Let's Talk About Epistemic Extractivism

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In August 2025, Ivan Jablonka published the book La Culture du Féminicide (The Culture of Femicide) in France, published by Seuil. Not long after, on her social media, Esther Pineda G., a Venezuelan writer and feminist, pointed out that she had been a victim of appropriation and intellectual extractivism, noting that the Frenchman claimed to have coined the term “femicidal culture,” (or also in English, “the culture of femicide”) which the author had previously postulated in her book Cultura Femicida: El Riesgo de Ser Mujer en América Latina (The Culture of Femicide: The Risk of Being a Woman in Latin America), published in 2019.

Extractivism

Before we define epistemic extractivism, it is necessary to address extractivism in its own right. According to Imelda Aguirre Mendoza and Julio César Borja Cruz, in their article The Otomi Doll in the Face of Epistemic Extractivism, extractivism helps to explain “the plundering, accumulation, concentration, (neo)colonial devastation, evolution of modern capitalism, and even the ideas of development and underdevelopment – as two sides of the same process.”

Moreover, in the chapter “Epistemic Extractivism: From Economic Theft to Epistemological Theft” in the book Building an Us-Others with the Earth: Latin American Voices for the Decolonization of Environmental Thought and Action, Ramón Grosfoguel sees extractivism as the “dispossession, theft, and appropriation of resources from the Global South (south of the North and the South within the North) for the benefit of demographic minorities considered racially superior; minorities that make up the Global North (north of the South and the North within the South), who constitute the capitalist elite of the world-system.”

Aguirre Mendoza and Borja Cruz explain that in these practices, there is no concern for project sustainability, which is intrinsically linked to resource depletion and the prioritization of exports over local consumption. Thus, the social and environmental impacts suffered by the Global South are aggravated.

Extractivism can be considered “direct,” as in the cases of mega-mining or the fishing industry, and “mediated” in activities such as mass tourism. The authors add the term “ethnocommodity,” closely related to extractivist practices, because it refers to the mechanized production by large corporations of traditional textiles and artisanal designs of native peoples: “Extractivism of indigenous know-how for merchandise not only yields profits from transformed artifacts, it uses and appropriates an ethnic identity and a particular conception of the world.”

Moreover, Luca Sebastiani and Aurora Álvarez Veinguer explain that in recent years the term “extractivism” has expanded to the social sciences, giving rise to concepts such as “epistemic,” “cognitive,” “intellectual,” and “ontological” extractivism.

Epistemic extractivism

Grosfoguel points out that the term “cognitive extractivism” was coined by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson in early 2013, with which she argues that Western science has plundered indigenous knowledge, without engaging in a respectful dialogue, as it has stolen ideas out of their context and culture to be assimilated and commercialized under a colonial and utilitarian mentality. The author points out that this depoliticizes knowledge, because it is a “mentality that does not seek a dialogue that entails horizontal conversation of equals between peoples” nor does it even seek to understand such knowledge in its own terms; instead, it extracts ideas to “subsume them – colonize them – in the parameters of Western culture and episteme.”

“Epistemic extractivism extracts ideas (scientific or environmental) from indigenous communities; it takes them out of the contexts in which they were produced to depoliticize them and re-signify them with Western-centric logic.” — Ramón Grosfoguel.

Beyond plundering natural resources, extractivism also loots indigenous knowledge. The dominant culture appropriates their technologies and ideas, decontextualizing them for commercial benefit, while ignoring the creator peoples. It is both a material and epistemic dispossession that destroys their environment and identity.

Quoted by Grosfoguel, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui points out that “The legitimate word belongs to those at the top; those on the bottom give inputs. As in any knowledge system, we produce raw materials, and they return the finished product to us.” To this, the author adds that such appropriations are part of “epistemically racist hierarchies of knowledge production,” where the authorship of people from the Global South is eliminated and assigned to the people from the Global North.

Imperialism and colonialism impose a self-centered mentality that plunders people and nature. This attitude, based on racial superiority, is unsustainable because it depends on theft and destruction. “The problem is not that a culture has no right to drink from other cultures. The problem is when one culture destroys another and appropriates its contributions in the process,” explains Gosfoguel.

The case of Esther Pineda G.

Esther Pineda G., the Venezuelan feminist writer and sociologist, graduated from the Central University of Venezuela, where she also completed her master’s, doctorate, and postdoctoral degrees. Her books address issues related to women’s studies and racial discrimination in Latin America.

On December 2, 2025, the author publicly defended her work by accusing the Frenchman, Iván Jablonka, of appropriating “the academic work and intellectual production of a black Latin American woman, which is clear evidence of patriarchal, racist, and Eurocentric privilege.” In the same post, Pineda highlighted the similarities, including the title, the central thesis, the attribution for the concept’s creation, and the fact that even the cover was a copy of her original edition of the book, without ever mentioning her work.

“[…] at the same time that it ‘inferiorizes’, that is, looks down on or dismisses indigenous, mestizo and Afro knowledge, it appropriates the ideas of mestizo, indigenous or Afro intellectuals, without ever citing them.” Ramón Grosfoguel

Pineda points out that she first approached the author privately to ask for an explanation of the similarities mentioned above, to which he responded that he had not had the opportunity to read Esther’s work. Jablonka’s response (alleging ignorance) underscores the asymmetry of power. While Latin American intellectuals are obliged to cite and know the European academy to be legitimized, the European academy allows itself to ignore the intellectual production of the South, even when the theses and structures are identical.

Conducting ethical research

Sebastiani and Álvarez Veinguer take up the ideas of Klein and Simpson, speaking of a deep reciprocity in which the extractivists remain close and can experience the impacts of their behavior. However, the former propose the term “research with care” as a vision aimed at overcoming, or at least questioning, epistemological and ontological extractivism, understanding “care” in the conception of García Selgas and Martín Palomo: “everything that is done to maintain or repair the world.”

In this context, Sebastiani and Álvarez Veinguer explain that caring does not refer to empathy or “putting oneself in the shoes of the other,” but rather means “thinking with” and “doing with,” emphasizing the need to change how we research.

Returning to Simpson, drawing on Grosfoguel’s text, she states that a change in mentality is therefore required, in which indigenous peoples are seen as intelligent peoples and nations rather than as resources to be extracted. Individuals, communities, and people must live and interact in relationships that are just, meaningful, and authentic.

“The alternative to extractivism is deep reciprocity.” — Lianne Betasamosake Simpson.

As long as academia and popular culture continue to operate under the logic of dispossession, stories like that of Pineda and Jablonka will repeat themselves. The real change of mentality consists of understanding that indigenous and Afro-descendant knowledge is not waiting to be “discovered” or “validated” by the Global North; rather, there must be a dialogue among equals in which authorship and dignity are non-negotiable.

Translation by Daniel Wetta