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Book Chapter

Extractivist Epistemologies

By

Linda Martín Alcoff

Linda Martín Alcoff

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Doi:

https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478060772-002

Published:

June 2025

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

This chapter develops an account and critique of extractivist epistemologies, which are generated by extractivist projects. It argues that certain metaphysical and epistemological ideas and practices emerge from extractivist projects, and these ideas and practices have influenced the development of Western epistemologies. After developing a critique, the chapter develops four correct epistemic norms to counteract the effect of extractivist epistemologies: these all center on the question of relationships among knowers and the contextual embeddedness of knowledge.

extractivism, values, knowledge, relationships, museums

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References

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Linda Martín

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Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory

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Ithaca, NY

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Cornell University Press

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Alcoff

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Linda Martín

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Mignolo's Epistemology of Coloniality

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3

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102

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Bebbington

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Anthony

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Extractive Industries and Stunted States: Conflict, Responsibility and Institutional Change in the Andes

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Corporate Social Responsibility: Discourses, Practices, Perspectives

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K.

Ravi Raman

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97

–

115

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London

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Palgrave Macmillan

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Bilgrami

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Akeel

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Gandhi's Radicalism: An Interpretation

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Beyond the Secular West

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Columbia University Press

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Boyd

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What Realism Implies and What It Does Not

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Castro-Gómez

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Santiago

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Zero-Point Hubris: Science, Race, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Latin America

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Ciccariello-Maher

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Don T.

Deere

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Clifford

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The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography

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Harvard University Press

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Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location

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Oxford University Press

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Colwell

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Chip

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Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture.

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University of Chicago Press

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Dalmiya

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Vrinda

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Caring to Know: Comparative Care Ethics, Feminist Epistemology and the Mahabharata

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Oxford University Press

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de la Cadena

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Marisol

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Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds

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Duke University Press

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The New World of the Indigenous Museum

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2

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Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide

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The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South

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Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal

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The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of “the Other” and the Myth of Modernity

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Barber

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Continuum

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Social Movements and Biodiversity on the Pacific Coast of Colombia

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Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

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:

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Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA

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Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing

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High-Tech Plundering, Biodiversity, and Cultural Erosion: The Case of Brazil

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Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

, edited by

Boaventura

de Sousa Santos

,

151

–

81

.

New York

:

Verso

.

Greene

,

Shane

.

2002

. “

Intellectual Property, Resources or Territory? Reframing the Debate over Indigenous Rights, Traditional Knowledge, and Pharmaceutical Bioprospection

.” In

Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights

, edited by

Mark

Bradley

and

Patrice

Petro

,

229

–

49

.

New Brunswick, NJ

:

Rutgers University Press

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Harding

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Sandra

.

2008

.

Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities

.

Durham, NC

:

Duke University Press

.

Harding

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Sandra

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2015

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Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research

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Chicago

:

University of Chicago Press

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Harvey

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2003

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The New Imperialism

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Oxford University Press

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The ‘New’ Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession

.”

Socialist Register

40

:

63

–

87

.

Hayden

,

Cori

.

2003

. “

From Market to Market: Bioprospecting's Idioms of Inclusion

.”

American Ethnologist

30

(

3

):

359

–

71

.

Jenkins

,

Tiffany

.

2016

.

Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums … and Why They Should Stay There

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Khader

,

Serene

.

2019

.

Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Koskinen

,

Inkeri

, and

Kristina

Rolin

.

2019

. “

Scientific/Intellectual Movements Remedying Epistemic Injustice: The Case of Indigenous Studies

.”

Philosophy of Science

86

(

5

):

1052

–

63

.

Lloyd

,

Elisabeth A.

2006

.

The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution

.

Boston

:

Harvard University Press

.

Massimi

,

Michela

.

2022

.

Perspectival Realism

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Mignolo

,

Walter D.

2000

.

Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking

.

Princeton, NJ

:

Princeton University Press

.

Mihesuah

,

Devon A.

, ed.

2000

.

Repatriation: Who Owns American Indian Remains?

Lincoln

:

University of Nebraska Press

.

Mills

,

Charles

.

2005

. “

‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology

.”

Hypatia

10

(

3

):

165

–

84

.

