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the discussion of this topic is impoverished by neglecting to discuss extractivism and the industrial production and mass culture that fuels it. the legacy of colonialism is which "developed" countries (militarily/economically mighty geopolitical superpowers and their allies) benefit from the offshored extraction and industrial production. decoloniality current privileges the cultural and epistemic aspect of colonialism, it's place in academia keeps it within acceptable discourse, defaulting to nation-state's democratic institutions and grassroots organizations working within the framework of what's permissible. only full stop extractivism (mainly mining and agrobusiness activities) and the global economy as we know it is a real inroad towards decolonization. decoloniality scholars are westernized academics (regardless of their ethnicities) that recuperate the traditions of indigenous cultures in order to produce a body of knowledge in which they're better positioned in the social hierarchy it produces and legitimizes. they retrofit the academic postmodern discourse around democracy with signifiers derived from folklore to make it sound exotic and obscure and unapproachable by a former cohort with tenure, allowing for a new cohort to participate in the production of knowledge due to a perceive novelty, legitimacy, justice, incentivized by state's tokenization multi-culty inclusivity efforts. meanwhile, all the post-docs and fellowships in the world will not stop the mining of metals, the extraction of fossil fuels, or even minerals to produce make-up. this destruction of the land base of cultures, of the displacement and murder of people who live in places of interest due to their resources, is the main destructive force in which one can perceive coloniality of power. reviving dead indigenous languages, narrative traditions, spiritual and philosophical wisdom in the hopes it coincides in a poignant way with western scientific ecological knowledge (that's employed to greenwash everything) in a way that moves westernized liberal hearts into changing the status quo into a deeper more organic or interconnected way that differs from the modern vision of progress is perhaps less of a far stretch than trying to acquire enough dynamite to explode the different machines and infrastructure that make the world economy work. after all, the world works less than an action movie, and more like a disney movie with a happy ending, maybe pocahontas or avatar, but with less fighting and more publish or perish and organizing. all this is irrelevant to academic discourse since drastically changing the status quo in a way that dismantles absolutely everything as we know it (including governement, academia, industry) is not an option and everyone, even most dumb people, know that it isn't possible to bring about through concerted efforts, but might happen as a result of various overlapping catastrophes, and the emerging situation would not be a utopia, but life as Earth has beared for aeons. or something other that makes more sense, another shitpost for the pile.