Before reading Breny Mendoza’s essays, I definitely would have had a different way of defining these four terms… and that’s ok! I feel like now I am better equipped to define them and have more solid, fine -tuned answers.

My understanding of colonial has both a literal and metaphorical meaning. It’s literal meaning emphasizes countries under colonial rule through colonialism, through which a nation imposes their sovereignty unto another. Apart from colonialism, a colonial mindset may form under the context of colonialism, where one feels they can exert their power/dominance over another.

     Anticolonial thinking  originated in 1492  and its premise “primarily analyze[s] and challenge[s] imperialistic and colonizing impulses”. It rejects and actively works against colonial structures and thinking. Anticolonial thinking encompasses several theories, including both decolonial and postcolonial theories.

     Decolonial thinking largely focuses on Spanish and Portuguese colonization of the Americas. Decolonial theorists often use the term decolonization as a metaphor to dismantle colonial thinking. Decolonial theory insists that capitalism accompanies colonialism rather than believe that capitalism integrated to the Americas on its own, separate accord.  I was confused when reading the essay because at one point, it says how decolonial theory “mute[s] intersectionality” and instead replaces it with “heterarchies” that address multiple global hierarchies by considering “the entanglements of social processes at different structural levels” (I’m also not really sure how that is different from intersectionality; sounds like the definition of intersectionality to me) and then states how decolonial feminist Maria Lugones wrote about how she combines intersectionality and “Quijano’s coloniality of power to further develop her own conception of the coloniality of gender.”

On the other hand, post colonialism and intersectionality goes hand and hand. Post colonial thinkers sought to provide alternative narratives that go against stereotypical Western theories. For example, they have deconstructed binaries of first and third world women and analyze the Eurocentric bias in pop culture, film and media. Subalternists, a core group within post colonial theorists, argue that capitalism formed differently in Europe than in the colonial world in a way that is beneficial to the West.