This essay critically examines the evolution of "decolonial" thought, showing how it moved from being a tool of denunciation to becoming a doctrinal current. The central hypothesis argues that, when repeated as an uncritical creed, "decolonialism" loses its emancipatory power and risks essentializing the Global South while reducing the West to a negative caricature. Through a comparative analysis of postcolonial critiques in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, tensions are identified between the denunciation of Eurocentrism and the danger of falling into Manichean or anti-Western visions. It is proposed that anthropology, far from sacrificing its epistemic rigor in the name of ideological activism, should sustain a critical dialogue with modernity, recovering both the emancipatory contributions of decolonial thought and the universal values of the Enlightenment tradition, including human rights.
Carlos Efraín Montúfar Salcedo (Tue,) studied this question.