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On: 4 May 2010 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 919686808] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37- 41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Cultural Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713684873 POLITICAL ONTOLOGY Mario Blaser Online publication date: 10 November 2009 To cite this Article Blaser, Mario(2009) 'POLITICAL ONTOLOGY', Cultural Studies, 23: 5, 873 896 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09502380903208023 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502380903208023 Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Mario Blaser POLITICAL ONTOLOGY Cultural Studies without cultures? In this article I seek to put into conversation two different but convergent intellectual/political projects, Lawrence Grossbergs radically contextualist cultural studies and political ontology, an emergent analytical framework being developed by a loosely connected network of scholars. Central to both projects is the question of modernity, but while Grossbergs cultural studies focuses on the possibilities for multiple modernities immanent to the present conjuncture, the political ontology project focuses on the status of the non-modern. I argue that the parallels and the divergences between these projects contain the promise for a fruitful conversation resting on the understanding that the possibilities for multiple modernities may well rest on the recognition of the non-modern on its own terms. For this we need to do away with the concept of cultures as the key category to think about differences. Keywords ontology; ontological conicts; multiple ontologies; modernity; non-modern; radical difference Admittedly, this paper makes an intervention in a conversation I have not been directly engaged in before and about which I have little background knowledge: namely the place and prospect of cultural studies in the present conjuncture. Keeping this disclaimer in mind, I hope the reader will forgive the broad (and perhaps clumsy) strokes that shape the argument. I felt strongly drawn into this conversation upon reading two articles by Lawrence Grossberg (2006, n.d.) that led me to conclude firstly, that I had been doing something very similar to the project of cultural studies he was advocating for, and secondly, that some issues I had encountered in my own investigations could contribute something useful to this project. In the mentioned articles, Grossberg seeks to recover the original sense of cultural studies as a project not only to construct a political history of the present, but to do so in a particular way, a radically contextualist way (2006, p. 2). This, Grossberg argues, involves a self-awareness of location within and an effort at the diagnosis of a conjuncture (p. 3). In the most recent, unpublished work, we are made aware that the political importance of this diagnosis emerges from the purpose to produce: Cultural Studies Vol. 23, Nos. 56 SeptemberNovember 2009, pp. 873896 ISSN 0950-2386 print/ISSN 1466-4348 online 2009 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09502380903208023 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 knowledge that illuminates and explores the possibilities of changing the context in which it operates and into which it is directed; thus, it always presupposes a reconstitution of imagination in the context of its own analysis. It aims to give people an understanding of the contingency of the present. If the present context did not have to be this way, if it was not guaranteed in advance, then it could have been otherwise, and it can be something different in the future. What then are the possibilities for the future disclosed in the present? (n.d.) In this perspective, the project of cultural studies involves diagnosing the present conjuncture and making available the imaginative elements that might render it something else, all in one move. This means that the potential futures we can aspire to are closely related to the kind of diagnostic of the present we perform. Thus described, it seemed to me that the project of cultural studies was very close to the kind of project I had been pursuing. In effect, for some time now I have been concerned with understanding the meaning and scope of Indigenous peoples mobilization and politics in the present conjuncture, precisely because I believe they make available imaginative elements that might be central to transform oppressive and deeply engrained aspects of the dominant modern social formation (see Blaser 2007, 2009, in press). Like Grossberg, I also find that the kind of diagnosis of the present conjuncture that one performs shapes to a large extent the possible futures we can aspire to, and this is the point in which I want to put both projects into a conversation. Thus, in the first section I will present and contrast Grossbergs project of cultural studies and my own. In the second section I will focus on why it might be advisable for any project that seeks to diagnose the present conjuncture to pay close attention both to the non-modern itself and to how we tend to conceptualize it. This will lead the discussion to the third section where I will address the positivity of the non-modern and how we must avoid a conceptual trap to really get to it. In the Conclusions I will briefly discuss how all this relates to a possible reading of the present conjuncture and the role that the modern and the non-modern play in our imagining of alternatives futures. Diagnosing the present conjuncture, or, should Cultural Studies only search for modernities? Drawing from a varied set of works, Grossberg advances the argument that the present conjuncture could be considered as a struggle, from both the right and the left, against liberal modernity and the attempt to shape an alternative modernity as the future. In light of this diagnosis, the key political question of the present conjuncture seems to be modernity itself, or better, the possibility 8 7 4 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 of multiple modernities (n.d.). Now, it is important to stress that Grossbergs notion of multiple modernities is critical of the dominant tropes about it, which in one way or another remain profoundly Euro-centric. As I will discuss in more detail later, Grossberg and I coincide on this point. For now it will suffice to say that to counter the Euro-centrism of these dominant tropes of multiple modernities Grossberg tackles the moderness of contemporary social formations thus, One might, confronted with the claim of other modernities, ask why they are called modern? Why do I want to credit them, at the very least, as statements about modernity? Why engage in a struggle over the possibilities of being modern? Why agree to call such other social formations modern? P|, c c.|. .!., ..|o o!..o.. c c1..., (o.| o!..o.. c ...o.!, 1c .. o .!!) The answer is partly given by the origin of this investigation, insofar as I believe a useful way of understanding the contemporary political conjuncture of the United States (at the very least) is in terms of a set of struggles over the coming American modernity. But I think there is another reason, which Gaonkar [2001] describes as the rage for modernity and which Rofel [1999] captures, describing her fieldwork conversations: modernity was something that many people from all walks of life felt passionately moved to talk about and debate. Similarly, Gyekye [1997] asserts that modernity has in fact assumed or rather gained a normative status, in that all societies in the world without exception aspire to become modern, to exhibit in their social, cultural and political lives features said to characterize modernity whatever this notion means or those features are. But it is clear that such a comment is not meant to simply imply that the whole world is trying to become Europe; in fact, Gyekye similarly describes a number of writers in the Middle Ages: In characterizing themselves and their times as modern, both Arabic and Latin scholars were expressing their sense of cultural difference from the ancients . . . But not only that: they must surely have considered their own times as advanced (or more advanced) in most, if not all, spheres of human endeavor. On what grounds do we deny such claims or judgments of modernity? Even Lefebvre [1995] acknowledges that the modern is a prestigious word, a talisman, an open sesame, and it comes with a lifelong guarantee. Thus, the answer to why I want to think through and with the concept of a multiplicity of modernities as a discursive reality is because |. .c. c.. c1..., . o!..o1, /.. o.1, /..oo. . |o ..o! .c.o..., o1 /..oo. . ..1 c ..