María Lugones

1. Introduction

María Lugones (1948–2020) was a decolonial feminist philosopher whose work reshaped understandings of race, gender, sexuality, and colonialism in the Americas. Writing from her position as an Argentinian migrant in the United States and in dialogue with Latin American decolonial theory and U.S. women of color feminism, she developed a vocabulary—most notably “world‑traveling” and the “coloniality of gender”—that has become central to contemporary critical theory.

Lugones argued that modern binary gender, racial hierarchies, and heterosexual norms emerged together through European colonial rule, rather than existing as separate or timeless structures. This thesis led her to question dominant feminist and intersectional frameworks that presupposed a universal category of “woman” or treated gender and race as merely intersecting variables. Instead, she proposed that subjects are formed within a modern/colonial gender system that differentially genders and racializes populations, often denying full womanhood or manhood to colonized peoples.

Her early work on playfulness, loving perception, and world‑traveling offered an account of how people inhabit multiple social “worlds” and how coalitions across difference might be built through vulnerable, non‑arrogant forms of engagement. Later writings elaborated decolonial feminism as a project that places Indigenous, Afro‑descendant, and mestiza experiences at the center of theorizing.

Across philosophy, gender studies, and related fields, Lugones is widely regarded as a key bridge figure linking Anglophone feminist theory with Latin American and Caribbean decolonial thought, and academic discourse with social movement praxis. Her concepts continue to inform debates on oppression, resistance, and the possibility of coalitional politics under conditions of enduring coloniality.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Biographical Overview

María Cristina Lugones was born on 26 January 1948 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and died on 14 July 2020 in Syracuse, New York. She migrated to the United States in the 1970s, pursuing graduate study in philosophy and later holding academic positions, most prominently at Binghamton University (SUNY). Her transnational life—rooted in Argentina yet intellectually and politically shaped in the U.S.—provided an experiential background for her analyses of migration, linguistic displacement, and racialized gender.

Key biographical benchmarks include her early engagement with U.S. women of color feminism in the 1980s, the consolidation of her coalitional work in the 1990s, and her later involvement in Latin American and Caribbean decolonial networks. While details of her private life remain comparatively sparse in the public record, commentators often emphasize her role as a mentor and collaborator within activist and academic communities.

2.2 Political and Intellectual Milieu

Lugones’s formation was marked by the Cold War period, Argentine authoritarianism, and the broader Latin American history of military dictatorships and U.S. intervention. These contexts shaped her suspicion of Eurocentric universalism and liberal models of citizenship.

In the United States, she encountered:

Her thought thus emerged at the crossroads of Latin American anti‑authoritarian struggles, transnational feminist debates, and the institutionalization of ethnic, gender, and area studies in U.S. universities.

3. Intellectual Development

3.1 Formative Years and Early Concerns

Lugones’s early intellectual trajectory was shaped by philosophical training in the United States, where she encountered analytic and Continental traditions alongside emerging feminist theory. Her migration from Argentina and experience as a racialized Latina in U.S. academia led her to reflect on marginality, bilingualism, and the plurality of social “worlds” she inhabited. Commentators often read these experiences as prefiguring her later emphasis on world‑traveling and non‑dominant subjectivities.

3.2 World‑Traveling and Women of Color Feminism (1980s)

During the 1980s, Lugones’s work crystallized around the concepts of playfulness, world‑traveling, and loving perception, notably in her 1983 Hypatia essay. In this period she engaged intensively with U.S. women of color feminists, adopting and extending their insistence that race, gender, class, and sexuality must be theorized together. She critiqued mainstream (often white, middle‑class) feminism for assuming a shared womanhood and for neglecting colonial and racial dimensions of oppression.

3.3 Coalitional Theory and Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes (1990s–early 2000s)

In the 1990s, Lugones moved from conceptual explorations of subjectivity to a more systematic account of coalitional politics. The essays later collected in Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes develop an anti‑additive view of “multiple oppressions,” arguing that identities are relational and that coalition requires traveling across worlds rather than aggregating fixed identities. Her work in this phase is often situated within debates about identity politics, multiculturalism, and institutional racism in universities.

