"The return of the excluded" feminist and postcolonial perspectives on western modernity

Abstract

In political, scholarly and cultural discussions in the ‘Global North’, ideas of freedom, democracy and human rights were considered universal and legitimated for political and military interventions mostly in non-Western countries. Debates about the universality of the right to intervene are discussed in the frame of universality versus particularity. Whereas universalists defend their arguments in the name of modernity, their challengers opposed to these kinds of universal assumptions refer to the importance of particularism and relativism; yet, both groups consider modernity as their main point of reference. To overcome this stalled discussion, I look at modernity through the deconstruction of epistemic dichotomies and hierarchies in order to open up a space for critical reflection on the concept itself. Contextualizing my reflections on modernity in the rich literature by scholars who challenge the dominant Western concept of modernity, I demonstrate that Western knowledge is not universal in an epistemic sense. Rather, it can be considered as a contentious concept with problematic assumptions about an epistemically neutral subject, adopting a universalistic perspective while erasing the meaning of geopolitical location (Grosfoguel 2011). Arguing against this idea of an ‘assertive universality’, the metaphor of ’travelling theories,’ as proposed by Edward Said and Clifford Geertz, helps to reflect upon the local, social and individual positioning of knowledge. The focus of this contribution is the utilisation of feminist and postcolonial perspectives to contribute to the deconstruction of modernity as a homogenous monolithic bloc. Considering the frame itself, I question the hidden, not explicated assumptions in the production of Western knowledge. Arguing that knowledge production is not a question of geography but of epistemology, I deconstruct the modern project from the inside in order to overcome the epistemic dichotomy of modernity itself. The implications of this analysis for us as social scientists and researchers will be discussed at the end of the paper.