| o . .co1. c c./.!., o1 |c., o1 o . .o.o.c c. oo.. o, c /.. c1... Cultural studies has always taught that any successful struggle for political transformation has to start where people are; the choice of where to begin the discourses of change POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 7 5 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 cannot be defined simply by the desires, or even the politics, of intellectuals. (n.d., emphasis added) Considering the contest over modernity as a central feature of the current conjuncture, it is not surprising that Grossberg finds problematic the move of another intellectual project concerned with modernity, that of the modernity/ coloniality group, and upon which I partly rely on my own project. This group, formed by a loosely connected network of Latin American intellectuals, has developed the notion of modernity/coloniality (M/C) which has among its fundamental conceptual assumptions the idea that there is no modernity without coloniality. Or, in other words, that colonialism and the making of the capitalist world system are constitutive of modernity (for an overview of M/C see Escobar 2007b). For Grossberg, this assumption seems to guarantee that the [M/C intellectuals] see their project, not as looking for other modernities, but rather, for alternatives to modernity, which is somehow problematic as it is not starting from where people are. Thus, without necessarily contesting it, Grossberg prefers to circumscribe this characterization of modernity to a particular kind, Euro-modernity, thereby allowing other (potentially more just) kinds of modernities to exist, at least as a possibility inherent to some of those claims of modernity made by people who are not trying to become Europe. While situating the drive toward speaking of contemporary social formations as modern against the background of an overarching contest over modernity, Grossberg is nevertheless aware that we cannot avoid the question of how a particular configuration can be asserted to be modern and, thus: [w]e must face the challenge of asking how we define modernity as a changing same or, adopting a phrase from Precarias a la Deriva [2004], a singularity in common. One must 1..o.| c c!, /... |. c1.. o1 |. cc1.., but also between, on the one hand, variations or hybridities within an assumed common modernity (e.g., French vs. British modernity, or British vs. Indian modernity), and, on the other hand, distinct other modernities. (n.d., emphasis added) The desire to attend to diverse claims of modernity and the search for clearer criteria to define the modern are somehow in tension. The search for clearer criteria necessarily implies tracing a boundary between the modern and the non-modern that will not necessarily coincide with claims of modernity that might rather tend toward ceaseless expansion. However, this tension is supposedly resolved by a diagram of being modern in which multiple actual and virtual modernities may get actualized, but only as particular articulations 8 7 6 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 between four categories (Now/Event, Change/Chronos, Everyday Life, and Institutional Space) that are central to various definitions of modernity. As I will discuss later, the solution to the tension seems to work only partially. For now, I will conclude my very succinct, and undoubtedly sketchy, characteriza- tion of Grossbergs project by indicating that the challenge of defining modernity in such a way that opens up other possibilities of being modern remains at the center of his efforts, at least in the works I am referencing here. This being said I want now to turn to political ontology, the framework I am using for my investigations, which I consider might be put into useful conversation with these efforts. 1 In order to explain what the political ontology framework entails, I must first clarify what I mean by ontology, as the term is often used in different ways and with diverse connotations. Three layers of meaning shape my working definition of ontology. The first layer is a dictionary definition: any way of understanding the world must make assumptions (which may be implicit or explicit) about what kinds of things do or can exist, and what might be their conditions of existence, relations of dependency, and so on. Such an inventory of kinds of being and their relations is an ontology (Scott & Marshall 2005). The second layer I borrow from the insights and language of science and technology studies, and in particular from Actor Network Theory: ontologies do not precede mundane practices, rather are shaped through the practices and interactions of both human and non-humans (see Latour 1999; Law 2004; Mol 1999). 2 Hence, ontologies perform themselves into worlds this is why, as you will see, I use the terms ontologies and worlds as synonyms. The third layer builds on a voluminous ethnographic record that traces the connections between myths and practices: ontologies also manifest as stories in which the assumptions of what kinds of things and relations make up a given world readily graspable again, this warrants my use of the term story to refer to a given ontology. Although stories are a good entry point to an ontology, attending only to their verbalized aspect and not to the way in which those stories are embodied and enacted only give us half the story. In other words, ontologies must be understood as total enactments involving discursive and non-discursive aspects. Having this definition in mind, let me advance that the term political ontology connotes two inter-related meanings. On the one hand, it refers to the politics involved in the practices that shape a particular world or ontology. On the other hand, it refers to a field of study that focuses on the conflicts that ensue as different worlds or ontologies strive to sustain their own existence as they interact and mingle with each other. Given its dominance, the modern ontology figures prominently among the concerns of this analytical framework and, thus, comes close and intersects with what Grossberg considers a key political question of the present conjuncture, that is, modernity itself or the possibility of multiple modernities. Yet, for reasons that I now explain, from POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 7 7 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 a political ontology perspective, the notion of multiple modernities has been treated with both skepticism and preoccupation. A couple of vignettes and a set of quotations will help me to foreground why this is so. In 2006, Evo Morales becomes the first indigenous president of Bolivia after a series of social mobilizations that started to shake the colonial, racist, and extremely unequal social fabric of that country. In an unprecedented move, an indigenous Andean ceremony at Tiawanaku a pre-Columbian monumental center is added to the usual protocol by which the new president is invested with his authority. 3 Far to the North-west, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Mowachat/Muchalaht First Nation clashes with the Department of Fisheries and environmentalists groups who want to return Luna, a young lost orca whale, to its pod. The natives insist that in Luna inhabits the spirit of their recently deceased chief, Ambrose Maquinna, and that his desire to stay with his people must be respected. 