European Modernity vs Indigenous Knowledge: The Establishment of a Pluriverse.
There is a concept that has been looming on the backspaces of Global Relations. Wherein, a theory has been concocted that we are indeed a part of a world that has many realities and differing knowledges led by Indigenous and those of Afrodecendants. For a long time now we have seen and acknowledged a Eurocentric historical framing of the world, where scholars, philosophers and political men of white European decent have led the movement on what is seen as the acceptable norms and values of our society. This is what the doctrine of the ‘One World World’ is in reference to. A universal world where European capitalistic modernity monitors the ins and outs of the world. It establishes the ways of living, rules on who can express knowledge and when, and implements regulations of what worlds are seen as a democracy and what worlds are in need of existence. The basis of this research will look at how this singular universe, that the one world doctrine has created, is indeed defective through the exploration of how decolonial theorists understand the world. Deconstructing the epistemological understanding of modern structures by enabling the acceptance of differing world knowledges and lived experiences shape the planetary. Which will then allow us to focus on the hypothesis of how a pluriverse is a more fitting concept in understanding the different reals of the world.
ii. Looking into the ‘One World World’ and the realisation of a Fractiverse
The ‘One World World’ order is perfectly demonstrated by John Law in his exemplification of What’s wrong with a One-World World (2011). As Law questions whether people believe in different things about reality, or is it that there are different realities being done at the same time but in different practices. He tries to establish this by dividing a rift between the world, where the European or the Northern ways of thinking carved out the world, which included its features such as the plants, the animals, the land and its people by viewing it as a process of ownership and occupation. The European conceptualisation viewed this process as a tactical reform where the world and its lands belonged to the people. This gave them the impulse and justification of enacting their colonial and imperialistic powers and establishing their domains. This was deep-rooted in the old English doctrine of terra nullius, which defined land that is legally deemed to be vacant or uninhabited. This was the case of Australia and its, somewhat, Aboriginal inhabitants who were meticulously excluded from their lands on behest of a European doctrine.
The contrasting views that defined the Aboriginal ways of life saw lands as a means of creation and process of recreation. Law (2011:1), identified how they indeed saw the world in a very different light “the world, including people, but also what Europeans would think of as topographical features, plants, animals, ritual sites, and ancestral beings are all necessary participants in a process of continuing creation”. This is where it differs, as the European viewpoint was that the world would internally carry on creating itself without the input of the people, whereas, the Aboriginal people claim to belong to the land and the world. They do not detach themselves from the process and the works of the world that constantly re-enact it. Which, in turn, establishes a clear outline of what the belief of the Indigenous people are in comparison to the European belief system. However, John Law questions whether it indeed is simply a matter of beliefs as he tries to understand the basis of the reasoning behind why white people believe in one thing and indigenous people believe in something completely different. He defines the concept of differences through the analogy that we live in a large space time box that encapsulates the whole of reality. By doing this in a liberal understanding of the universe, people have different standards of living, they have diverse cultures and deep rooted histories and, thus, by considering such understandings we recognise that there are clear differences between different sects of people.
Therefore, if the European system is a clearly distinct liberal society then that would mean that they would have to respect these differences without imposing their views on the different thinking people. Overwhelmingly, it is politically important to recognise that by living in the Northern container of the space time box, then we can imagine a liberal way of handling and understanding the “power saturated encounters between different kinds of people” (2011:2). However, by living and participating with what John Law refers to as the fractiverse, which is a dimension of multiple worlds of different enactments colliding without contrasting each other. There then can be no overarching political or ideological standard to mediate between the principles of these somewhat different realities. Which would, subsequently, allow for a contingent order with pragmatic local and practical engagement between these different realties. By accomplishing this, the one world order has a detrimental flaw. Do we live in a world, or a space time box, that is defined to be a single all-encompassing reality which we’re all inside of and are bound to? Or is it a much more of a set of conflicting realities that are intersected which act in different power saturated practices that Law refers to as the fractiverse.
