On the Complex Relation between Knowledges and Emancipations

In this essay, Ana Esther Ceceña argues that understanding our contemporary moment requires a rethinking of the processes of domination and emancipation, foregrounding the role of subjects in processes of construction and confrontation. Subjects, she argues, are forged in struggle, which itself happens both in spectacular moments of seemingly spontaneous revolt and in the long gestation of processes in everyday life. Moments of revolt open new possibilities, but such moments are possible only because they emerge from the structures of political organization that are forged in the everyday practices of the dominated. It is in everyday practices that the dominated slowly construct the spaces or territories where resistance is crafted and where new knowledges emerge. Ceceña then proposes that although it is also necessary to understand the spaces of confrontation with power, we must pay particular attention to the dislocated spaces of the everyday because here unexpectedly new worlds emerge and our very concept of emancipation is thought anew.