4 These kinds of events are usually made to make sense through familiar notions such as displays of ethnic symbolism and different social construc- tions of the animal whale, all of which help to situate differences within the matrix of a common modern present i.e. they are manifestations of the diverse modernities that exist nowadays. In effect, for reasons that I will discuss in more detail later, nowadays all differences have come to be conceived as being played out within a single ontological domain, which, as the following quotations illustrate, is that of modernity. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. (Marx & Engels 1848/1992, p. 219) Perhaps ethnohistory has been so called to separate it from real history, the study of the supposedly civilized. Yet what is clear from the study of ethnohistory is that the subjects of the two kinds of history are the same. The more ethnohistory we know, the more clearly their history and our history emerge as the same history. (Wolf 1982/1997, p. 19) One of the characteristics of modernity has always been its autocentric picture of itself as the expression of universal certainty . . . So its history has always claimed to be a universal one, in fact the only universal history. (Mitchell 2000, p. xi) Now, if one sets these quotations along other claims of historicity, the contours of the problem that political ontology is trying to address becomes apparent. For instance, consider the following assertion extracted from the Mo1o. .c |. o...o! ji1..co t.c!. o1 :o.c c |. Pc.!1 :o., drafted in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on 12 October 2007, 8 7 8 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 A new age driven by the originary indigenous peoples is beginning, giving birth to the times of change, the times of Pachakuti, in times when the Fifth Sun is coming to an end. Through their contrast, these quotations delineate a key problem of the present conjuncture, namely, the power dynamics implicit in the naturalization of the story of modernity and the consequent and necessary conflicts and challenges that this process generates when it encounters other stories that contest it. In effect, barring a great deal of distortion to force them into our notions of history, one must pause and wonder whether the Andean concept of Pachakuti and the Mesoamerican idea of the Fifth Sun are pointing out to something that escape modern categories (see de la Cadena 2009, for a similar point). Yet, to mention whether there is something that escapes modern categorizations is nowadays a heresy. For instance, a reviewer of an article a colleague and I sent to a journal said: To say that indigenous knowledge is non-modern or exists outside of modernity seems in fact to reinstate a colonial legacy in which indigenous peoples are said to be backwards, or islands of time untouched by history. This statement in fact flies in the face of most anthropological research (well, almost all) that tries to combat colonial representations of indigenous peoples as not engaged in the modern world. In short, then, the starting point of a conversation between the project of cultural studies pursued by Grossberg and the project of political ontology is an addendum to his diagnosis of the present conjuncture. Briefly stated, although it is undeniable that there is a contest over modernity and that this contest has very real consequences, the present conjuncture also involves a contest over, and with, the non-modern. Yet, in contrast to what happens with modernity, the contest over the non-modern is not mainly about definitions but about its very existence. In effect, the dominant assumption of a single ontological matrix (that of modernity) within which all social formations are contained implicit in notions such as the social construction of realities, display of ethnic symbolism, and a single historicity, downplays the extent to which the current conjuncture is marked by ontological conflicts. These are conflicts that fester under the assumption that parties to the conflict agree on what is at stake, when actually that is not the case. In other words, what is at stake in these conflicts is precisely the differing things that are at stake. Luna is not a whale for the Mowachat nation, it is Tsuxlit, a different entity that is not easily translatable as the social construction of an animal. Evo Morales is not performing rituals to symbolize the ethnic character of his politics, he is following a precise protocol to summon non-human forces to help him govern Bolivia. The Pachakuti and the Fifth Sun are not the modern age; they imply another temporality that cannot be subsumed by the former. POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 7 9 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 Because the contest .| the non-modern manifests as ontological conflicts there is a strong tendency to mis-recognize even the existence of this contest. In other words, the non-modern manifests itself as something that escapes the radar screen of modern categories. The dominant trope of multiple modernities, as it stands with its drive toward incorporating all differences within the ontological domain of modernity, makes it even more difficult to account for ontological conflicts as part of the present conjuncture. Hence, the skepticism and concern with which the notion of multiple modernities has been treated from the political ontology perspective. However, precisely because Grossbergs project seeks to bypass some of these problems with the dominant notion of multiple modernities, it opens unforeseen possibilities to conceive the relations between a potentially non-Euro-centered modernity and the non-modern. Likewise, and precisely because the non-modern exceeds our own questions and the categories and concepts within which such questions are thinkable it opens up so far unforeseen possibilities to conceive non- Euro-centered modernities. In part, this is because, as I will try to show in the next section, without the counterbalance of the non-modern, Euro-modernity remains a powerful (and perhaps inescapable) gravitational force impinging on our diagnostics of the present conjuncture, and therefore of the potential futures we imagine. The pull of Euro-modernity As we have seen in the previous section, Grossbergs and the political ontology projects intersect creating a potentially fruitful point of tension: his interest in opening the definition of the modernity to other, more just, ways of being modern and our interest in making sure that the definition of modernity does not expand to the point that it occludes the existence of the non-modern. In the Conclusions I will discuss what are the implications of non-Euro-centered modernities for political ontology. Here, and illuminated by the political ontology concern, I want to focus on the two aspects of Grossbergs project that as I said before appear to be in tension: the desire to attend to diverse claims of modernity and the search for clearer criteria to define the modern. Although in the works I mentioned he has not explored the implications it may have for his project of multiple modernities and this paper is in part an invitation to do so Grossberg recognizes the existence of something outside modernity; this is certainly not the case with the dominant tropes of multiple modernities. Thus, a quick look into the context in which these tropes emerge will help us better situate how, and to what extent, Grossberg departs from them. The implicit understanding that the existence of multiple modernities means that there is nothing outside of modernity is not the effect of unsophisticated analyses or theories; rather it is a symptom of the present conjuncture, insofar as 8 8 0 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 it expresses a particular trajectory of the concept of culture. In effect, that an argument about the existence of something outside modernity can be taken to be at best romanticism or at worse a colonizing gesture responds to the criticisms to which earlier notions of culture as systemic, organic, and bounded were subjected from the 1970s onwards. The main thrust of the criticism was that deploying such notions of culture, other (non-Western) peoples were removed from history, making the analysts blind to the actual consequences of their