decoloniality interact with the historic unfolding of social formations in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde at this historic juncture? Concretely, what does ‘changing the principles in which modernity/coloniality was established’ and not the content of the colonial situation look like? If your theory is not interested in these questions, in what way is it decolonial? If it is argued to be decolonial, then what does this say about decoloniality as a concept for decolonisation (or national liberation) particularly from/for the colonial difference?
Excerpt 2
If you expect decoloniality today to be a remake of decolonization during the Cold War, you would be deceived by my argument. We are no longer in the Cold War. The Cold War was driven by the confrontation of liberal capitalism with state communism. No longer … Decolonization, was successful in sending the colonizer home but it was a failure, for it ended up creating nation-states that remained within the management of CMP [Colonial Matrix of Power] even if imperial settlers were no longer in the terrain … The defeat of capitalism was intended several times in the name of Marxism. And several times it failed because Marxism remained within the frame of CMP: it opposed the content but did not question the terms (assumptions, principles, regulations) of the type of knowledge within which capitalism would not exist. (Mignolo and Walsh 2018, 22)
There is much to be said here but I will keep my comments brief. On the Cold War: there are still predominately agrarian countries that are semi-feudal in the global South. Take one example, my mother country, the Philippines, whose social formations have been disarticulated through the flooding of cheap agricultural inputs and relegated by uneven treaties and terms of trade to export cash crops, sugar, rice, bananas, tropical fruits, and labour via overseas Filipino workers. The Filipino economy is disarticulated to such an extent that the Philippines is simultaneously the eighth-largest exporter of rice in the world and the most dependent nation in the world for rice imports (Davidson 2016). Decolonial scholars do not have to call it a Cold War, but what does decoloniality say the (or at least a) solution is to these social formations that have material, epistemic and aesthetic ramifications (Q1)? How do you explain this to our children, affected by these policies and logics, who deserve answers to these questions (Q8)?
On decolonisation and nation states, what does decoloniality say about attempts at delinking, autocentric development, and worldmaking projects? Are they all within the frame of CMP? On Marxism remaining within the CMP, if we return to a concrete example: what would it mean to question the terms (assumptions, principles, regulations) of the type of knowledge within which capitalism would not exist in the cases of FRELIMO in Mozambique; the PAIGC in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde; the MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) in Angola, the CPP-NPA (New People’s Army) in the Philippines; the PFLP/DFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine/Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) in Palestine and other movements articulated within Marxist theory? What sort of political programme does this call for (Q2)?
Excerpt 3
Decolonial thinking does not appear yet, not even in the most extreme leftist publications. And the reason is that decolonial thinking is not leftist, but rather another thing entirely: it is a de-linking from the modern, political episteme articulated as right, center, and left; it is an opening towards another thing, on the march, searching for itself in the difference. (Mignolo 2011, 50)
By placing decoloniality above so-called modernity’s articulations of right, centre and left, decolonial theorists have delinked (disarticulated) modernity from colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism. In rejecting the political episteme articulated as right, centre and left, decolonial thinking has effectively abandoned an analysis of imperialism, a coherent political programme, and a historical subject tasked with preventing immiseration which has a class backing historically and socially articulated (and actualised) as from the right. It is a predicate without a subject (Kadri 2017, 24). This school of thought renders imperialism (and history) unintelligible and is the logical conclusion of theories built on abstract universals.
Excerpt 4
In 2020, Walter Mignolo responded to some questions about On Decoloniality. In response to how decoloniality can address massive wealth inequality, environmental destruction, and what he calls ‘the global power structure’, Mignolo states:
At the same time we, by engaging decoloniality, shall not forget our limits in a world dominated by … trillions of dollars devoted to the arms race … corporations extracting whatever they can from earth without looking at the consequences … trillions of dollars … going to military arms race marketing … for decoloniality to tear down ‘the global power structure’ it would be necessary to build an economic, military, and political structure that can overwhelm de-Westernisation and re-Westernisation. But at that point, it won’t be decolonial anymore. What decoloniality could do is to ‘tear down the modern/colonial structure of knowledge’ that today sustains the political forces of de-Westernisation and re-Westernisation competing for natural resources, military power and political influence. (Mignolo 2020, 5)
I have four comments. First, Mignolo siloes the domain of praxis for emancipatory politics. Forgone is the ability and the call to delink from and challenge the capitalist world system. In fact, the capitalist world system has disappeared and been replaced by an abstract ‘global power structure’ floating ahistorically as a nebulous Western imperial design (Q6). Second, let us be clear that ‘de-Westernisation’ refers to anti-systemic movements in the global South (such as the PAIGC); and ‘re-Westernisation’ would refer to movements and class formations aligned with US-led imperialism. Rather than being a protagonist of history, that is, coming to the aid of one side, scholars of this school of decoloniality offer up ‘tear[ing] down the modern/colonial structure of knowledge’ that sustains them (Mignolo 2020, 5). This defeatist logic and detachment are emblematic of what Amin (2019, 156) denounced as ‘the luxury of asserting attachment to principles without having to be concerned about effectiveness in transforming reality’. This detachment has led David Temin (2024, 11) to interject that decoloniality is not just another ‘option’; rather, it is a ‘wrong turn’ altogether. Third, this type of analysis is a recapitulation of Margaret Thatcher’s TINA (there is no alternative) wrapped in decolonial guise. Fourth, the clearest way to rupture the modern/colonial structure of knowledge is through praxis. 9
Conclusion
This debate piece critiques decolonial literature from the perspective of global historical materialism. This critique makes a broader epistemic critique on abstract theory that claims to be transhistorical or universal; that is, integrated into specific social formations and therefore not integrated into history. Rather than reifying a new abstract universal in the form of modernity/coloniality, global historical materialism provides the social formation as a unit of analysis to embed our theory, analysis and praxis in history. By asking the eight questions above, we are confronted with the need to integrate our analysis back into history in a way that renders social formations, and therefore history, legible. This legibility is crucial for our theory to be in service of movements for national liberation.