Yes, We Speak, Si Tenemos Voz: On Refusing Epistemological Terra-Nullius

Abstract

To claim that we do not have languages and tongues of our own and that we are forever rendered the misrepresented and disavowed Other by Speech is a claim that is intelligible only within the onto-epistemological terms and containments of (non)being and (un)knowing of Whiteness. We are not, therefore, in the collective co-weaving of this special edition and beyond tethered to deconstruction as critique which whilst demonstrates how we are rendered Other, nevertheless reinforces our muteness. Instead, we read, (t)race and (w)rite any deconstruction not from the abstract coloniality of an (un)knowing-(non)being Subject of modern/colonial (un)reason but from the presence/present of survivance and dignity in relation. Thus, our answer to our originary question out of which this special issue emerged is a resounding Yes. From this presence/present of survivance and dignity become legible and intelligible a different set of questions foregrounded within the reality of political-epistemological difference (against and beyond Whiteness) in the plural.