25 Mar 2022
Animism as Relational Epistemology and Ontology
Indigenous knowledges have traditionally been treated as a field of research for anthropologists and as ‘mistaken epistemologies’, that is, un-scientific and irrational folklore. Within the framework of the environmental humanities, however, a strong interest in non-anthropocentric approaches and epistemic injustice has emerged, with a focus on animism as a powerful critique of modern epistemology and an alternative to a Western worldview. The lecture argues that treating indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing as a (potentially) decolonizing and liberating practice could help build a more inclusive and holistic knowledge of the past. Following recent works by anthropologists and archaeologists such as Nurit Bird-Rose, Graham Harvey, and Tim Ingold, ‘New Animism’ will be considered as an alternative (relational) ontology that allows for a radical rethinking of the problem of matter and agency and that goes beyond human exceptionalism.
Ewa Domańska is professor of human sciences at the faculty of history, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań and, since 2002, visiting professor at the Department of Anthropology/Archeology Center/DLCL at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the methodology of history, contemporary theory and history of historiography, comparative theory of the humanities and social sciences, new trends in the humanities, as well as the environmental humanities, ecocide and genocide studies. Domańska’s recent publications include: ‘The Paradigm Shift in the Contemporary Humanities and Social Sciences’, in Philosophy of History: Twenty-First-Century Perspectives, ed. by Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen (2020); ‘Unbinding from Humanity: Nandipha Mntambo’s Europa and the Limits of History and Identity’, Journal of the Philosophy of History, 14 (2020), ‘The Environmental History of Mass Graves’, Journal of Genocide Research, 22,.2 (2020), and ‘Prefigurative Humanities’, History and Theory, 60.4 (2021).
Venue
ICI Berlin(Click for further documentation)
Organized by
Jenny HaaseKathrin Thiele
Video in English
Format: mp4Length: 00:51:53
First published on: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/animism-as-relational-epistemology-and-ontology/
Rights: © ICI Berlin
Part of the Workshop
Intra/ Sections: Post-Anthropocentric Concepts of Multiplicity
The workshop sounds out conceptual and phenomenal resonances between what in Western academic discourses has of late become known as ‘New Materialism’ (in its different strands) and the long tradition of (but also always newly emerging) indigenous and decolonial epistemologies. The idea is to look for ways to concretize the potential for intra/sections in-between posthuman(ist) and indigenous/decolonial thought-practices, hoping for a dialogue between more Western-oriented approaches — e.g., actor-network theory (Bruno Latour), the figures of the cyborg and companion species (Donna Haraway), vital materialism (Jane Bennett), un/limited ecologies (Vicky Kirby), or agential realism (Karen Barad) — and alternative indigenous cosmologies and ethical praxes such as ‘buen vivir/sumac kawsay’ (Alberto Acosta/Eduardo Gudynas), Amerindian perspectivalism (Eduardo Viveiros de Castro) or shape-shifting border/lands (Anzaldúa).
The workshop invites its participants to diffract heterogeneous ways of thinking and enacting multiplicity. Collecting insights from literary and cultural studies, natural sciences, sociology, non-western cosmologies, or religion, it hopes to produce a vision of how a post- anthropocentric perspective can enrich an understanding of ‘world’ as a plurivocal worlding process.
Venue
ICI Berlin(Click for further documentation)
With
Vera BachmannMartina Bengert
Xenia Chiaramonte
Iracema Dulley
Carmen González
Nadine Hartmann
Johanna-Charlotte Horst
Özgün Eylül Işcen
Sarath Jakka
Birgit Kaiser
Michael Karrer
Elizabeth Landers
Taynna Marino
Hanna Meißner
Mariana Simoni
Hannah Steurer
Veronika von Wachter
Max Walther
Jobst Welge
Cornelia Wild