Creativity as Epistemological Practice

Sor Juana wrote poetry, drama, and philosophical treatises with equal rigor—for her, creativity was a primary way of knowing. Western colonialism privileged abstract, logical reasoning while marginalizing creative and intuitive ways of knowing, often associating these with 'primitive' or 'emotional' non-Western cultures. Decolonization requires restoring creativity to its rightful place as epistemology. Art, music, storytelling, dance, and poetry are not mere expressions of knowledge already obtained elsewhere; they are methods of discovering, testing, and transmitting truth. Postcolonial communities can reclaim indigenous artistic traditions as living epistemologies. This concept validates the intellectual rigor of creative work, recognizes that metaphor and symbol convey what logical argument cannot, and understands that imagination itself is a decolonial tool—it lets us envision and therefore build worlds beyond colonial logic. Sor Juana's corpus demonstrates that philosophy happens in poetry.