3.4 Decolonial Feminism and Coloniality of Gender (mid‑2000s–2020)

From the mid‑2000s onward, Lugones’s thinking converged with Latin American decolonial theory. Drawing on Aníbal Quijano’s concept of coloniality of power, she articulated the coloniality of gender and the modern/colonial gender system, especially in her 2007 and 2010 essays. This period marks a shift toward more explicit historical and geopolitical analyses of how colonialism shaped gender, race, and sexuality. She increasingly framed her project as decolonial feminism, in conversation with Indigenous, Afro‑Latin American, and transnational feminist currents.

4. Major Works

4.1 Overview of Principal Texts

4.2 Early Essays

In Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception (1983), Lugones introduces world‑traveling as a practice of moving among different social worlds with playfulness and loving perception. She distinguishes this from arrogant, domineering forms of understanding, emphasizing vulnerability and the willingness to appear foolish in unfamiliar worlds.

Purity, Impurity, and Separation (1987) explores how ideals of purity structure social boundaries, especially around race, gender, and sexuality. Lugones analyzes how notions of contamination justify segregation and exclusion, themes later connected to colonial and racial classifications.

4.3 Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes (2003)

This monograph gathers two decades of essays, framed as “pilgrimages” across different oppressions and communities. It elaborates Lugones’s theory of multiple oppressions and coalitional politics, foregrounding the experiences of women of color in the Americas. The book is frequently cited for its critique of additive intersectionality and its emphasis on relational identities.

4.4 Decolonial Gender and Feminism Articles

Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System (2007) is widely regarded as her landmark contribution to decolonial thought. Here she theorizes the modern/colonial gender system and argues that heterosexualism is central to colonial rule.

In Toward a Decolonial Feminism (2010), Lugones systematizes her decolonial approach to feminism, distinguishing it from liberal, Marxist, and some intersectional feminisms. The essay has become a key reference point for decolonial feminist debates in philosophy and beyond.

5. Core Ideas and Theoretical Framework

5.1 World‑Traveling, Playfulness, and Loving Perception

Lugones’s early framework centers on worlds—distinct social realities with their own norms and logics. Subjects, especially those multiply oppressed, navigate several worlds (e.g., family, workplace, racialized communities) that may be in tension. World‑traveling names the imaginative and practical movement between these worlds.

She contrasts two modes of perception:

These notions underpin her account of ethical and epistemic relations across difference.

5.2 Multiple Oppressions and Coalition

Lugones theorizes multiple oppressions not as additive (race + gender + class) but as mutually constitutive. Identities are relational, emerging from participation in multiple worlds and structures of domination. Coalition, in her view, is built through shared practices of world‑traveling and mutual transformation rather than through a pre‑given, unified identity (such as “women” in general).

5.3 Coloniality of Gender and the Modern/Colonial Gender System

Drawing on decolonial theory, Lugones proposes that modern gender is part of a colonial matrix of power. The modern/colonial gender system:

• Institutes a binary, hierarchical gender order for Europeans (man/woman).
• Racializes gender, denying full gendered status to many colonized peoples or hyper‑sexualizing them.
• Embeds heterosexualism as the normative, “civilized” arrangement.

The coloniality of gender names the enduring effects of this system in contemporary institutions, knowledges, and subjectivities.

5.4 Decolonial Feminism

Lugones’s decolonial feminism understands gender, race, and sexuality as co‑constituted by colonialism. It centers Indigenous, Afro‑descendant, and mestiza experiences in the Americas, and treats feminism as inseparable from anti‑colonial and anti‑racist struggle. Rather than extending existing gender frameworks, it seeks to undo colonial gender arrangements themselves.

6. Methodology and Approach

6.1 Situated and Coalitional Method

Lugones employs a situated methodology, explicitly theorizing from the standpoint of a Latina migrant and in conversation with women of color. She rejects a “view from nowhere,” arguing that all knowledge is produced from particular worlds. Her approach is also coalitional: arguments emerge from dialogues and collective reflection within oppressed communities rather than from solitary abstraction.

6.2 Interdisciplinary and Bilingual Practices

Her work is notably interdisciplinary, drawing on philosophy, Latin American studies, critical race theory, anthropology, and literature. She frequently engages Spanish‑language sources and concepts (e.g., colonialidad), while writing mainly in English for U.S. academic audiences. Scholars observe that this bilingual practice highlights translation as both a resource and a site of epistemic friction.

