Since that last Special Issue, global coloniality has also pushed into a new phase of what we call
here the dialectic of temporal circumgression, meaning a broad re-embedding of relations of domination
through violent military intervention and exploitative global capitalism.1 The first of these
two has taken multiple forms, including but not restricted to humanitarian intervention and global
antiterrorism. The Middle East, in particular, has been recolonized, first through the invasion and
occupation of Iraq, and subsequently by siding with autocratic forces to defeat a broad-based revolution
often referred to as the Arab Spring. The removal of the first democratically elected government
in Egypt under President Mohamed Morsi and the reinstallation of the ‘‘old elite’’ is poignant
illustration of the circumgressive moment. General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is its trafficking symbol.
The concept of circumgressive time, therefore, speaks to reversals of political gains in the long
struggles of decolonization. It also means forward movement in other areas, representing as it were,
the push and pull of contending historical forces operating at multiple levels. One of the most important
of these is the growing consolidation of a broad intellectual movement of decoloniality centered
on issues of gender, race, and class. The authors of this volume, as was the case with the last Special
Issue, have themselves been exemplary contributors to this growing movement of global decoloniality.
Madina V. Tlostanova and Walter D. Mignolo have noted that the focus of decoloniality is not
restricted to critiques of global capitalism. ‘‘Decoloniality means projecting decolonial thinking over
the colonial matrix of power.’’2