Pulcritud and hedor epistemológico in Latinoamerica

• In Event: Apuestas y posibilidades desde la exclusión

Abstract

A line runs down the center of the Americas between pulcritud and hedor, argues philosopher Rodolfo Kusch. This distinction could be rendered loosely in English as contrasting order, cleanliness, and neatness to stench. It marks the distinction between modernity and the indigenous, who are often described by a racist dominant culture as smelling or stinking: anything associated with indigeneity is an object of revulsion and hence exclusion. Kusch sees urban dwellers clinging to pulcritud as almost psychological impulse to protect oneself from the hedor Americana. It should go without saying that the distinction is imagined rather than real. Yet it organizes people’s perceptions and even institutions and nation-building projects, such as economic and development schemas. The paper explores how hedor has been associated with ways of thinking and forms of expression, so that subaltern and indigenous forms of knowledge are seen as polluting, revolting, shameful, and need to be corrected or excluded. Hedor and its metaphors is used as a rationale for epistemicide, or the marginalizing, humiliating, eradicating, or banishing indigenous, subaltern, and counter-hegemonic knowledges (Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2014). As an entry point, the translations of Junot Díaz will serve as the chief example, but I also draw on Édouard Glissant, John Agard, and Pat Mora.

Author

• Joshua Price, State University of New York/Binghamton