own politics of representation. (see Hymes, 1974; Asad, 1973; Wolf, 1982/1997; Fabian, 1983; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Fox, 1991). Showing that so-called traditional societies have never been isolated, unchanging, backward, and out of history in short, that they have never been traditional in the terms set by the modern imagination these critiques contested a key colonial argument according to which Others were amenable to be subordinated to the modern colonial powers by virtue of their being traditional or primitive. However, rather than being simply eliminated, the original dichotomy between modern and traditional was replaced by another dichotomy, that between unreal traditions and real and all-encompassing modernity. In effect, it seems that the conclusion derived from the critiques has been that, if there have not been really existing traditional societies, then, we are all modern in one way or another. But this is profoundly problematic, not the least because it opens the door to an insidious Euro-centrism that permeates the dominant tropes of multiple modernities. Indeed, the only clear thread across diverse understandings of what modernity is, in one way or another, connects the term to Europe. In other words, it seems that if all contemporary social formations are modern it is because they have had transformative interactions with Europe. The problem is that this assumes that the encounter with Europeans is the single most important constitutive factor in the historical trajectory of any given social formation. In effect, if we agree that any given social formation is always the historical product of transformative interactions with other social formations, the question arises as to why we should call the present state of diverse social formations modern. The moderness that underlies the different contemporary social formations needs to be proved rather than axiomatically asserted, but in order to do so one would need some criteria of what does it mean to be modern. In part because the existing literature does not provide clear criteria to define it, the dominant notions of multiple modernities remain diffuse and/or ultimately lead us to Euro-modernity, which is the problem that Grossberg seeks to avoid by providing his diagram of ways of being modern, a point to which we will return soon. Nowadays, the assumption that all differences are encompassed within modernity is reinforced by the self-proclaimed moder- ness of some of those who were previously defined as pre-modern and suffered all the associated consequences of this status in terms of subordination to the modern. In principle for Grossberg these claims, rather than the putative content of a given social formation, do warrant the treatment of much POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 8 1 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 contemporary diversity as modern. However, it is worth taking a closer look into what might be a stake, both in the claims of modernity and the conclusions that some of the analysts Grossberg is building on derive from such claims. As we may recall from the extended quote above, Grossberg questioned on what basis could one challenge the claims to modernity made by people that, by such claims, certainly did not intend to become Europe. When I read the paragraph I was struck by the contrast with my own experience with some indigenous peoples in Latin America, where rather than being challenged in their claims of modernity, it is their (implicit or explicit) claims of alternatives to modernity what is treated with contempt. Indeed, in a recent interview and echoing the academic reviewer I quoted before, the Bolivian vice-president and Left intellectual Alvaro Garcia Linera accused sectors of the indigenous movement of being romantic because they reclaim a role for indigenous cosmologies in shaping the Bolivian state. Pointing to the 500 years of interaction and mingling between them, he denied that such cosmologies could be radically different from the dominant modern one: i .! c1c c1c o.... .. c1..c [Deep inside, everyone wants to be modern] (Garcia Linera, 2007, pp. 156157). Notice how the same certainty about the desirability of modernity that Gyekye (1997) attributes in Grossbergs quote to all societies without exception is used here to silence and sideline a potentially different agenda. The transmutation of the inherent hybridity of cultures into barely veiled denials of differences is common and partakes of the strong tendency among scholars, commentators and policy makers (from Left and Right) to minimize or disregard the fact that the hasty unification of radical differences under the banner of modernity betrays the original aim of the critique of culture which was to foreground the .c/!.o.. simultaneity of different ways of being (Fabian, 1983, p. 146) against the then dominant tendency to conceive these differences along an evolutionary and hierarchical matrix. The result has been that differences have been diluted to the point that they do not cut too deep before they find a common ground in a (hi)story that is supposed to involve everyone, that of modernity. I am very much aware that claims of non-modernity are not very visible and remain relatively circumscribed when compared with the more visible claims of different moderness. This leads some analysts to consider the terminological battle already settled; as a prominent Bolivian intellectual told me in a conversation, the modern now stands for the good, whatever this is, so we [social movements] have to introduce our notion of the good into the definition of the modern. But expanding the meaning of the word modern is not necessarily the best strategy or the only one; affirming the value (and presence) of the non-modern in a similar fashion that Black peoples re-affirmed blackness in the motto black is beautiful might be another quite valid (and perhaps better suited) strategy. Ultimately, the suitability of these strategies has to be determined in relation to specific contexts, which in the present conjuncture are 8 8 2 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 not fully accounted for by the seemingly minoritarian character of the claims for alternatives to modernity. 5 Moreover, I believe that disregarding alternatives to modernity (either by not fully accounting for them or by denying its existence) does not help to a good diagnosis of the current conjuncture, precisely because it contributes to make invisible ontological discrepancies and conflicts. Now, recognizing that some sectors of the Indigenous movement either reclaim a difference that explicitly presents itself as not amenable to be contained within the bounds of modernity, or are so removed from these concerns that do not even have a stake on the contest over or with modernity, does not imply a denial that other sectors do frame their claims in terms of modernity. And yet one must consider that, even when explicit, claims of modernity are not transparent statements. Indeed, claims of being modern might actually constitute a site of what Viveiros de Castro (2004, p. 8) calls uncontrolled equivocation, a type of communicative disjuncture where the interlocutors are not talking about the same thing, and do not know this. Uncontrolled equivocation refers to a communicative disjuncture that takes place not between those who share a common world but rather those whose worlds or ontologies are different. In other words, these misunderstandings happen not because there are different perspectives on the world but rather because the interlocutors are unaware that different worlds are being enacted (and assumed) by each of them. These equivocations are prone to go unnoticed where, as it is the case of the relation between the modern and the non-modern, asymmetries permeate the discursive field. In the context of the encounters between diverse social formations and Euro-modernity, which is the historical milieu from which most contemporary claims of modernity arise, modernity implied, first and foremost, a language of exclusion and, only then, a promise of inclusion of course, always demanding that non-moderns reform themselves to be modern. In other words, the alternatives offered to the non-modern were in many cases, convert and we will not only give you the carrot (of modernity) but also will stop using the stick, or if you dont pursue the carrot we will entice you to it with the stick. At least in the case of indigenous peoples in the Americas, this form of inclusion has been historically very clear and makes me cautious about assuming that I understand what some of their public claims of modernity entail. In fact, these processes have contributed to make the non-modern part of what James Scott (1990) called the hidden transcript. 