Wandering Through Trodden Paths?

A Pluriversal Perspective on the Latin American Indigenous Diplomacy

Abstract

The construction of traditional diplomacy in Latin America is an important part of a complex plot of the coloniality of power, knowledge and being. The construction, consolidation and adoption of its protocols, practices and symbols reflect and reify the hegemony of the Eurocentric perspective, supposedly objective, neutral and, by extension universal. In this perspective, this article aims to analyze the invisibility of the pluriversality of visions/knowledge in traditional diplomacy in Latin America, as well as to reimagine other possible diplomatic constructions, examining particularly the cosmovision of indigenous diplomacy. The work is divided in three parts: in the first section, we analyze how the traditional diplomacy of Latin America was built, taking into account its Eurocentric bias. Subsequently, we examine the concept of pluriversality as a manifestation of the epistemologies of the South, based on a Latin America vision that contests the geopolitics of power/knowledge centered on a Western design of knowledge production. Finally, we analyze the example of indigenous diplomacy, its decolonial and pluriversal look, in contrast to the diplomatic experiences that were written and consolidated from the perspective of the Global North. The work is supported by a genealogical critical contribution anchored in decolonial lenses.