Knowledge as Decolonial Practice

Sor Juana pursued knowledge not merely for its own sake but as an act of resistance against intellectual subordination. By mastering theology, philosophy, and science, she challenged the colonial assumption that non-European, feminine minds were incapable of rigorous thought. Decolonial knowledge practice means actively centering alternative ways of knowing—indigenous epistemologies, oral traditions, embodied wisdom—that colonialism systematically devalued. In the context of names and identity across cultures, this means recognizing that how we know ourselves is shaped by whose knowledge systems get legitimacy. When Western academic frameworks are treated as the universal standard, other cultures' self-understanding systems become invisible. Decolonial practice reasserts the right to know ourselves through our own cultural frameworks, languages, and traditions. This isn't simply academic recovery; it's reclaiming identity from epistemological erasure.