6 One way in which this works is by dressing the values of the subordinated with the discursive garments of the dominant. A case in point is the conversion of aboriginal deities into Catholic saints to the point that even the original name of the deity is lost. Yet, it would constitute an equivocation to assume that a name shared by Catholics and Indigenous peoples refer to the same entity. The phrase from Lefebvre quoted by Grossberg above is somehow illuminating in this sense, if the modern is a prestigious word, a talisman, an open sesame it is precisely because the POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 8 3 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 discursive field has made the word non-modern unprestigious, a heavy drag, and an incantation that closes doors. Hence, it is not unreasonable to expect that at least some of what previously was referenced by the latter word is now mobilized through the former word by making the latter plural. Not fully attending to this dynamic in claims of modernity easily leads to the trap of making modernity anything contemporary in general and nothing in particular. In other words, claims of modernity are not sufficient in themselves to help us trace the line between what falls within the domain of modernity (or modernities) and that which falls beyond it. This leads us back to the need for clearer criteria to define the modern as distinct from the non-modern and how Grossbergs diagram of being modern fares on this account. A concern that Grossberg had in building his diagram of the modern was to be careful not to allow the move to ontology to simply reproduce the Eurocentrism of our understandings of the modern, and thus, the four categories that articulate with each other to give emergence to a variety of ways of being modern (i.e. Now/Event, Change/Chronos, Everyday Life, and Institutional Space) must remain somehow under-specified so as to allow for this virtual multiplicity to become actualized. And the diagram certainly works well in this account as it is open enough to allow a great deal of variation on what it might mean to be modern. Yet, the diagram does not work as well in containing the modern so that it does not come to engulf all ways of being. In effect, because the four categories according to which the modern gets articulated in its multiplicity remain underspecified, it is hard to see how the diagram excludes, and therefore recognizes in its own terms, the non-modern. In fact, in the only passage in which the difference with the non-modern is considered in relation to these categories, Euro-modernity, rather than the virtual multiplicity of the modern, emerges as the foil that helps to trace the boundary. Indeed speaking of the dynamic tension that exists in modern formations between institutional spaces and the space of everyday life, Grossberg says: the tension between these two spaces makes change not only structurally possible, but also even normal and perhaps necessary . . . In non- modern societies, only the institutional space exists although we cannot properly even call it that. Change comes primarily either from the outside or via an explosive revolution (n.d.). Now, unless one takes Euro-modern instantia- tions of both institutional spaces and everyday life as referents, it is hard to see how these can be said to be lacking in the non-modern. In other words, could it not be the case that the non-modern expresses other forms of institutional spaces and everyday life and relations between them? In addition, the idea that non-modern societies only change when moved from the outside or through revolutions reinstates the Euro-centric tendency to define the non-modern as the inverse image of the modern rather than by its own properties. In short, if we were to totally relinquish Euro-modern instantiations of the articulation between the four categories, we would have a hard time to trace the boundary 8 8 4 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 between the modern and the non-modern in Grossbergs diagram. And once pulled by Euro-modernity and its ways of tracing boundaries the non-modern ends up being defined as a lack or, in other words, simply as that which is . . . well, non-(Euro-)modern. One of the lines of inquiry of the political ontology framework might help with this problem, that is, as long as we remain aware of the traps of the concept of Culture. The positivity of the non-modern and the traps of culture Other worlds or ontologies often serve as the constitutive outside for modernity (Mitchell 2000) and thus get defined by their lacks in relation to it, but they do have their own positivity. It would be impossible to discuss here the varied forms these worlds may acquire and that have been described by many ethnographers. I will just briefly present a snapshot from a recent work by Philippe Descola (2005), which is to my knowledge the first one to try a systematic overview of this diversity. In this work he identifies four large kinds of ontologies, which I present schematically in figure 1. The sketch does not pretend to be an exhaustive representation of these ontologies; it just seeks to highlight how each of them distributes what exists, FIGURE 1 The four major ontologies of Descola. POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 8 5 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 and conceive of their relations, in very different ways. Euro-modernity, and I would like to argue even multiple modernities, fall within the spectrum of the Naturalist ontologies that distribute what exists between two large domains, Nature and Culture, which are sometimes (but not always) in relation with a third domain, that of the supra-human/supernatural, i.e. the domain of God(s). Animist ontologies correspond to what many also call relational ontologies in which each entity (represented in the sketch by a geometrical figure) is related to other entities as knots in a net. I have represented Analogism with the Ying Yang, which is a relatively familiar symbol and quickly conveys the idea that this kind of ontology operates on the notion of some originating dynamic which repeats itself from the micro to the macro and permeates the entire cosmos. Totemism allocates a mix of humans and non-humans within ontologically distinct groups that originate from a common ancestor. I will not go further into the details of these ontologies beyond raising the issue that Analogism and Totemism are, like Naturalism, prone to conceive of hierarchical relations between the entities that populate the worlds they configure. The point is important to dispel the often unstated assumption that anything which is non- modern is better in terms of being more equalitarian and non-hierarchical. This is another good reason why we need to move as quickly as possible from the figure of the non-modern, which as with the figure of the modern in the dominant tropes of multiple modernities contains too many things to be useful, either in analytical or political terms. The work of Descola (2005) helps us situate modernity (multiple or otherwise) as one particular ontological formation among others. These ontologies differ from modernity not because, as Euro-modernity would pose it, they lack what modernity has but because they distribute what exists and conceive their constitutive relations in a different way. This might give us a clue as to what might be added to Grossbergs diagram of ways of being modern in order to