The Scopic Regime of Coloniality

theoretical notes for the study of images in the decolonial historiographical field

Abstract

In this article I present the category of the scopic regime of coloniality in order to highlight its potential contribution to historiographical studies dealing with images from a decolonial perspective. Initially, I introduce the analytical category of regime of historicity, contextualizing the consolidation of the modern regime of historicity and its dialectical relationship with the so-called "New World". I describe the ways in which, within a scopic regime of coloniality, others considered to be "savages" and "uncivilized" are covered up by a gaze based on a system of alterity in the constitution of the modern subject. This constitution relies on an apparatus that sometimes underexposes and sometimes overexposes subjects, making them (in)visible, and erasing the different aesthetic and scopic experiences of those subjects placed on the margins of society in the project of domination imposed by the Colonial Matrix of Power.