Philosophies of the Global South refer to the pluralistic philosophical approaches that critically analyze dominant philosophical perspectives by shifting the center of thought away from canonical and Western traditions. While not homogenous in method or origins, these approaches share an attentiveness to the geographical and historical context of philosophical thought, the role of histories of domination, and the impact of gender, race, colonization, and sexuality in the formation and development of philosophical traditions.
Texas A&M University has a lively community of scholars working on philosophies of the Global South, specializing in Latinx and Latin American Philosophy, Philosophy of Race, Africana Philosophy, and Decolonial and Postcolonial Philosophies. Across these traditions, faculty research questions of Black aesthetics, Andean aesthetics, global histories of colonization and their impact on space, racial and gendered formations of life and death, and critical analyses of lived experience.
Faculty exploring this area include:
Conway is primarily interested in Australasian efforts to reconcile with the First Nations and indigenous peoples of the region. In Conway's research, he focuses on the promise and practice of renewed attempts to establish relationships predicated on a commitment to mutual recognition
Deere specializes in Latin American and Latinx Philosophy, with a particular interest in Decolonial Philosophy and Philosophy of Liberation. He also works on Caribbean Philosophy, particularly the thought of Édouard Glissant. His research develops the notion of the coloniality of space and draws on themes of aesthetics, power, race, ecology, and decoloniality.
Recent Publications in Area:
- The Invention of Change: On the Coloniality of Space. Duke University Press, January 2026. Forward by Santiago Castro-Gómez. Link to the book: https://dukeupress.edu/the-invention-of-order
- The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space. Duke University Press, Fall 2025. Foreword by Santiago Castro-Gómez.
- “Transmodern Geographies and Coloniality: On Enrique Dussel’s Pluriversal Modernity.” Latin American Perspectives, Forthcoming 2025.
- “Lugares de crítica en La hybris del punto cero, de Santiago Castro-Gómez” In Entre la hybris y la república: Crítica decolonial y transmodernidad en el pensamiento de Santiago Castro-Gómez. Eds. Juan Camiilo Cajigas, María Juliana Flórez, and Carlos Arturo López. Bogotá: University of Javeriana Press, 2024, 73-83.
Media:
Islekel brings Philosophies of the Global South in dialogue with Contemporary Continental Philosophy. In particular, she engages with key thinkers of Decolonial Feminist Thought, such as Maria Lugones and Wylvia Wynter, and the conception of the politics of death developed by the postcolonial philosopher Achille Mbembe.
Recent Publications in Area:
- “Gender in Necropolitics: Gendered Death and Biopolitical Racialization,” Philosophy Compass (March 2022), https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12827
- “Decolonizing Damiens” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 44.1-2 (2024): 29-42.
- “Traveling the Soil of Worlds: Haunted Forgettings and Opaque Memories in Decolonial Feminisms” in Hypatia 35.3 (2020): 439-453.
Media:
Jaima's research is on Black aesthetics, an area that emerges at the convergence of aesthetics and Africana philosophy. Jaima is particularly interested in the ways that Africana philosophical questions present themselves in non-traditional discursive spaces, such as fiction and poetry. He is also interested in the ways in which the Black experience politicizes the question of beauty.
Recent Publications in Area:
- “Don’t Talk to White People: On the Epistemological and Rhetorical Limitations of Conversations With White People for Anti-Racist Purposes: An Essay.” Journal of Black Studies 52 (1): 77–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934720958158.
- “The Untold Story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Cyborg: On the Post/Super/In-Human Conditions of Black (Anti)Heroism.” The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence 22 (April):5–32. https://doi.org/10.5840/acorn20224822.
- “American Ignorance and the Discourse of Manageability Concerning the Care and Presentation of Black Hair.” Journal of Medical Humanities, September, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09663-1.
Media:
Rivera specializes in Latin American Philosophy, and Decolonial Feminism and Aesthetics. His research on aesthetics focuses on the Andean region in particular, and draws from phenomenological methodologies.
Recent Publications in Area:
- Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance: A Cosmology of Unsociable Bodies (London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2021).
- Delimitations of Latin American Philosophy: Beyond Redemption (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2019).
- “Cosmological Topologies and the (De)formations of Things at Catastrophic Ends.” Research in Phenomenology 54 (2024): 52-73.
Events:
- Consortium for Thought of the Global South: an Inaugural Meeting. October 17-18, 2024
- philoSOPHIA 2025: Critical Borderlands, https://www.philosophiafeministsociety.com/