Matripotency and biointeraction: countercolonial principles of defense of life

Abstract

The colonization process that built Modernity imposed dichotomous power structures on people all over the world based on the domination-subordination pair, which permeate relations of race, gender, social class, humanity-nature, among others. With Carla Akotirene and Nego Bispo, we understand that in resisting colonial violence it is important to forge our own concepts, based on the cosmoperpeptions of afropindoramic peoples. Therefore, we bring here a little of how racism and machismo are articulated based on colonial dynamics, perpetuating multiple oppressions and epistemicides in relation to the knowledge and ways of life of afropindoramic peoples. However, such knowledge is alive and powerful, organizing life in countercolonial communities and can help us break with essentialisms and rethink our social organization, by constituting a counterpoint to the power structures that determine relations in colonial capitalism. In this sense, we bring the concepts of Biointeraction, by Antônio Bispo dos Santos, and Matripotency, by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí.