Ricardo Sanín Restrepo

Professor of legal theory and political theory at Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá Colombia. Founding member of the Red de Constitucionalismo Democrático. Visiting profesor at Universidad Central de Quito, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad de Mexico (UACM) PUC Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal de Ceará-Brasil. Guest Lecturer at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), University of California in Berkeley, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad de Valencia-Spain, Universidade Federal de Goias-Brasil.


Lincoln Unchained: Is Obama the Global Uncle Tom?

8 March 2013
Samuel Jackon as Stephen in Django Unchained

Beware. This art­icle con­tains spoilers. Let’s start with a self-​evident affirm­a­tion. Movies, or more pre­cisely Hol­ly­wood, is the ulti­mate con­trap­tion of hege­monic ideo­lo­gical dif­fu­sion. The proph­etic dysto­pias in which secret police would place the mech­an­isms of con­trol inside the private realm of people, fall way short of the intrus­ive viol­ence of today’s real­ity. Now we ...
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Argentina’s Expropriation of Repsol’s YPF (A Reversal of Fortune): Understanding the Decolonial Turn in Latin America

3 May 2012
Vultures

Far from being an implaus­ible para­dox, the dif­fer­ence between what is hap­pen­ing in Europe and in Latin Amer­ica lies at the epi­cen­ter of a 500-​year long farce: colo­ni­al­ity. In a monu­mental reversal of for­tune, the peoples of Latin Amer­ica are decon­struct­ing colo­ni­al­ity from its core, while within Europe this seems to be the new tune of power. ...
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A Letter to The Colombian Student Movement: DON’T STOP, ALL IS TO BE DONE!

12 December 2011
Kiss the Police

Given the massive stu­dent demon­stra­tions of last Decem­ber in the UK, it is per­haps sur­pris­ing that more cov­er­age has not gone to the recent events in Colom­bia. In early Octo­ber the San­tos gov­ern­ment sought to intro­duce a law (Ley 30) that would, among other thing, privat­ize the remain­ing pub­lic uni­ver­sit­ies. In an imme­di­ate and power­ful ...
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Constitutional Politics & Capital

18 July 2011
Colombia

Colombia’s 1991 con­sti­tu­tion is seen by many as the threshold of an intense polit­ical pro­cess that has arrived at a set of revolu­tions in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and now, maybe, Peru. Fur­ther­more, in the midst of a hor­rible con­flict, Mex­ico is look­ing to a Colombian-​style con­sti­tu­tional assembly to over­come the blood­shed its people have suffered. I believe such ...
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The People Cometh: From Popular Existentialism to Anarchy

27 April 2011
cern

Abstract The under­tak­ing of this art­icle is to assemble an eth­ical and polit­ical mean­ing of the people as neces­sary to any legal order that reputes itself demo­cratic. The chal­lenge is then set to think dif­fer­ence and mul­ti­pli­city not from legal orders but from the demo­cratic abyss, ant­ag­on­ism not from con­sti­tu­tional law but from con­stitu­ent ...
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Talking to Fictions – The People & Beyond (Ricardo Sanin Interviews Slavoj Zizek)

2 July 2009
zizek

Ricardo Sanin: Do “the people” still carry any eman­cip­at­ory potential? Sla­voj Zizek: Yes – recent events in Iran dis­play this poten­tial. The green color adop­ted by the Mousavi sup­port­ers, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that res­on­ate from the roofs of Tehran in the even­ing dark­ness, clearly indic­ate that they see their activ­ity as the repe­ti­tion of the ...
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