The great British Philosopher Alan Watts succinctly defines epistemology as “who or what I am” and ontology as “who or what the universe is”. The main difference between indigenous ontology and Western ontology is the non-divide between nature and culture, between ritual/spirituality and technology/science, between the divine and the human, between the secular and the sacred, between the public and the private, and probably many more (Apffel-Marglin 2012). This reflects on their relationships to their land. Instead of extractive processes, reciprocal relationships are built with food providing plants and animals (Morrison 2015). For many Indigenous communities, land is more than just property, it encompasses culture, identity, relationships, ecosystems, social systems, spirituality, and law (Indigenous Foundations, 2009; Watts, 2016). Vanessa Watts (2016), a Mohawk and Anishnaabe scholar, observes that many Indigenous societies understand humans to be made from the land itself.
The ontological separations of Western worldview, however, were associated with the idea of progress. It drives the evolution of humans towards “the mastery of the natural world, which in turn would free humans from the bonds of necessity” (Apffel-Marglin 2012). From this colonial worldview, societies are built upon the domination over nature – where land becomes valued and modified in terms of progress and advancement (Watts 2016).
It is important to note that this idea of linear progress, with the narrative of cognitive imperialism, the goal of domination and the assumption that “native ritual knowledge is pre-scientific and in need of advancing to a scientific status” is the rationale of colonization, and the root of the current, western-institution-led developmental regime.
I resonated a lot with this quote in Hall’s article, that “contemporary underdevelopment of many parts of Latin America was created by the same process of capitalism that brought development to the industrialized nations”(p41). This made me reflect on the motives and purpose of these developmental regimes. Wealth does not exist in a vacuum. Wealth exists in dependence on poverty. Wealthy cities do not exist in a vacuum either. Wealthy cities, or parts of a city exist based on the spatial segregation of development. Using the same logic, prosperity of the global north does not exist in a vacuum. The prosperity of the global north, in the system of capitalism, exists because of the exploitation of the labour, the land, the ecosystem of the global south (Goldman 2014). Therefore, what is the real effect of so-called development when it “reproduces endlessly the separation between reformers and those to be reformed by keeping alive the premises of the Third World as different and inferior, as having limited humanity in relation to the accomplished European”(Hall 2019)? It is also important to notice why the impoverishment of the global south has been heavily emphasized, especially by these western developmental institutions, and developmental solutions have been forcefully spoon-fed to so-called third world countries. It is obvious that these Western developmental institutions such as the World Bank and the international finance institutions are not charities, so are these developmental projects just another investment opportunity? Is it even possible to alleviate problems such as poverty, lack of infrastructure, illiteracy that are claimed to be the goal of development in a system that intentionally reinforces these problems?
Apffel-Marglin, F. (2012). Subversive Spiritualities: How Rituals Enact the World. .https://oxford-universitypressscholarship-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199793853.001.0001/acprof-9780199793853-chapter-3.
Goldman, Michael. “Development and the City.” Cities of the Global South Reader. Routledge Urban Reader Series (2014): pp. 54-65.
Hall, K. Melchor. Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness. Routledge, 2019.
Indigenous Foundations. (2009). Land & Rights. Retrieved March 2018, from http://indigenousfoundations.web.arts.ubc.ca/land__rights/
Morrison, D. (2015). Cross Cultural Interface Where Indigenous and Sustainable Agri-Food Systems Intra-Act. BC Food Systems Network Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, www.indigenousfoodsystems.org/sites/default/files/resources/WGIFSBCFSNMtgReportPart2Aug2015final.pdf .
Shandas, V., Graybill, J.K., and Ryan, C.M. (2008). Incorporating ecosystem-based management into urban environmental policy: a case study from western Washington, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 51:5, 647-662.
Watts, V. A. (2016). Re-meaning The Sacred: Colonial Damage And Indigenous Cosmologies. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1886437778?pq-origsite=summon
Tamara Mitchell
October 20, 2020 — 6:15 pm
Watts’s definitions of epistemology and ontology are excellent. Thanks for the useful and succinct alternatives.
Likewise, I found the discussion of undeveloped / underdeveloped / developed to be impactful. It’s absurd that these synthetic categories, which have created so much harm and destruction, are accepted as *the* uncontested path. I just found a book on exactly this issue (a social movement accepting support from a system it seeks to overthrow) in the context of Guatemalan Indigenous movements in the neoliberal postwar (the author is taking an optimistic approach): https://utorontopress.com/ca/dealing-with-peace-3. I’ll let you know if it’s convincing 🙂