The one world doctrine is such a soluble and powerful concept for the Europeans due to the fact that there is only just the one world. Hence, queries about plural realities and the fractiverse come off as being a bit too eccentric of a philosophy. They don’t want to see the world as being more than it is supposed to be. The standard set by the Europeans should be ascribed to, the reality that they defined is the right concept for the people of this world so to encompass it through colonialism was an act of benevolence in order to establish the right one world order. If the option of a single world order is not applicable, then this opens up the field of intellectual inquiry that is at the same time a field of political and ideological intervention. With Law, establishing the important urgency to “inquire about the practices that enact one world realties”, it also becomes astronomical in examining about “the practices that other multiple world realities”. Whilst simultaneously trying to understand the practices within the spectrum of Europe that multiplies these realities, even as they insist to establish a singular epistemological universe. Accordingly, the problematic aspects of the one world doctrine is that it diminishes the aspect of the differences between the worlds. It simply turns other worlds and realities into mere beliefs, by drawing clear distinctions between people who are similar to us and share the Eurocentric ideologies that are prominent in the north or to distance ourselves from them and ridicule their realities as they contradict our singular worldviews. This concept diminishes the idea of a fractiverse by clearly stating that we are a part of an all-encompassing universe with a singular reality with different strands of beliefs. The ‘One World World’ model doesn’t take into consideration that there can be multiple realities due to the conflicting power structures of the North and the South. This can be explained through postcolonial theorists who try to understand the colonial backings of western knowledge who see any other forms structural living in-complacent to the European model.
iii. Decolonial theory and the establishment of a Pluriverse
Accordingly, it is very important to look towards decolonial theory as it tries to look at the legacy of colonialism and the impact of imperialism. It looks through a varied lens to try and understand the perspective of indigenous groups that don’t tend to have a voice within the comprehensive arena of academia. Postcolonial and decolonial theory implements the understandings of other theoretical approaches, and tries to understand why the global south stands at the outskirts of civilisation. Decoloniality is most important in determining that there is indeed factions within global International Relations that avoids tackling issues such as class, ethnic, gender and race critiques. It is the deconstruction of these European concepts that challenges the handicaps set up by European scholars. Hence, understanding decolonial approaches means that one intervenes in the milieu of modernity and tries to clarify that the generative direction of European capitalist modernity is indeed flawed. The understanding of decoloniality is then linked with the establishment of the pluriverse, as it’s the natural fit to the supposition of decolonial theory and practices. As decolonial approaches try to make sense of our reality and the natural worlds that we occupy, the pluriverse is therefore necessary to understanding our cosmos as it implies that we must follow the ontological approach of enabling multiple avenues of existences. Pluriversal approaches are important in vilifying the true bounds of Global International Relations, as it takes into consideration that there must be many ways of being in the world. It takes the indigenous worldview that we live in a fractiverse, as referred to by Law, where multiple realities and worlds are all interconnected. In other words, there is a human world that we are a part of, a natural world that encompasses us, and a spiritual world that we truly do not understand. Therefore, the pluriverse is much more than mere philosophy, it is a way of being as it implement relational ties between all of existence. Suggesting that the earth is a living being that is in constant emergence, and in a way cannot be understood through the further enactment of the “One World World’. Simply because it declines to understand the input that other worlds have on the planetary.
In retrospect, the concept of developmentalism can be said to be rooted in the contextualisation of European modernity. As they proved, across the enlightenment period, by annexing and occupying the Americas, Africa and parts of Asia, that it was clear that through this process of scientific development and expansion saw the endorsement of violent methods which allowed for them to encompass different regions of the world. We can also argue that it was in no way scientific, as that would require the aim of acquiring new knowledge about the natural world. As we’ve come to find that it is a hyperbole of the exchange of acquired knowledges. As this enlightenment era didn’t allow for the implementation of succession to occur, their only concern was to conduct territorial surveillance and the accumulation of resources they could appropriate. This is a very problematic approach for the one world doctrine as the advancement of modernity and the goal of developmentalism is interlinked with the exploitation of the global south. Therefore, the cultural development of Europe should be universally adhered by all other cultures if they want to survive.
This can be seen in the Treaty of the Waitangi, which was signed between the British Empire and the Maori chiefs of New Zealand in 1840. The treaty was accomplished as a reciprocal gift giving exchanges between both parties, but the Maori group contended that such actions were not reciprocated by the British, yet in fact they were deceived altogether. The British Empire not just failed in respecting such relational ties, but in fact, they became invaders who subjected the native Maori population to external rule which saw them seizing all of their land, forest and fisheries (Blaney and Tickner, 2017:306). “As reality exists as an array of open ended, continuously reproducing networks of relations in which the human and non-human (plants and animals) and spiritual domains are interrelated and every gift or loss must be reciprocated”, this perspective doesn’t just establish a different belief system for the indigenous people but a whole new alternate world, where accommodating a pluriverse is essential.
