Decrypting Justice

Using the theory of the encryption of power, this book explores whether it is possible to decrypt justice as it has been predominantly shaped by Western hegemony. Decrypting Justice argues that envisioning and creating a more just world, founded on new communalities, is not only possible but necessary.

This book deploys the theory of encryption of to decrypt justice, setting in opposition Justice, written with the hegemonic capital letters of Western ideas, and justice, in its everyday workings within disparate communal forms and the exercise of multiplicity.

As it decrypts justice, the book argues that late-coloniality, through its construction of the “hidden people,” shattered the possibility of true communities in the service of a transcendent model, consisting ofthe market, the constitution, the nation, and the economy. The first three chapters serve as the theoretical backbone of the book, engaging sovereignty, posthumanism, Artificial Intelligence, and epistemic injustice. Chapters 4 and 5 describe the emancipation of the people through alternate communal practices: “Quilombismo” in Brazil and “Corazonar” of Tseltal women in Mexico. Chapter 7 examines the Tosepan’s practices in Mexico to decrypt hegemonic territorial forms, and chapters 6 and 8 explore how Western judicial systems disempower the people, focusing on Central American migrants and critiques from the Colombian peace process.

Edited by Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo, Marinella Machado-Araujo, and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Decrypting Justice: From Epistemic Violence to Immanent Democracy is a transforming force, not only in the way which we understand reality but also in the tools with which we build it.