The Perspectivism of the Other

Abstract

The text attempts an anthropological investigation of European metaphysics and colonialism from the perspective of Amerindian worldviews and collective practices. In the clash of radically incompatible ways of constituting and living relations with the world, illustrated by the Spanish conquista campaign led by Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco Orellana (1545), autochthonous peoples see not only evidence of colonial brutality. Through commemorative ritual practices that play up “first contact” in a humorous and critical way, they also objectify this encounter in order to stage and ridicule the practical unviability of the colonial project, correlating with its theoretical narrowness. In the Amazonian cosmological terrarium, the colonialist reveals himself as a super-predator, endowed with deadly appendages (the soldier's arquebus), an impenetrable skin of chain mail and iron lats, and the ability to panopticize by observing others from beneath the visor of his helmet. However, the alien pays for this position of absolute invulnerability with its own blindness, when it is found to be immune to relationships of commodification at the lower levels of the food chain. The invader's behavior becomes the object of alien perspectives that require a different scaling of reality and consideration of its irreducible diversity. This critical reassessment of colonial thinking and praxis is expressed in American mythology and the culture of ritual cannibalism, an integral part of the autochthonous worldview.

Translated from the edition: Goddard J-C. Ce sont d’autres gens: Contre anthropologies décolonisées. — Paris: Hermann, 2024. — pp. 109–136. — ISBN : 978-2381140742. Published with the kind permission of the author and the rights holder.