WALTER BENJAMIN AND THE DECOLONIAL THINKING

a possible dialogue?

Abstract

The article proposes a debate on the possibility of a dialogical relationship between Walter Benjamin's ideas and the decolonial perspective. We analyzed the ideas of Walter Benjamin within some of his interlocutors, as well as decoloniality from authors connected to this perspective. As both have as a common point the criticism of Modernity, we debate whether these criticisms are similar or incompatible; whether Benjamin's criticism can extend beyond Europe; how European colonial experiences are present in the way Benjamin thinks about culture and History; and, finally, whether Benjamin's category of the vanquished of History includes Fanon's concept of the wretched of the earth. We point out that Benjamin's thought, however unique and original it may be, is part of a Eurocentric epistemology, built from the rhetoric of modernity, and is inserted within the Western canon; however, it has gaps through which decoloniality can be infiltrated to enhance its criticism and, thus, build something new, a frontier thinking.