Perturbing possibilities in the postqualitative turn: lessons from Taoism (道) and Ubuntu

Abstract

Recognizing cognitive imperialism in the emerging postqualitative regime, we propose a hesitation, a perturbation to think the other-than-ness of the west. Asserting the postqualitative regime as west reinforces hegemonic epistemological violence; we look to the East and Africa – progenitors of the west-termed postqualitative regime and seek to privilege the onto–epistemologies from which these concepts were culturally (mis)appropriated. More specifically, we explore the southern African philosophy of Ubuntu and Taoism from the East to transgress west. These oft-western denigrated indigenous philosophical concepts embody the postqualitative conceptual (mis)appropriations of entanglement, the inseparability of ontology and epistemology (onto–epistemology), and an ontological positionality of immanence – interpenetration – impermanence. Re-conceptualizing the postqualitative regime, we offer a turn to non-western indigenous ontologies illuminating African and Eastern philosophies pregnant with multiple possibilities for living–thinking–being ourselves, postqualitative research, and the world anew.

Keywords:

• Postqualitative
• Taoism
• Ubuntu
• decolonization
• indigenous onto–epistemologies

Notes

1. In this paper, we do not capitalize ‘w’ in the word West/Western to counteract the colonial convention of capitalizing West/Western as a hegemonic placeholder.

2. Throughout the remainder of the article, we will utilize the alphabetic spelling of Taoism. We include here the Chinese character to raise awareness of the differences between alphabetic and ideographic cultures, and their potential interpretational differences.