Petras

,

James

.

2012

. “

Extractive Capitalism and the Divisions in the Latin American Progressive Camp

.”

Global Research

,

May

3

,

2012

.

Potter

,

Elizabeth

.

2001

.

Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases

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Bloomington

:

Indiana University Press

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Putnam

,

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.

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Reason, Truth and History

.

Cambridge

:

Cambridge University Press

.

Riofrancos

,

Thea

.

2020

.

Resource Radicals: From Petro-nationalism to Post-extractivism in Ecuador

.

Durham, NC

:

Duke University Press

.

Robinson

,

William I.

2008

.

Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective

.

Baltimore, MD

:

Johns Hopkins University Press

.

Rorty

,

Richard

.

1979

.

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

.

Princeton, NJ

:

Princeton University Press

.

Rudner

,

Richard

.

1953

. “

The Scientist qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments

.”

Philosophy of Science

20

(

1

):

1

–

6

.

Said

,

Edward

.

2004

.

Humanism and Democratic Criticism

.

New York

:

Columbia University Press

.

Sankey

,

Kyla

.

2014

. “

Colombia: The Mining Boom: A Catalyst of Development or Resistance?

” In

The New Extractivism: A Post-neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century?

, edited by

Henry

Veltmeyer

and

James

Petras

,

114

–

43

.

New York

:

Zed

.

Shiva

,

Vandana

.

2007

. “

Biodiversity, Intellectual Property Rights, and Globalization

.” In

Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

, edited by

Boaventura

de Sousa Santos

,

272

–

87

.

New York

:

Verso

.

Shiva

,

Vandana

.

2020

.

Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth

.

Santa Fe, NM

:

Synergetic Press

.

Smolin

,

Lee

.

2006

.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

.

New York

:

Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt

.

Tiles

,

Mary

, and

Jim

Tiles

.

1993

.

An Introduction to Historical Epistemology: The Authority of Knowledge

.

Oxford

:

Blackwell

.

Tuana

,

Nancy

.

1992

.

Woman and the History of Philosophy

.

New York

:

Paragon House

.

Valaskakis

,

Gail Guthrie

.

2005

.

Indian Country: Essays on Contemporary Native Culture

.

Waterloo, ON

:

Wilfred Laurier University Press

.

Veltmeyer

,

Henry

, and

James

Petras

, eds.

2014

.

The New Extractivism: A Post-neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century?

New York

:

Zed

.

Viveiros de Castro

,

Eduardo

.

2004a

. “

Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies

.”

Common Knowledge

25

(

1

–3):

21

–

42

.

Viveiros de Castro

,

Eduardo

.

2004b

. “

Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Equivocation

.”

Tipití

2

(

1

):

3

–

22

.

Wallerstein

,

Immanuel

.

2006

.

European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power

.

New York

:

New Press

.

Whyte

,

Kyle

.

2021

. “

Against Crisis Epistemology

.” In

Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies

, edited by

Brendan

Hokowhitu

,

A.

Moreton-Robinson

,

L.

Tuhiwai-Smith

,

C.

Andersen

, and

S.

Larkin

,

52

–

64

.

New York

:

Routledge

.

Wilholt

,

Torsten

.

2016

. “

Collaborative Research, Scientific Communities, and the Social Diffusion of Trustworthiness

.” In

The Epistemic Life of Groups: Essays in the Epistemology of Collectives

, edited by

Michael S.

Brady

and

Miranda

Fricker

,

218

–

34

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

World Bank

.

2005

.

Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Experience

.

Washington, DC

:

World Bank / International Finance Corporation / Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency

.

Wylie

,

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.

2002

.

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Berkeley

:

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.

Figures & Tables

Book cover for Decentralizing Knowledges: Essays on Distributed Agency

Decentralizing Knowledges: Essays on Distributed Agency

Edited by

Duke University Press

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478060772

Copyright:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

ISBN electronic:

978-1-4780-9428-9

Publication date:

2025

References

Alcoff

,

Linda Martín

.

1996

.

Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory

.

Ithaca, NY

:

Cornell University Press

.

Alcoff

,

Linda Martín

.

2007

. “

Mignolo's Epistemology of Coloniality

.”