6.3 Conceptual Reframing and Genealogical Work

Lugones’s method involves reframing existing concepts (such as gender, purity, coalition) within a colonial and racial genealogy. Influenced by decolonial and poststructural traditions, she traces how categories emerged historically within a modern/colonial context. This genealogical work underpins her claim that gender is not a universal, pre‑colonial structure.

6.4 Emphasis on Practice: World‑Traveling as Method

Beyond textual analysis, Lugones advances world‑traveling as a methodological practice. Researchers and activists, she suggests, should:

1. Recognize the multiplicity of worlds they and others inhabit.
2. Engage other worlds playfully and non‑arrogantly.
3. Attend to how their own competence and authority are destabilized in unfamiliar contexts.

This practice is intended to generate more responsive, non‑dominating forms of understanding.

6.5 Dialogical and Story‑Inflected Style

Her essays often use narrative vignettes, personal reflections, and imagined dialogues. Commentators interpret this as a deliberate move away from impersonal philosophical prose, aligned with women of color and decolonial traditions that treat storytelling as a mode of theorizing rather than mere illustration.

7. Key Contributions to Feminist and Decolonial Thought

7.1 Reframing Gender through Coloniality

Lugones’s theorization of the coloniality of gender is widely cited as a major contribution to both decolonial theory and feminist philosophy. It shifts analysis from gender as a universal axis of oppression to gender as a historically specific colonial arrangement. This has influenced debates on whether feminist theory must fundamentally revise its categories to account for colonial histories.

7.2 Development of Decolonial Feminism

Her articulation of decolonial feminism positions feminist struggles within the broader matrix of colonial power. She underscores that many colonized peoples were not recognized as properly gendered subjects, challenging assumptions about a shared patriarchal oppression. This framework has been taken up by scholars working on Indigenous feminisms, Afro‑Latin American feminisms, and transnational gender politics.

7.3 World‑Traveling and Loving Perception in Feminist Ethics

Within feminist ethics and epistemology, Lugones’s concepts of world‑traveling and loving perception provide a distinctive account of how to relate across difference. They complement and sometimes contest other models of empathy, standpoint, and care by emphasizing playfulness, vulnerability, and the possibility of being misrecognized or “a fool” in another’s world.

7.4 Critique of Additive Intersectionality and Identity Politics

Lugones contributes to debates on intersectionality by arguing that multiple oppressions are not simply additive. Her coalitional model emphasizes relational identities and shared practices of resistance. This has resonated with feminist and decolonial scholars seeking alternatives to fixed identity categories and to purely structural accounts of intersectionality.

7.5 Analysis of Heterosexualism as Colonial

In linking heterosexualism to the colonial/modern gender system, Lugones adds a decolonial dimension to critiques of compulsory heterosexuality. Her work has influenced queer of color and transnational queer studies by situating sexual norms within a history of racialized and civilizational projects.

8. Impact on Philosophy and Related Disciplines

8.1 Influence within Philosophy

In social and political philosophy, Lugones’s work has:

• Encouraged the integration of coloniality into analyses of justice, recognition, and power.
• Informed debates on standpoint epistemology and relational autonomy through her focus on world‑traveling and multiple oppressions.
• Provided a bridge between Latin American decolonial thought and Anglophone feminist and critical race philosophy.

Her concepts are now standard references in discussions of decolonial and feminist theory within philosophy curricula.

8.2 Contributions to Gender, Queer, and Ethnic Studies

In gender and women’s studies, Lugones’s theorization of the coloniality of gender has supported a shift toward transnational and decolonial frameworks. Queer theorists draw on her analysis of heterosexualism to examine how colonial power structures sexuality. Ethnic and Latinx studies scholars use her ideas to explore how racialized communities create “worlds” of resistance and alternative subjectivities.

8.3 Engagement in Latin American and Caribbean Thought

Lugones is frequently cited in Latin American philosophy, decolonial studies, and Afro‑Latin American scholarship. Her work dialogues with and extends the contributions of Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, and other theorists of coloniality by foregrounding gender and sexuality. She has also influenced regional debates on Indigenous and Afro‑descendant rights, particularly around gendered violence and state projects of modernization.

