Methodological Gate-Opening: Participatory Theorizing and Decolonial Praxis

Abstract This chapter calls for the democratization and decolonization of the practice of political theorizing. It argues that normative theorizing—understood as the practice of critiquing, visioning, and strategizing for change—is a vital activity, critical to community and collective living. It further contends that epistemic hierarchies and Eurocentered colonial logics and legacies alienate people from collective meaning-making processes and from communities as sites of knowledge. Drawing on the work of women of color, transnational, Indigenous, and decolonial theorists, the chapter foregrounds a practice of participatory and pluriversal theorizing that can, in the words of the Zapatistas, help create “a world where many worlds fit.”