Epistemic Mestizaje: Hybrid Knowing

Sor Juana drew on European scholasticism, indigenous Mexican thought, theological doctrine, and female experience simultaneously, creating a layered intellectual project that refused singular allegiance. Rather than simply inverting hierarchies, epistemic mestizaje acknowledges that postcolonial subjects inherit multiple traditions and can synthesize them critically. This is not the false pluralism that flattens differences, but rather a deliberate practice of recognizing how knowledge systems coexist and can be recombined. In decolonization, epistemic mestizaje allows communities to claim valuable elements from colonial traditions while centering indigenous, suppressed, or marginalized epistemologies. It validates the lived experience of postcolonial subjects who genuinely inhabit multiple intellectual worlds. This approach resists purity politics, recognizing that decolonization is not about returning to a pre-colonial state but creating new possibilities through critical integration and strategic revaluation of inherited knowledge.