New Centennial Review

7

(

3

):

79

–

102

.

Bebbington

,

Anthony

.

2010

. “

Extractive Industries and Stunted States: Conflict, Responsibility and Institutional Change in the Andes

.” In

Corporate Social Responsibility: Discourses, Practices, Perspectives

, edited by

K.

Ravi Raman

,

97

–

115

.

London

:

Palgrave Macmillan

.

Bilgrami

,

Akeel

.

2016

. “

Gandhi's Radicalism: An Interpretation

.” In

Beyond the Secular West

, edited by

Akeel

Bilgrami

,

215

–

45

.

New York

:

Columbia University Press

.

Boyd

,

Richard

.

1989

. “

What Realism Implies and What It Does Not

.”

Dialectica

43

(

1

–2):

5

–

29

.

Castro-Gómez

,

Santiago

.

2021

.

Zero-Point Hubris: Science, Race, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Latin America

. Translated by

George

Ciccariello-Maher

and

Don T.

Deere

.

New York

:

Rowman and Littlefield

.

Clifford

,

James

.

1988

.

The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography

.

Boston

:

Harvard University Press

.

Code

,

Lorraine

.

2006

.

Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Colwell

,

Chip

.

2017

.

Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture.

Chicago

:

University of Chicago Press

.

Dalmiya

,

Vrinda

.

2016

.

Caring to Know: Comparative Care Ethics, Feminist Epistemology and the Mahabharata

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

de la Cadena

,

Marisol

.

2015

.

Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds

.

Durham, NC

:

Duke University Press

.

Deloria

,

Philip J.

2018

. “

The New World of the Indigenous Museum

.”

Daedelus

147

(

2

):

106

–

15

.

de Sousa Santos

,

Boaventura

.

2014

.

Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide

.

New York

:

Routledge

.

de Sousa Santos

,

Boaventura

.

2018

.

The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South

.

Durham, NC

:

Duke University Press

.

Douglas

,

Heather

.

2009

.

Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal

.

Pittsburgh, PA

:

University of Pittsburgh Press

.

Dussel

,

Enrique

.

1995

.

The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of “the Other” and the Myth of Modernity

. Translated by

Michael D.

Barber

.

New York

:

Continuum

.

Escobar

,

Arturo

, and

Mauricio

Pardo

.

2007

. “

Social Movements and Biodiversity on the Pacific Coast of Colombia

.” In

Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

, edited by

Boaventura

de Sousa Santos

,

288

–

314

.

New York

:

Verso

.

Fine-Dare

,

Kathleen S.

2002

.

Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA

.

Lincoln

:

University of Nebraska Press

.

Fricker

,

Miranda

.

2007

.

Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing

.

Oxford

:

Oxford University Press

.

Garcia dos Santos

,

Laymert

.

2007

. “

High-Tech Plundering, Biodiversity, and Cultural Erosion: The Case of Brazil

.” In

Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

, edited by

Boaventura

de Sousa Santos

,

151

–

81

.

New York

:

Verso

.

Greene

,

Shane

.

2002

. “

Intellectual Property, Resources or Territory? Reframing the Debate over Indigenous Rights, Traditional Knowledge, and Pharmaceutical Bioprospection

.” In

Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights

, edited by

Mark

Bradley

and

Patrice

Petro

,

229

–

49

.

New Brunswick, NJ

:

Rutgers University Press

.

Harding

,

Sandra

.

2008

.

Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities

.

Durham, NC

:

Duke University Press

.

Harding

,

Sandra

.

2015

.

Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research

.

Chicago

:

University of Chicago Press

.

Harvey

,

David

.

2003

.

The New Imperialism

.

Oxford

:

Oxford University Press

.

Harvey

,

David

.

2004

. “

The ‘New’ Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession

.”

Socialist Register

40

:

63

–

87

.

Hayden

,

Cori

.

2003

. “

From Market to Market: Bioprospecting's Idioms of Inclusion

.”

American Ethnologist

30

(

3

):

359

–

71

.

Jenkins

,

Tiffany

.

2016

.

Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums … and Why They Should Stay There

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Khader

,

Serene

.

2019

.

Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Koskinen

,

Inkeri

, and

Kristina

Rolin

.

