The Location of Theory: Settler Colonial Knowledge Production, Among Other Interstices of Empire, and South–South Exchange

This essay complicates the distinction between of “North” and “South” as spaces of knowledge production—which usually entails the privileging of the South as an emancipatory space—by directing attention to Southern actors’ imbrication with forms of colonialism. It calls for situating both Northern and Southern actors within networks of global knowledge exchanges by critically examining their positionality vis-à-vis colonial relations domestically and internationally. More specifically, it asks how interstitial colonial positions gave rise to new centers of knowledge production and expertise in the postcolonial world. It considers these positions not as static identities but as strategic, adaptative, dynamic, relational, and contingent upon geopolitically determined itineraries of global exchange.