pluriversity

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noun

A university, viewed as an institution of tertiary education that is segmented into specialties which do not interact, especially specialties that focus on applications for external organizations.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

pluriversity1

nounpluriversity (plural pluriversities)

plural pluriversities

  1. A university, viewed as an institution of tertiary education that is segmented into specialties which do not interact, especially specialties that focus on applications for external organizations.

    This inquiry is carried on most effectively through academic specialties. They create the modern pluriversity, and in that pluriversity the unity of knowledge is lost.

    1978, International Cultural Foundation, The search for absolute values in a changing world, →ISBN
    3 more examples

    Besides these features, Rutler looks forward to a new union of religion and politics, and of theology and science, and thereby to a transformation of the pluriversity back into a university.

    1989, David Ray Griffin, William A. Beardslee, Joe Holland, Varieties of Postmodern Theology, →ISBN, page 5

    If the multiversity was a supermarket in which members of the same community browsed for various brands of similar goods, then the pluriversity is like a shopping mall on the outskirts where customers from different parts of town shop for wildly differing specialties in postmodern paternlessness.

    1995, Ed Block, Ideas for the University, page 77

    Contrary to the university knowledge described in the preceding paragraph, pluriversity knowledge is a contextual knowledge insofar as the organizing principle of its construction is its application.

    2006, Robert A. Rhoads, Carlos Alberto Torres, The University, State, and Market, →ISBN, page 74
  2. A multicultural learning environment where one learns from multiple sources of knowledge, such as the scientific, the traditional, and the spiritual.

    My rather upbeat proposal to create a resilient and abundant food system is predicated upon the human species having the capacity to learn. But what kind of learning is required? I propose an idea of pluriversity, a pluriversity for resilience and abundance.

    2016, Todd LeVasseur, Pramod Parajuli, Norman Wirzba, Religion and Sustainable Agriculture, →ISBN
    3 more examples

    Should and could we move from a university to the pluriversity? Was this to be a strictly secular or non-secular institution? Who would benefit from the pluriversity, with its new forms of knowledge? Was TK only to be the object of study in a pluriversty as it is in universities or also a subject of study with its faculty and students?

    2006, Angarai Venkataraman Balasubramanian, T. D. Nirmala Devi, Traditional knowledge systems of India and Sri Lanka

    For that we need instead of a university, a pluriversity. A pluriversity has the responsibility of educating future generations to live not only in pluri-national states, as has been declared, for example, in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador, but also in a pluri-spistemic and pluri-spiritual world.

    2012, Kathryn L. Kleypas, James I. McDougall, The American-style University at Large, →ISBN, page 4

    If Kant's and Humboldt's Eurocentred modern racist/sexist epistemic projects became the epistemic foundation of the Westernized university from the late eighteenth century as a result of 300 years of genocide/epistemicide in the world, Enrique Dussel's Transmodernity is the new epistemic foundation of the future decolonial pluriversity, whose knowledge production will be at the service of a world beyond the 'capitalist/patriarchal Wester-centric/Christian-centric modern/colonial world-system'.

    2015, Marta Araújo, Silvia R. Maeso, Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge, →ISBN

pluriversity2

nounpluriversity (plural pluriversities)

plural pluriversities

  1. Synonym of pluriversality.

    My defense of a universality of social justice (and socialism) for all—creating the conditions of possibility for freedom from necessity for all—in no way rejects the pluriversity of knowledges.

    2009, S. Macrine, P. McLaren, D. Hill, Revolutionizing Pedagogy, →ISBN
    2 more examples

    To distance himself from the eurocentric concept of modernity, he introduced the concept of "transmodernity," explaining: "A future transmodern culture [...] assumes that the positive moments of modernity (as evaluated through criteria distinct from the perspective of other ancient cultures)[,] will have a rich pluriversity and would be the fruit of an authentic intercultural dialogue that would require bearing clearly in mind existing asymmetries [,,,]" (2010, p. 14).

    2013, Julian Go, Postcolonial Sociology, →ISBN, page 179

    In the 1980s, when I first started teaching in the academy, many of my colleagues agreed with me that the role of teaching critical citizenship was too conservative, that we needed to move beyond incremental reform and -- following the advice of my mentor Paulo Freire— create multipolar sites, within the university, of popular democracy bolstered by pluriversity and interculturality.

    2015, Tanya Loughead, Critical University: Moving Higher Education Forward, →ISBN, page vii

    Synonyms: pluriversality

Synonyms & antonyms

nounSynonym of pluriversality.

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

pluriversity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pluriversity

MLA

“pluriversity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pluriversity. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pluriversity,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pluriversity.

Source: pluriversity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.