Thinking from Latin America
Stephen Di Trolio Coakley and Dr. Rafael Vizcaíno discuss liberation philosophy and anti-fetishism
The San Lorenzo Monument by artist Ignacio Pérez Solano is located on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Also known as El Rey, the monument is an exact replica of the giant head that was discovered at the Olmec site of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, Mexico. Some researchers speculate that Africans made contact with and had significant influence on the cultures, languages, and religions of native peoples in Mesoamerica, primarily the Olmec civilization. Source: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Gift; The Lyda Hill Foundation; 2014; (DLC/PP-2014:054).
In this episode of OP Talks, hosted by Stephen Di Trolio Coakley, Dr. Rafael Vizcaíno shares how his story as a migrant and desire to pursue philosophy led him to the fields of Decolonial Studies and Liberation Philosophy. Dr. Vizcaíno’s recent article in Journal of World Philosophies discusses how the trope of fetishization is central to Latin American liberation philosophy and its proposal for an “anti-fetishist” method, and he offers a genealogy of the trope of fetishization elaborated on in the work of the Argentine-Mexican philosopher of liberation Enrique Dussel.
Dr. Vizcaíno writes: "…the anti-fetishist method consists of deciphering the man-made character of oppressive power relations that behave as if they were necessary and unchangeable transhistorical absolutes." He engages recent work in cultural anthropology that demonstrates how the notion of “fetishism” develops out of a one-sided Eurocentric anthropology of religion that misrepresents elements of Afro-Atlantic religions. Without a serious revision of the metaphysical premises of “anti-fetishism,” he argues, liberation philosophy risks perpetuating a Eurocentrism that runs counter to the interests of epistemic decolonization to which it is committed. Dr. Vizcaíno then outlines the prospects of a decolonial “anti-fetishist” method that might overcome the Eurocentric misapprehension of Afro-Atlantic religions.
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Vizcaíno, R. "Liberation Philosophy, Anti-Fetishism, and Decolonization." Journal of World Philosophies 6.2 (December 2021).
LÁPIZ N˚7: Learning Across Liberation Theologies, 2022. Latin American Philosophy of Education Society (LAPES).