make it less prone to extend (and gloss) over the non- modern, namely, the Nature/Culture divide and its various possible relations. In other words, it might be fruitful to investigate whether juxtaposing Grossbergs diagram of ways of being modern with the general diagram of naturalist ontologies does not provide both the necessary flexibility to allow for the possibility of multiple modernities and clearer criteria to distinguish what falls within the domain of the modern from what falls within the domain of other ontologies. But in order to grasp how this could help in distinguishing between different modernities we must first make clear that naturalist ontologies are not exactly synonymous with Euro-modern ontology. Although the latter is contained within the former, the former far exceeds the particular instantiation of the Nature/Culture divide that is actualized by Euro-modernity. In this sense, it is interesting to note that Descola devotes a whole chapter of his book to analyzing how conceptions of nature emerged progressively, starting from the |o. of the Greek and culminating in the mutual autonomy of nature and 8 8 6 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 culture of Euro-modernity. Grossberg, in turn, mentions that bio-power, as a particular Euro-modern machinery of power, not only separates nature and culture (since other diagrams have done that as well) but subsumes nature into culture (n.d.). In other words, he is aware that the Nature/Culture divide operates within Euro-modernity in a particular way. Now, because Euro- modernity appears to be the only currently actualized form of modernity that readily presents itself to the analysts for close scrutiny, its usage as a baseline for comparison does not need to be problematic. That is, its usage does not contradict the possibility of other non-Euro-centered modernities; rather, it signals that much work remains to be done in terms of specifying through concrete examples how, while maintaining some resemblance with Euro- modernity, the ontological armatures of these other modernities are constituted and operate differently. With this in mind, lets now take a closer look at how the naturalist ontological armature operates in Euro-modernity. A good point to begin is Latours (1993) rendering of what he calls the internal Great Divide between Nature and Culture. In Euro-modernity this ontological divide allocates the human, the subject, the fully agentive, and rep- resentation to the realm of Culture, and the non-human, the object, the agency- less, and the represented to the realm of Nature. This allocation of entities is a fundamental assumption of Euro-modernity that can be traced at the basis of its most salient institutions and practices, from science to politics. Latour argues that this ontological armature is the result of practices of purification that produce and sustain the distinction between Nature and Culture while at the same time producing hybrid entities that are neither. Thus, although the result of Euro-modern practices contradicts the fundamental distinction established by the story of modernity between Nature and Culture, it is undeniable that the distinction fuels those very same practices. In this sense, as a particular actualized ontology, Euro-modernity is the result of these contradictory moves. Keeping this in mind helps us to avoid understanding Euro-modernity as a sort of false consciousness. Now, according to Latour: the Internal Great Divide [between Nature and Culture] accounts for the External Great Divide [between Us and Them]: we [moderns] are the only ones who differentiate absolutely between Nature and Culture whereas in our eyes all the others whether they are Chinese or Amerindians, Azande or Barouya cannot really separate what is knowledge from what is society, what is sign from what is thing, what comes from Nature as it is from what their cultures require. (Latour 1993, p. 99) Thus, what Mitchell calls modernitys autocentric picture of itself as the expression of universal certainty is related to this claim of having a privileged POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 8 7 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 access to a domain which is not clouded by culture, and this access is premised precisely on recognizing the difference between what is Culture and what is Nature; a distinction other cultures do not have. This difference constit- utes the external Great Divide between modern and non-modern. Now, what is particularly Euro-modern is that between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries the two great divides were increasingly understood (by Europeans first, and by all kinds of Euro-moderns later) against the background of linear time, thus making (Euro-)modernity not only different but also a superior way of being, the spearhead of the evolving history of humanity (see Fabian 1983). 7 In any case, what is missing from Latours (1993) picture is the extent to which the divide between Nature and Culture and the divide between modern and non-modern are historically co-emergent in Euro-modernity. This is precisely what the modernity/coloniality group foregrounds by indicating that this particular ontological armature emerged progressively in a series of specific locations in Western Europe along with the unfolding of the colonial experience inaugurated by the Spanish conquest of the New World (see Dussel 1492/1995; Mignolo 2000). But in Euro-modernity, internal and external divides are not only co-emerging, they are also co-sustaining. Thus, the performance of a modern world in which the distinction between Nature and Culture constitutes the ontological bedrock of a system of hierarchies between the modern and the non-modern necessarily involves keeping at bay the threat posed to it by the existence of worlds that operate on different ontological premises, and this has been done by denying these worlds any real existence in their own terms. Insofar as their radical difference can be tamed through the concept of culture, for Euro-moderns these worlds just exist as cultural perspectives based on errors, mere believes, or romantic yearnings. With the visual help of Figure 2, let me briefly discuss how the concept of culture tames radically different worlds. In figure 2 we have side by side the sketches of the Euro-modern version of a naturalist ontology and that of a relational ontology. As we can see, in comparison to the sketch that depicted the naturalist ontology among the other ontologies of Descola, there are a series of modification here. First, there is no domain of the supra-human/supernatural, as in Euro-modernity this domain was progressively evacuated from the ontological armature. Second, the realm of Culture and the realm of Nature are not side by side but rather the former domain is positioned above the latter, depicting a hierarchical relation. Third, the domain of Culture has been further sub-divided into several cultures. In effect, in Euro-modernity, the concept of culture has two related yet different meanings, which I underscore by capitalizing one of them. As I have been arguing, Culture (with a capital C) is an ontological category that gains its meaning by its contrast to Nature, and together both constitute the central categories in the ontological armature of modernity (in its plurality). In contrast, culture is a sub-category subsumed within Culture and emerges 8 8 8 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 from the differences among human groups, that is, different human groups have different cultures. Now, if you imagine the sketch of the relational ontology being shrunk or reduced to a small square, then labeled culture, and then re-positioned in the left side of the figure (i.e. in the sketch of Euro- modern ontology) alongside the other squares with the label culture, you get a sense of how in this ontological armature Culture tames radical differences by converting other ontologies into just another cultural perspective on Nature. Nevertheless, we must remain attentive to capture how different performances are still bounded within the confines of this