This being said, the one world prospect denies that indigenous knowledge could be a new component in understanding the world and the implementation of autochthonous scientific discovery. As what is seen as mere cultural dichotomy towards science can be rectified with further considerations. Thus, it is solely down to modernity to absolve what can be regarded as being scientific discovery. A few centuries ago Newton’s law of universal gravitation was regarded as the greatest scientific discovery in recent history, but that could only be adhered to by permitting the one world doctrine as Newton was both withe and European. So, the discussion then leads to if we truly live in a fractiverse then there should be great scientific discoveries occurring simultaneously between these realities. With the one world doctrine in place the chance of any indigenous knowledge being allowed to reach centre stage is impossible.
iv. The great knowledge divide and the Epistemologies of the Global South
The framework initiated by Arturo Escobar in his work on the Epistemologies of the South (2015) provided a workable solution for those people who no longer want to be complacent with the silencing of popular knowledge and experiences by Eurocentric knowledge. This framework recognised the ontological view that with multiple knowledges there comes multiple worlds, thus, with varying epistemologies there will most likely be an adherence for multiple ontologies. Therefore, when considering the one world order, decolonial theory is contradictory in its nature as it defines the planetary as having multiple realities with diverse knowledges which don’t always have to fit into the Eurocentric standard. Escobar reinforces this notion by suggesting how ontologically speaking, the crisis of the one world doctrine is the practices of such world makings. As the European model is entrenched in euro-modernity which is characterised by capitalist, rationalist, liberal, secular, patriarchal, and white principles. The one world order subject’s other worlds, or realities, to the standards that are upheld by itself or disregarding it altogether. This is very evident if you just take a look at our own history. The Native Americans were classed as being non-essential group of people, much similar to the Aboriginal people of Australia, as the Europeans saw the way they lived and purposely contrived that due to their closeness to nature they would simply be objects of study, as opposed to subjects of knowledge (Rojas, 2016:372). This can be elaborated through racial classification, as Indigenous and Afro-descendants were subjected to be altered and marginalised as modernity profiled those as being subjects to be conquered. Enableing and encouraging them to subscribe to those standards adhered to by the colonisers. In order for them to be even on the playing field they would need to conquer, use and see their natural worlds as resources, in order for societal developmentation.
An example of this would be the Gold Rush of the 19th century in the Americas, where white settlers killed or enslaved the indigenous population whilst occupying their lands in order to search for gold. They used the concept of extractivism, which is another ideology that also maintains the modern colonial ontological occupation of territories. As this idea carries on the practice of participating in terra nullius, as modernity actively tries to create spaces for the tangible expansion of the one world. They do this by simply rendering the so called empty spaces that they occupy, and making the previous world that make those places obsolete (Blaser and De La Cadea, 2018:3). Hence, this human and nature divide is the reasoning behind as to why the doctrine of the one world is very flawed.
These can be expressed through the application of the dependency theory, a theory that focuses on critiquing such modernity by trying to understand why non-western countries are supplementary to inter-dependency. What are the reasoning as to why the western world is viewed as being powerful and the so called ‘third’ worlds are left to depend on it. Decolonial scholars, such as Cristina Rojas (2016), suggested that the dependency theory was crucial in trying to understand the connections that shed light on the human relational dependency between nations in the centre and periphery. She suggests that colonialism was a major factor in disturbing class factors when concerned within western relations with Afro and Indigenous people. Modernity sees the issue of colonialism as a relic of history, yet with dependency theory the colonial structures of domination are still very present within our society. As colonialism was the concept that drew lines across the indigenous worlds, the issue that created the hierarchy that stemmed from race and the concept that to this day allows for western knowledge to trump over the learned struggles of the people of the South. Rojas (2016:373), backs this notion by suggesting “dependency analysis did not question whether modernity would be — or even could be — the solution to the problem”, this argument suggests that European capitalistic modernity holds the answers in solving planetary issues and disregards knowledge of the south, which is in form a modern day concept of colonialism. The ontological view of the decolonial contestation of European modernity interrupts its commitments to the existence of the one world doctrine. Within Latin America this contestation is disturbed by indigenous men and women who actively call for “a world where many worlds fit” as its this visibility of indigenous realities that provoke a rupture in the nature and culture divide (2016:374). The dependency theory is motivated by the conquest that Europe has nothing to really learn from the people of the south, as they have their own origin, which is based on the paradigm of superiority held by the Europeans. As its this western thought that truly halts the progression of modernity, as the exchange of knowledges are not being reciprocated due to self-importance.