2019

. “

Scientific/Intellectual Movements Remedying Epistemic Injustice: The Case of Indigenous Studies

.”

Philosophy of Science

86

(

5

):

1052

–

63

.

Lloyd

,

Elisabeth A.

2006

.

The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution

.

Boston

:

Harvard University Press

.

Massimi

,

Michela

.

2022

.

Perspectival Realism

.

New York

:

Oxford University Press

.

Mignolo

,

Walter D.

2000

.

Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking

.

Princeton, NJ

:

Princeton University Press

.

Mihesuah

,

Devon A.

, ed.

2000

.

Repatriation: Who Owns American Indian Remains?

Lincoln

:

University of Nebraska Press

.

Mills

,

Charles

.

2005

. “

‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology

.”

Hypatia

10

(

3

):

165

–

84

.

Petras

,

James

.

2012

. “

Extractive Capitalism and the Divisions in the Latin American Progressive Camp

.”

Global Research

,

May

3

,

2012

.

Potter

,

Elizabeth

.

2001

.

Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases

.

Bloomington

:

Indiana University Press

.

Putnam

,

Hilary

.

1981

.

Reason, Truth and History

.

Cambridge

:

Cambridge University Press

.

Riofrancos

,

Thea

.

2020

.

Resource Radicals: From Petro-nationalism to Post-extractivism in Ecuador

.

Durham, NC

:

Duke University Press

.

Robinson

,

William I.

2008

.

Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective

.

Baltimore, MD

:

Johns Hopkins University Press

.

Rorty

,

Richard

.

1979

.

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

.

Princeton, NJ

:

Princeton University Press

.

Rudner

,

Richard

.

1953

. “

The Scientist qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments

.”

Philosophy of Science

20

(

1

):

1

–

6

.

Said

,

Edward

.

2004

.

Humanism and Democratic Criticism

.

New York

:

Columbia University Press

.

Sankey

,

Kyla

.

2014

. “

Colombia: The Mining Boom: A Catalyst of Development or Resistance?

” In

The New Extractivism: A Post-neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century?

, edited by

Henry

Veltmeyer

and

James

Petras

,

114

–

43

.

New York

:

Zed

.

Shiva

,

Vandana

.

2007

. “

Biodiversity, Intellectual Property Rights, and Globalization

.” In

Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies

, edited by

Boaventura

de Sousa Santos

,

272

–

87

.

New York

:

Verso

.

Shiva

,

Vandana

.

2020

.

Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth

.

Santa Fe, NM

:

Synergetic Press

.

Smolin

,

Lee

.

2006

.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

.

New York

:

Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt

.

Tiles

,

Mary

, and

Jim

Tiles

.

1993

.

An Introduction to Historical Epistemology: The Authority of Knowledge

.

Oxford

:

Blackwell

.

Tuana

,

Nancy

.

1992

.

Woman and the History of Philosophy

.

New York

:

Paragon House

.

Valaskakis

,

Gail Guthrie

.

2005

.

Indian Country: Essays on Contemporary Native Culture

.

Waterloo, ON

:

Wilfred Laurier University Press

.

Veltmeyer

,

Henry

, and

James

Petras

, eds.

2014

.

The New Extractivism: A Post-neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century?

New York

:

Zed

.

Viveiros de Castro

,

Eduardo

.

2004a

. “

Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies

.”

Common Knowledge

25

(

1

–3):

21

–

42

.

Viveiros de Castro

,

Eduardo

.

2004b

. “

Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Equivocation

.”

Tipití

2

(

1

):

3

–

22

.

Wallerstein

,

Immanuel

.

2006

.

European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power

.

New York

:

New Press

.

Whyte

,

Kyle

.

2021

. “

Against Crisis Epistemology

.” In

Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies

, edited by

Brendan

Hokowhitu

,

A.

Moreton-Robinson

,

L.

Tuhiwai-Smith

,

C.

Andersen

, and

S.

Larkin

,

52

–

64

.

New York

:

Routledge

.

Wilholt

,

Torsten

.

2016

. “

Collaborative Research, Scientific Communities, and the Social Diffusion of Trustworthiness

.” In

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, edited by

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