La comparaison et la traduction au-delà des images du miroir anthropologique: la « contre-anthropologie multinaturaliste » de Métaphysiques cannibales

Abstract

The central problem of this text deals with the concept of counter-anthropology developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. The purpose is to reconceptualize the anthropological comparison from a decolonial point of view. The new task that the Brazilian anthropologist assigns to anthropology in Cannibal Metaphysics is a “permanent decolonization of thought”, which will only be realized when anthropology establishes an alliance with others’ philosophies. He brings to the forefront of anthropology Amerindian perspectivist multinaturalism coming from the encounter between a “certain becoming-Indian of Deleuze-Guattari’ s philosophy” and a “certain becoming-Deleuzian” of structural anthropology. By reversing Western multiculturalism and identifying the interspecific difference to the intercultural difference, multinaturalism makes it possible above all to redefine “comparison” – the emblematic method of Western anthropology – with its fertile concepts of translation and equivocation. In this text we try to show that, insofar as counter-anthropology is a power of becoming-other and transforming Western anthropology, it is different from some “post-colonial” projects that reproduce images of the anthropological mirror. Moreover, counter-anthropology cannot be identified with a recent theoretical orientation, the so-called “ontological turn”, since it is not about a plurality of ontologies, but about a multiplicity of perspectives, their becomings and their equivocal relationships.