ontological armature. For instance, although relativism and universalism are opposite to each other, they share the same ontological assumptions. In effect, in more or less explicit terms, relativism would claim that Nature (or reality out there) cannot be more than a sort of mirror in which cultures see themselves. Universalism would on the contrary claim that, in spite of the difficulties, Nature does provide a common ground (a truth) that transcends cultures. What is not contested by either position is the initial assumption that there is Nature and there is Culture. The universalism of (Euro-)modernity, that is, the notion that modernity can produce the most accurate, or perhaps only accurate, representation of the truth (provided by Nature) has shifted from being explicit to being implicit via the taming work that Culture accomplishes. In its most recent incarnation this operation is accomplished via the notion of social construction whereby it is assumed that the representations of the world are all equally socially constructed. Yet the very distinction between the world (Nature) and its representation (Culture) continues to be affirmed as a universal. FIGURE 2 Taming radical difference through culture. POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 8 9 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 It is important to highlight that, as a particularly modern ontological category that works in tandemwith Nature, Culture was not questioned by the critiques of culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Political ontology, being part of what Escobar (2007a) calls the ontological turn (i.e. the increasing attention to issues of ontology) in social theory, opens the door to deepen the critique of culture to now encompass Culture and thus avoid the traps that the category poses to our capacity to recognize other ontologies in their own terms. 8 Thus, once we are able to identify and protect ontological differences from this domesticating gesture, we can get a better understanding of modernity (multiple and otherwise), for then we can fully recognize that there are other worlds not cultures that are different from the modern one but certainly not traditional (i.e. simply the negative rendering of modernitys self-images) and grasp the power dynamics and the productivity of their mutual engagements in the present conjuncture. In addition, to help us distinguish modernity from other ontologies, re- situating the former among the latter helps us to produce a relatively circumscribed working definition or hypothesis of the currently actualized modern world or ontology that can provide a baseline for comparison with other possible modernities. In this case, this definition hinges upon a specific arrangement of three elements: an ontologically stark distinction between Nature and Culture, a dominant tendency to conceive difference (including the difference between Nature and Culture) in hierarchical terms, and a linear conception of time. Notice that I speak of an arrangement of these elements: it is not the Nature/Culture divide, linear time, and an understanding of differences in hierarchical terms per se that makes this actualization of modernity specific; what constitutes the specificity of Euro-modernity is the particular way in which these elements are narrated as being related to each other, and the enactment of this story in a multiplicity of practices. Compare, for instance, this ontology (including its relation to radical difference) with Levantine society that, following Menocal, Grossberg describes as an example of an earlier and other modern society without teleology or universality, a society of tolerance, of translators rather than proselytizers . . . a society, not of hybrids, but of the constant articulation among differences, a society that embraces contradictions . . . (n.d.). In spite of the fact that from Grossbergs account, we know little about the ontological armature of Levantine modernity, I believe the image of a modern society of translators rather than proselytizers strongly contrasts with Euro-modernity and thus might helps us see both what differentiates them as divergent forms of being modern and what conjoins them in contrast to other ontologies. Considering that the European re-discovery of Greece (and by extension of |o.) was done through the philosophers of those societies of translators that bordered between Islam and Christendom, I would not be surprised if a form of naturalist ontology is what emerges in common between Levantine and Euro-modernity. But this must for now remain a hypothesis to investigate and we must move on to the conclusions. 8 9 0 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 Conclusions Without necessarily agreeing with his particular taxonomy of ontologies, Descolas (2005) work helps to give content to the idea that other ontologies or worlds have their own positivity that is not over-determined by modernity in any of its possible forms. Now, although I cannot fully develop this point here (but see Blaser in press), I want to advance the argument that the conflictive relations between Euro-modernity and other ontologies have become particularly relevant nowadays in the context of three inter-related processes. 1 There is a vigorous push from capital and states to reach still undeveloped natural and cultural resources. But what appears from a modernist perspective as resources are entities to which indigenous and other place-based peoples are related in diverse ways. And I stress that the relations are diverse rather than assume that the notion of property can encompass those relations. This is what is manifested when, for example, indigenous peoples press the point that even if they have to fight for legal ownership of the land, the proper way of understanding the relation is their belonging to the land rather than the other way around. 2 A looming environmental crisis (intensified in part by the first set of processes) has pushed civil society and governments to design schemes for environmental protection of areas considered pristine, which again are also complex webs of interrelated entities within which indigenous and land-based peoples are enmeshed. 3 Evolving national and international frameworks increasingly recognize indigenous rights, thus creating some conditions for indigenous peoples to defend the existing relations that constitute their worlds against the claims of property laid upon them by other parties. Yet the rights are conceived from within the modern ontology as rights to their cultures and/or beliefs (as in claims of religious or spiritual value of specific geographical areas, or the desire to continue with certain ways of life such as hunting). Thus, as I hinted at with the example of the legal ownership of the land, these rights have limitations insofar as the world being defended has to be reduced to a culture; that is, it is forced to fit into the modern world. These three processes, taken together, delineate a state of affairs in which conflicts are becoming very visible as ontological conflicts precisely because they hinge upon contestations of the two great divides of the Euro-modern constitution and its associated notion of progress. In effect, mobilizations against the social and environmental consequences of the internal Great Divide between Nature/Culture fuels moderns (of all stripes) to seek new ways of relating Nature and Culture for example through notions of sustainable POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 9 1 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 development (see Blaser, 2009). The questioning of the Nature/Culture divide conjoins with the mobilizations through which the several Others of modernity forcefully contest the colonial hierarchy (the external Great Divide of Euro-modernity) that places their worlds or ontologies in a subordinated position. The consequence is a situation in which modernity (in its multiplicity) starts to become visible as an ontology among others (hence the point I made before, about the ontological turn being a symptom of the current conjuncture). This, besides fueling a search for other forms of being modern, also allows (the various) moderns to consider as plausible and/or desirable other ontologies that before were taken to be cultures whose insights were irrelevant, mistaken, or unrealistic. And as ontological conflicts become increasingly visible as such and proliferate, the privileges of the Euro-modern constitution become based more and more on, to use Guhas (1997) words, c.o.. .