Podmiot nieantropocentryczny w kosmologiach indygennych
The Nonanthropocentric Subject in Indigenous Cosmologies

Author(s): Małgorzata Poks
Subject(s): Anthropology, Non-European Philosophy, Ethics / Practical Philosophy
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: subjectivity; subject; indigenous cosmologies; Indian perspectivism; relationality
Summary/Abstract: This article reflects on the concept of the subject from Indigenous perspectives, arguing for the recognition of relational ontologies inherent in traditional knowledges as potentially a game changer in the legal protection of the rights of animals and the whole planet. Indigenous peoples tend to view agency as intrinsic to all of reality: since all that is, can potentially assume the position of the subject in relations with humans, the common condition for humans and nonhumans is not biological animality but humanity understood as a condition of original undifferentiation. In the kincentric ontologies of numerous Indigenous communities, animals have the status of First People; they are co-creators of the word, teachers, and guides of fledgling humans. The opening of the Western world to Indigenous cosmologies would lead to questioning of the anthropocentrism on which our legal systems are built; this, in turn, would conceivably result in the construction of an alternative animal subjectivity much more conducive to interspecies justice. In the eyes of the law thus revised, an animal would be a nonanthropocentric, even though still largely anthropomorphic, person.

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