Can the subaltern save us?

Abstract

ABSTRACT A cursory review of diverse theories (postmodernism, posthumanism, postcolonialism, decolonial theory, and anthropology) that are concerned with the crisis of modernity and ecological destruction reveal not only how moderns often have turned to indigenous cosmologies and ontologies to find resolutions to this crisis, but also how confounding this process of recuperation has been. We observe moderns sometimes trying to appear as saviors of the subalterns because they intuit in the subalterns a revelation so powerful it will prevent the definite destruction of the world, or at least redeem the moderns from the sins of their ancestors. At other times, we find moderns giving a substantive importance to the concepts and ontologies developed by non-moderns as a way to imagine futurity for themselves. Instead of rescuing the subaltern, it is the subaltern that rescues them. There are also cases where indigenous ontologies and cosmologies are utilized in unstated forms as in posthumanism, revealing the colonial relationship to indigenous knowledges that modern theorists often have. This includes postcolonial and decolonial theorists from the south, which is my locus of enunciation. Indigenous intellectuals themselves are committed to rescue their ancestral knowledges to build futurity as they also believe that their cosmologies and ontologies are better suited to solve the problems of modernity. But in the indigenous projects, there are no absolute dividing lines or clear-cut dichotomies between indigenous and modern epistemologies. Here I argue that indigenous peoples have dealt for centuries with modern epistemologies. Indigenous theories must be taken more seriously, but also critically analyzed.