|co u..c,. This brings me to my concluding reflection: what roles do the modern and the non-modern play nowadays in our imaginings of possible futures? The crises of the modernity . |c (that is, Euro-modernity) its progressive loss of hegemonic power (although not of dominance), leads many of us who have been trained and raised within its ontological armature to consider that there are no modern solutions for modern problems (Santos 2002, p. 13) and therefore that we must seek a solution outside of it. In some cases, but not always, this leads to a re-edition of the myth of the noble savage: in our desperation to find a way out we take whatever we consider Other as the panacea. But recognizing that this is a problematic move should not blind us to what is Other and interpellates us demanding that, beyond and above our own search for solutions to our dilemmas with modernity, we relate to them in non hierarchical ways. In general terms this means avoiding forcing them into the ontological armature of modernity either by omission or commission; in particular, this means not taming them with our category of Culture. Now, Grossbergs project reminds us that this might be possible within modernity, if we allow for the possibility of its multiplicity. More importantly for those of us concerned with the place and survival of radically different worlds is that, given its dominance, the emergence of a different kind of modernity (one concerned with translating rather than proselytizing) is more likely than simply its total demise along with Euro-modernity. Conversely, for those concerned with the actualization of other, more just, non-Euro-centered modernities, addressing the question of how to relate to radical difference without taming it might provide an indirect route to achieve their goal; after all, as the Levantine example indicates, a modernity that does not tame radical difference will indeed be something else than Euro- modernity. 8 9 2 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 Acknowledgements I want to thank Lawrence Grossberg, Arturo Escobar, and John Pickles for inviting me to present some of these ideas in their graduate course at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I am especially indebted to the rst of them for allowing me to discuss and use in this paper his unpublished work. He has informed me that a revised version of this paper will appear in his forthcoming book, tc. co!o.o! :o1.. (Duke University Press, 2010). Elena Yehia provided insightful comments and critiques of an earlier version of this paper. Marisol de la Cadena and Arturo Escobar have been very close accomplices in the formulation of some of these ideas but I am responsible for the weaknesses in this presentation. Notes 1 The framework is being developed by a group of colleagues including Marisol de la Cadena, Arturo Escobar, Harvey Feit, Justin Kenrick, Brian Noble and the Crabgrass Collective. However, I must make clear that there are debates among ourselves on whether the term political ontology is the most appropriate to label this emerging framework. 2 A central tenet of ANT is precisely that agency is not an exclusive attribute of humans. 3 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4636044.stm 4 See http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/06/16/orca_drums040616. html; the story of Luna received a lot of media attention and besides news and blogs now there are two feature lms about it: :... c |. P|o!., which is a dramatization, and :o. too, a documentary. 5 Bolivia, and the gure of Fausto Reinaga, provides a good example of why this should not be the case. Fausto Reinaga was an Indigenous intellectual who in the 1970s gave voice to a then barely audible claim, that social transformation in Bolivia had to be based on reclaiming Indigenous identities and visions of society against the projects pursued by the Euro-centric elites (from Left and Right). In a context in which the dominant language of radical social transformation was the peasant revolution, Reinaga was considered a romantic and fundamentalist and therefore silenced and marginalized. Through the years the conceptual shift that Reinaga was pushing for gained more traction (or became more visible), and 30 years down the road the re-assertion of Indige- nous identities and values became undeniably central to ideas of radical social transformation in Bolivia. For a discussion of Reinagas ideas see Lucero (2007). 6 Lets recall that Scott distinguishes between a public transcript (which is readily available to any observer) where, given power asymmetries, the terms of the discourse are shaped by the dominant group. Thus, much of the subordinated group critical discourse never appears in the public transcript, POL I TI CAL ONTOL OGY 8 9 3 D o w n l o a d e d
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2 0 1 0 rather it appears in the hidden transcript, the space where the subordinated groups are secluded from the gaze of the dominant group. 7 The arrow of time was mainly understood as a progression, although it could be understood as a sort of regression as well, as the Romantics did. Not surprise then that any contestation to dominant notions of progress are still labeled romantic and often equated to a desire for the past. It is important to highlight, however, that the groups that self-dened as modern (and therefore superior) have been historically variable albeit not arbitrary, the invariable element has been that the story of modernity (in its Euro-modern version) is enacted through those human groups practices and institutions. Thus, Euro- modernity is not restricted to Europeans but rather exists/extends as far as one can trace that its version of the story of modernity is being enacted. 8 Of course, the ontological turn is itself a symptom of certain occurrences that are key to understand the current conjuncture. I will expand on this point in the Conclusions. References Asad, T. (1973) +|.cc!c, o1 |. cc!c.o! i.co.., London, Ithaca Press. Blaser, M. (2007) Bolivia: Los desaf os interpretativos de la coincidencia de una doble crisis hegemonica, in r...o1c !o o..c . ic!..o Mc...c c..o!., .o1c , c.c!c.o!.1o1, eds K. Monasterios, P. Stefanoni, & H. Do Alto, La Paz, Bolivia, CLACSO/Plural Editores, pp. 1121. Blaser, M. (2009) The Threat of the Yrmo: The Political Ontology of a Sustainable Hunting Program, 1|. +....o +|.cc!c., vol. 111, no. 1, pp. 1020. Blaser, M. (in press) :c.,.!!. c!c/o!..o.c .c |. c|o.c o1 i.,c1, Durham, NC, Duke University Press. Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (eds) (1986) P... co!o.. 1|. tc... o1 tc!... c i|c.o|,, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. de la Cadena, M. (2009). Poutica ind gena: un analysis mas alla de la pol tica, Pc.!1 +|.cc!c.. :.c.| i!...c.. jco.o!, vol. 4, pp. 140172. Available at: http://www.ram-wan.net/html/journal.htm Descola, P. (2005) to.1.!o oo.. . .o!o.., Bibliothaeque des sciences humaines, Paris, Gallimard. Dussel, E. D. (1995) 1|. i..c c |. +....o i.!.. c |. o|.. o1 |. M,| c Mc1...,, trans. M. D. Barber, New York, Continuum. (Originally published 1492). Escobar, A. (2007a) The Ontological Turn in Social Theory: A Commentary on Human Geography without Scale, by Sallie Marston, John Paul Jones II and Keith Woodward, 1.oo..c c |. i.o. c i...| c.c.o|.., vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 106111. Escobar, A. (2007b) Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise, co!o.o! :o1.., vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 179210. Fabian, J. (1983) 1.. o1 |. o|.. uc +|.cc!c, Mo|. . o/.., New York, Columbia University Press. 8 9 4 CULTURAL STUDI ES D o w n l o a d e d
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