Thus, it is no surprise to establish that the understanding of the world is much broader than the western understandings of the world. As the world is in constant transition, the western theoretical thinking’s do not take into account that the civilizational transitions “adumbrated by many indigenous, peasant, and Afrodescendant activists, might happen (indeed, are happening) along pathways that might be unthinkable from the perspective of Eurocentric theories” (Escobar, 2015:16). Then, to rectify and to understand the thinking’s of such Afrodescendants and Indigenous people we must focus on moving away from the epistemic centre of Eurocentric social theories and move towards the epistemic formations of the multiple world theories that are understood within the pluriverse. The pluriverse is expressed as a way of looking at the world, with a contrast of the ‘One World World” that sees a singular universe, that there is a singular reality but with multiple practices, cultures and perspectives within it. Hence, the pluriverse is a counter doctrine to the one world order. The epistemologies of the north and modern social theory relies on the basis of division to epitomise the cultural and political divide between realities, as these distancing principles imply on what the reals and truths of the world are, which are epistemologies of alleged autonomies subjects that are moving around the universe of self-contained objects (Escobar, 2015:29). This shows the flaws of modern social theory as its mainly used to silence the realities of people in the south, as the ontology of disconnect does no favours for the knowledge that they produce in relation to their practices.
More recently decolonial theorists have come to display with the influence of movements such as the Zapatistas, the Mexican liberation movement of 1910, showed that there came a radical awareness of pluralism and subaltern realities. These have been associated with varying forms of open democracy that allow for many other worlds to be possible, and the ultimate goal to achieve such a world in which many other worlds fit into. The reason as to why the one world doctrine is flawed is simply because it fails to recognise that European capitalist modernity entrenches the disciplines of the realities of southern people. As Conway and Singh (2011:690), voiced how many critical theories in global democracy ultimately participated in the imperial and colonial project to which Arturo Escobar refers to “when they fail to recognise the Western capitalist modernist underpinnings of their proposals and knowledges, and their imbrications in furthering imperial domination of the Third and Fourth Worlds”. With this European capitalist modernity, comes the constitutive underside of colonialism. As there can be no modernity without coloniality. The colonisers used these so called colonial differences to establish and invalidate the practices of groups in the third worlds, as they made their practices to be known as less preferred in order to erase it from world history through sheer hegemonic power and well versed discourses. Subsequently, knowledge that has been classed as being inferior through the spectrum of colonialism has been silenced. Conway and Singh (2011) argued that this epistemic ethnocentrism that is rooted within modernity does not allow for inclusive political philosophies, in fact it makes it virtually impossible. Therefore, solutions to the one world order cannot be generated from within the European capitalism modernity, instead we need to refocus and look at the systems that were shunned by coloniality. The diverse knowledges of the ontological south that “expose the western cosmologies and rationalities as limited, particular and geographically and historically specific” can be used to further the discourse in relation to a pluriversal world (Conway and Singh, 2011:690). It is this modern and colonial view of Eurocentric worlding that makes it much more difficult to see different practices and worlds which can emerge from alternative cosmologies.
v. Rectifying the ‘One World World’
Consequently, Blainey and Tickner (2017:298) suggest that in order to undo the ‘One World World’ we must then begin by acknowledging and respecting differences as “something that cannot be included”. They argue that its simply not just about actively engaging with different perspectives across a singular world. But rather it’s about struggling to achieve a significant approach which goes across ontological grounds and recognises that it’s not just about the singular reality of the colonisers of Europe that structures the worlds. The ease of transitioning Epistemology towards an Ontological viewpoint is tested through a mirage of differing worldly activities. The analysis of easy translation from “multiple worlds to beliefs about a singular reality is revealed most starkly where lives known/lived differently are pitted against the reigning hegemonic orders” (2017:304). Hence, the concepts of regions and regionalism allow us to see the much clearer invocation of the pluriverse. As it draws us to look at not just how these regions self-organise their economic, political and cultural spaces but to also define and approach their relationship towards each other and allow for them to shape a global order (2017:301). By way of choosing a language of plurality as opposed the singular implies how regionalism, in the singular, as a category hides and loses its difference, whereas a pluralised characterisation seems to highlight the ability for there to be multiple worlds. Thus, Global International Relations gives us no choice but to look towards ontology as it fails to acknowledge the multiplicity of different realities. As the gestures of regionalism once again seems to put the complex order of multiple worlds into the singular structure, in which contending ideas, philosophies, and varying cultural perspectives are shown to be coexisting but ultimately turned into contending ideals on the shared platform of the one world doctrine.
