Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International
Pages: 250
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-78348-705-9 • Hardback • June 2016 • $176.00 • (£137.00)
978-1-78348-706-6 • Paperback • June 2016 • $59.00 • (£45.00)
978-1-78348-707-3 • eBook • June 2016 • $56.00 • (£43.00)
Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo is a member of the Caribbean Philosophical Association and a professor of legal and political theory at several institutions across Latin America, including Universidad Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), Universidad Central de Quito, Universidad San Luis de Potosí (Mexico), PUC Rio de Janeiro, and Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, among others.
Acknowledgements / 1. Coloniality: Decrypting Power in a Solid State / 2. First Definition of Democracy: The Hidden People as the Dark Energy of Power / 3. Difference and Simulacra: The Poisoned Gift of Platonism / 4. The Plastic Soul of Democracy: Power Between Potentia, Potestas, and Actuality / 5. The Phantom Pain of Civilization: Against Negri´s Understanding of Spinoza / Bibliography / Index
Sanín-Restrepo seeks to turn the tables on the operations of power in our world; far from accepting the dominance of the oppressive system of state capitalism due to its very tangible presence, he seeks to point out the tangibility of that which opposes it and which can fight its fire with an immanent fire of its own.
— Law, Culture & Humanities
Sanin Restrepo´s work gives us a thoughtful and innovative account of how democracy - “as the only conceivable space of politics” - is occluded by coloniality. For those interested in the decolonial perspective, this book is of paramount importance and a long-awaited contribution which introduces democracy to the debate.
— Fernanda Frizzo Bragato, Professor of Human Rights and Coordinator of the Law Graduate Program at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil.
Sanín-Restrepo argues that the key to a better, non-culturalist notion of difference lies not in the types of atoms that make up language/society, but in their arrangement. A more hopeful and conscious politics requires integration into a whole in which feedback creates differentiation, with all parts affecting one another. Domination seeks to turn our linguistic-performative political powers into a simple feed-forward mechanism. The latter gives us simulated democracy. In this fascinating book Sanín-Restrepo invites us to rise against it, like Neo and Trinity do in The Matrix.
— Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Reader in Law and Political Philosophy, Birkbeck College, University of London