Nuestra America: Reinventing a subaltern paradigm of recognition and redistribution

Abstract

According to Hegel, universal history goes from the East to the West. This idea underlies the dominant conception of the 20th century as the European American Century. In this article, I submit that there has been another, subaltern 20th century, the Nuestra AmericaAmerican Century. The European American Century carries into the new millennium its empirical arrogance in the form of neoliberal globalization; the Nuestra AmericaAmerican Century, to be reinvented, bears the seeds of counter-hegemonic globalization. Counter-hegemonic globalization is understood as a set of transnational alliances and struggles focused on the dynamic equilibrium between the principle of equality and the principle of difference. The article identifies five main themes in which the clash between the two alternative globalizations will occur in the next decades.