Posthegemony and subalternity

the exhaustion of political concepts in Latin America

Abstract

Processes such as the Chilean social uprising or the recent protests in Venezuela following the election results are some of the many examples in the recent history of Latin America that indicate the apparent exhaustion of the traditional mechanisms of state politics, as well as its political lexicon. Under this premise, within the decolonial turn, arose the reflection on the concept of post-hegemony. This concept appeared with the aim of rethinking Gramscian hegemony from cultural and decolonial studies, to question the relationship between the dominant and dominated classes. To this end, a series of theoretical reflections were developed that, starting from an amalgam of influences from contemporary political philosophy, sought, in turn, to rethink the channels of politics within the framework of the nation-state, and that placed the figure of subalternity at the center of the reflection. This article delves into the philosophical influences of post-hegemony, exploring through a hermeneutic-reconstructive review and the methodology of conceptual analysis, the amalgam of influences of contemporary political philosophy that question the channels of politics within the framework of the nation-state, and that place the figure of subalternity at the center of reflection, structuring thus the research that derives from this concept. This article provides an analysis of the emancipatory capacity of the concept of post-hegemony in its epistemological and theoretical character, and concludes certain lessons on the conceptual exploration that Latin American studies embark on when dealing with the postcolonial reality and the transformation of political life in the subcontinent, with the main objective of elucidating the theoretical idiosyncrasy that represents the philosophical framework of postcoloniality and the relationship that it has with the capacity for subversion against capitalism and Eurocentrism.