Even when we look towards political theories such as constructivism, which suggests that we perceive our world through lived experiences, ideas and beliefs. It still falls back on the notion of a singular reality. As the ontological thought of there being multiple realities “stretch beyond even the relatively expansive readings of science provided by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson” (2017:303), which still relies on a universal epistemological approach which bides its way to reinforcing colonial sciences.
The conception of the Pluriverse problematizes the “One World World” as it implements and encourages the contestation between the different worlds in order to combat the problems that modernity has created and allows to continue. Issues such as climate change, fracking, monocropping and exploitation through wealth accumulation are very persistent in this monolithic universe. These issues have been very rampant, as the one world doctrine encourages the use of these methods to express and accumulate resources. This is ingrained in the acceptance that there must be progress at any cost, which has detrimental effects on the psyche of humans, the animals that we are exposed to and the planet that we occupy. However, alternative knowledges that were once shunned by European capitalist modernity may have the answers to fixing the problem. As they have “continued to cultivate knowledge sideways so as to possibly inform a decolonial project” (Rojas, 2016:380). For instance, in order to preserve biodiversity, we must look towards guidance from Indigenous people as the lands that they occupy result in higher native and rare species richness, with considerable lack of deforestation and land degradation (Schuster et al., 2019). So, the success of a thriving planet puts the efforts onto the governments that practice modernity to try to understand and recognise the relationship that indigenous people have with the earth and the environment. Whilst looking towards them to establish a strategy for the preservation of the planet that we all live in. Nevertheless, as modernity is much more comfortable at looking and engaging with the subaltern through colonial categories such as race, class, ethnicity, and the indigenous, they will not allow for anything lesser to challenge its universal domination. Blaney and Tickner (2017:306) imply, how we (European modernity) might offer the occasional tepid nod towards different beliefs in an attempt to mitigate our civilising gaze, we will not take these differences seriously as a real and engage it as a partner in rectifying politics and fixing the world.
So, in order to rectify the pain stakes of the one world doctrine we need to allow for the notion of multiple worlds with diverse knowledges to manifest, as the old system of epistemology rooted in coloniality simply isn’t working.
vi. Conclusion
The one world metaphysics is indeed disastrous in the advancement of decolonial theory and the establishment of an ontological spectrum. One which enables the expansion of different world in its implementation of the pluriverse. As we have highlighted previously, the one world doctrine is very problematic as it relinquishes reality from non-dominant reals, this doctrine tries to show how European modernity is the framework that the global south should be ascribing to, with its plan to turn their realities into mere beliefs in order to discredit their knowledge. This stems from the colonial legacies that were established by modernity, that the one world doctrine is an integral part of, as it conveyed clear divides when concerned with othering every other world. They implement the issue of radical differences that allows for disagreement to arise in the conversation and forces the mechanism which prohibits the acceptance of politics of earth beings and relational ontology to be visible and enacted upon. They do this by introducing elements such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity which all factor into the constructs created by the one world doctrine to try and enable the epistemological standards to be kept. Enabling an ontological perspective of a pluriverse, shows how the political circumstances can be. In order to partake in political discourses, or to even be considered as political entities, opposing worlds would not require to represent themselves as beings of historical or scientific evidences of existence. Instead they should present themselves as what makes them unique and different, emboss in all their heterogeneity. Henceforth, a society should automatically then encompass diversity of knowledges and not just enable the same rhetoric that has bounded them for centuries.
Global International Relations is also quite formidable to the advancement of a pluralising concept of International Relations, as it too does readily slip into the tropes of the one world doctrine. As it does recognise the multiplicity of different world views but not readily the acceptance of assortment of reals.
Therefore, subaltern realities offer forms of radical democracy which rely on contrasting concepts of differences and political clarification of such differences, which balance out the notion of disarticulating modernity. By offering up a distinct vision of the pluriverse from the subaltern worlds. This may then may hold the solution to rehabilitating the contemporary definition of democracy, by looking towards Indigenous people and those of Afrodecentants, we may finally have the solution to reform the earth by truly understanding our differences. One that cannot be rectified through the ‘One World World’ but instead through highlighting post-colonial aspects through the implementation of an ontological pluriverse.
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