Decolonizing Epistemic Practices in Philosophy of History

MOIRA PÉREZ

Estocolmo

Congreso; III INTH International Conference: Place and Displacement; 2018

Södertörns University e International Network for Theory of History

Philosophy of history, as a discipline concerned -among other things- with the ways in which a community relates to its past, holds a particularly strong link to the current problems of our society. How to approach its practice is, thus, a fundamental question, both ethical and epistemic, that must be addressed by our professional community. In particular, issues of place and displacement can lead us in many directions, including the question of where the academic canon is built, and which places are considered worthy of epistemic authority. This paper will focus on such epistemic aspects, to contend that diversity -and particularly geopolitical diversity- in the process of knowledge creation plays a key role for an epistemically robust practice.The paper begins by evaluating the current scene through an analysis of the quotation tendencies in the main publications in Philosophy of History, assessing the relative presence of sources of different geographical and/or linguistic origins. It then assesses some of the problems that could derive from this distribution, and goes on to propose a range of means to bring about geopolitical diversity as an epistemic value in the academic practice of Philosophy of History.Confronting our own colonial practices, exposing them and working to dismantle them is not only an ethical issue, but also an epistemic one. Our considerations about the ways in which any given community represents its past, and how different communities interact, will gain in complexity, accuracy and depth if we open the dialogue to a broader range of places and perspectives.