Repensando os Direitos Humanos a partir da perspectiva decolonial

Abstract

Although the period marked by colonization is over, its structure remains deeply rooted in the imaginry and in contemporary social practices. How the pattern of power was appropriate and articulated continued to reproduce colonial dynamics, whether at the expense of labor control relations, the production of knowledge or the hierarchies created to undermine certain groups and individuals to the detriment of others. This means that, even with the end of colonialism, it is coloniality that marks the unequal relations marked by colonial dimensions. In this perspective, the European discourse could position itself as true and legitimate, making room for its narratives to occupy a privileged space. Such discourse used the understanding of the naturally rational man to determine the subject holder rights. However, when formulated, these rights were grounded under the structure of the colonial power matrix, which held the necessary instruments to undermine, conceal, and exclude groups that suffered from colonial impositions. Nowadays, especially after World War II, these rights found in the internationalization of Human Rights a new space for action, because they presented themselves as universal, but started from an origin very close to the definition of the rational subject, whose formulation was interconnected to the locus of Eurocentric enunciation. Consequently, they served the interests of those who created hierarchies between groups and individuals and announced the categories of superiority that served to differentiate them. Therefore, it is for this reason that the frameworks of coloniality serves as a mechanism for uncovering the selective violation of human rights nowadays.