8.4 Reception in Activism and Pedagogy

Activists and educators have adapted Lugones’s concepts of world‑traveling, loving perception, and coalitional politics in workshops, popular education, and movement organizing. Her ideas are used to frame dialogues across racial, gender, and class differences, especially in community‑based settings. In pedagogy, instructors employ her essays to introduce students to decolonial perspectives on feminism and to foster reflexive, situated learning practices.

9. Criticisms and Debates

9.1 Scope and Historical Generalization

Some critics question whether Lugones’s account of the modern/colonial gender system overgeneralizes from specific colonial contexts (e.g., the Americas under Iberian rule) to a global framework. They argue that colonial gender arrangements varied widely and that her model may underplay regional and temporal differences. Proponents respond that she offers a broad heuristic rather than a uniform empirical description.

9.2 Relation to Intersectionality

Debate exists over Lugones’s critical stance toward additive intersectionality. Some intersectionality scholars contend that her characterization of intersectional work as additive overlooks more structurally attuned and historically grounded intersectional analyses, especially in Black feminist legal and sociological traditions. Others see her critique as a useful internal challenge that pushes intersectionality toward more relational and decolonial formulations.

9.3 Universalism, Relativism, and Normativity

Lugones’s emphasis on worlds and world‑traveling raises questions about normative grounding. Critics ask how one can condemn practices of domination or articulate universal claims about justice if each world has its own internal norms. Supporters maintain that her notion of loving perception and her alignment with anti‑colonial struggles provide a practical, if non‑foundational, normative orientation.

9.4 Gender Before and Beyond Colonialism

Anthropologists and historians have debated Lugones’s assertion that binary gender as currently understood is a product of colonial modernity. Some argue that various forms of gender differentiation pre‑dated European colonialism and that her framework might understate pre‑colonial patriarchies. Advocates of her view reply that she does not deny pre‑existing gendered hierarchies, but highlights the specific racialized, heteronormative configuration instituted through colonialism.

9.5 Applicability Beyond the Americas

Scholars working in African, Asian, and Middle Eastern contexts have discussed how readily Lugones’s model can be extended beyond the Americas. Some find strong resonances between her analysis and local colonial histories; others caution that importing the colonial/modern gender system concept may obscure particular colonial and postcolonial trajectories.

10. Legacy and Historical Significance

10.1 Position within Decolonial and Feminist Canons

María Lugones is widely regarded as a foundational figure in decolonial feminism. Her concepts of coloniality of gender and world‑traveling are now part of the standard lexicon in feminist, queer, and decolonial studies. She is frequently taught alongside Frantz Fanon, Aníbal Quijano, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Audre Lorde in courses on critical theory and philosophy of race and gender.

10.2 Institutional and Disciplinary Effects

Her work contributed to:

• The consolidation of decolonial thought within philosophy and Latin American studies.
• The transformation of women’s and gender studies into more explicitly transnational and decolonial fields.
• The expansion of curricula to include Latina, Latin American, and women of color perspectives as central rather than supplemental.

The Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award she received in 2011 is often cited as an institutional recognition of her impact.

10.3 Ongoing Theoretical Developments

Posthumous scholarship continues to elaborate and revise Lugones’s ideas. Researchers are:

• Extending coloniality of gender analyses to new historical archives and regions.
• Bringing her work into conversation with trans studies, disability studies, and environmental justice.
• Reassessing her critiques of feminism and intersectionality in light of newer decolonial and global feminist approaches.

These engagements indicate that her framework remains a living, contested resource rather than a closed doctrine.

10.4 Influence on Movements and Public Discourse

Beyond academia, Lugones’s thought informs activist discussions of coalition, anti‑racist feminism, and queer of color politics. Her insistence on playful, loving, and vulnerable forms of engagement has been invoked in trainings and community work aimed at building solidarity across racial, gender, and class divides.

Overall, her legacy lies in reorienting critical thought toward the enduring entanglement of colonialism, race, gender, and sexuality, and in providing conceptual tools that continue to shape both scholarly inquiry and emancipatory practice.