After the Decolonial

After the Decolonialexamines the sources of LatinAmerican decolonial thought, its reading of precursors like Fanon and Levinasand itshistorical interpretations. In extended treatments of the anthropologyof ethnicity, law and religion and of theregion's modernculture, Lehmann sets out the bases of a more grounded interpretation, drawinginspiration from Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia andChile, andfrom a lifelong engagement withissues of development, religion and race. The decolonial places race atthe centre of its interpretation of injustice and, together with the multiple other exclusions dividing Latin American societies, traces it to European colonialism. But it has not fully absorbed the uniquelyunsettling nature of Latin American race relations, which perpetuate prejudiceand inequality, yet aremarked bymétissage, pervasive borrowing andmimesis. Moreover, it has not integrated its own disruptive feminist branch, and ithas takenlittle interest in either the interwoven history of indigenous religion andhegemonic Catholicism or the evangelical tsunami whichhas upended so many assumptions about the region's culture. The book concludes that in Latin America,where inequality and violence are more severe than anywhere else, and whereCOVID-19 has revealed the deplorable state of the institutions charged with ensuring the basic requirements of life, the time has come to instate a universalist concept of social justice, encompassing a comprehensive approach to race, gender, class and human rights.