Geography of absences

the denials of territorial ontologies and disputes over the reterritorialization of being

Abstract

The spatial dimension of coloniality is investigated based on a conceptual proposal that distinguishes the concepts of “geography of absences” and “coloniality of being”. Subsequently, the constitutive aspects of the “geography of absences” are presented through seven spatial monocultures that facilitate the denial of territories and territorial ontologies are investigated. Faced with these issues, the production of geographic knowledge in Latin America is subjected to a critical judgment and the need to provoke territorial displacements in the social sciences and in the field of decolonial studies is required, recognizing the emergence of territory as a dimension used by social movements in the struggle for decolonization. The reflections in this article are based on the experiences of participatory research-action that the authors carried out following the territorial struggles of indigenous peoples in Latin America. The final reflections open up new questions about how to build proposals to create a geography of presences that responds to the modern-capitalist-colonial-patriarchal reason of the sciences.