This article arguments that “coloniality” is the darkest side of Western modernity, a matrix of power that emerged between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment during the colonization of the Americas. This process is culminating in the capitalist neoliberalism of the present times. Firstly, we establish the thesis that the coloniality, a concept introduced by the sociologist Anibal Quijano, is the “hidden agenda” of modernity. After that, the origin of this “monster with four heads and two legs” is explained, and the development and the historical transformation of this “colonial matrix of power” is analyzed. As as conclusion, we offer a preview of the book The dark side of western modernity: global futures, decolonial options, which catch glimpses of certain “global futures”, while explores some possible “decolonizing options”.
Coloniality; Modernity; Decolonizing thinking