Colonial Differences in Intercultural Education : On Interculturality in the Andes and the Decolonization of Intercultural Dialogue

This essay seeks to wean interculturality from its comfort zone of flat substitutability across cultural differences by pushing for the possibility of other ways of thinking about the concept depending on where (the geopolitics of knowledge) and by whom (the bodypolitics of knowledge) it is being articulated. In order to make a case for the importance of always considering the geopolitical and bodypolitical dimension of knowledge production within interculturality, this essay shifts focus away from policies of the European Union and UNESCO to the Andean region of Latin America. In that part of the world the notion of interculturalidad – translation: interculturality – is not only a subject on the educational agenda, it has also become a core component among indigenous social movements in their push for decolonization. With reference points drawn from a decolonial perspective and the concept of “colonial difference”, this essay makes the case that interculturalidad, with its roots in the historical experience of colonialism and in the particular, rather than in assertions of universality, offers another perspective on interculturality bringing into the picture other epistemologies. It concludes by arguing for the requirement to start seeing interculturality as inter-epistemic rather than simply inter-cultural