The production of life in Latin America and the Caribbean and its relation to design and other related fields

about delinking, disobeying, and decolonizing

Abstract

When building a brief genealogy of Latin American social thought, it is noticeable that the search for delinking from the Western modernity imposed by the colonial project is at its essence. In this way, this article proposes, through Laó-Montes and Vásquez’s doble crítica (double criticism), to initiate an immanent critique of the production of life in Latin America and the Caribbean, and its relation to Design and related areas, articulating the ideas of anthropologists Arturo Escobar and Tim Ingold. It also aims to develop a transcendent critique, a subaltern interpretation of this production based on the materiality found in the urban space of the capitalist periphery; specifically, peripheral spontaneous design or (re)existence design, as a device for an enchanted pedagogy: the Brazilian gambiarra, the Cuban technological disobedience, among others. As a result, it is pointed out that the knowledge of reality as well as the recognition both of humanity and the struggle for emancipation, all present in the production of life through subaltern history, constitute, together, a path to decolonization.