South–South dialogues: a conversation between ‘border thinking’ and the ‘autonomous knowledge approach’

This article engages two formulative critical theories concerning knowledge production in a dialogue: namely, the Latin American school of decolonial studies and the Malay studies’ school of autonomous knowledge. This engagement underscores the importance of recognising that scholars from the Global South are not theorising in isolation nor merely referencing the Global North. Instead, it highlights significant convergences and divergences that are often overlooked when dealt with as separate approaches stemming from different geographies and academic disciplines. This dialogue reveals that, while both traditions have the same goal of attaining epistemic justice, their key conceptual difference lies in the respective understandings of the pervasiveness of modernity/coloniality. Border thinking emerges due to decolonial scholars’ assertion that there is no pure, untouched space beyond modernity/coloniality. Conversely, the autonomous knowledge approach contests that there are hegemonic epistemes – such as traditionalism, androcentrism, sectarianism and more – beyond the colonial matrix of power. This article considers both theories’ blindspots and areas that can be further developed.