Lugones with Kant: Categories, Gender, Colonialism

Abstract

This article examines a tension between María Lugones’ critique of the universality of gender, and her view of the role of categorial thought in resisting what she calls the coloniality of gender. I argue that Lugones seeks alternatives to oppressive gender arrangements, advocating for a world where multiplicity replaces fragmentation and sexual differences exist without categories. However, the text challenges the necessity of abandoning categorial thinking altogether for transformative resistance, emphasizing instead the importance of solidarity, coalition-building, and alliances among people with diverse cosmologies in struggle against colonial and structural oppression.