Biography
Stephen R. Di Trolio Coakley is currently pursuing his Master of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He recently completed graduate coursework in Sociology of Culture at the Universidad Nacional De San Martín in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His interests include Latin American history, political theology, and decolonial theory.
Paper Abstract
An article from December 2020 by Amnesty International recounts both the immense deforestation taking place in Brazil and the implementation of pro-business policies by President Jair Bolsonaro, furthering the already overwhelming damage to the environment. This incident in Brazil is not an isolated event but rather a continuation of neo-liberal practices in the region. In light of these urgent prerogatives, we look to the Peruvian decolonial thinker Anibal Quijano as a source for re-imagining resistance and our relationship to the environment. This is a position that considers the ancestral Andean visions of nature, decolonial philosophy and the interrelatedness with human activity, as a means to posing new questions how to live in this contemporary state of crisis. El Bien Vivir or the "good living" is a way to resist and re-situate existence against the coloniality of power, Quijano's term for the all-encompassing nature of both capitalism and colonialism. This paper seeks to review Quijano's thought, establish the parameters for a renewed decolonial resistance, and a vision for living beyond the coloniality of power. This proposal takes into account indigenous visions of nature and pairing them to new forms of resistance to the all-pervasive power of capital. Quijano's ecologically oriented philosophy could function as a timely critique for the recent rise of far-right movements in Latin America and policies that continue promote devastating effects on the environment.