Coloniality and perspectivism in psychology: from damnation to ecosophical care relations

Abstract

Inspired by Amerindian peoples’ philosophy, this article aims to problematise the modern philosophical anthropology that underlies psychology as a social practice, and to use the Amerindian perspectivist philosophy proposed by Viveiros de Castro as a critique of Western values. Thus, we approach some of coloniality’s epistemological implications in the institution of subject-object and nature-culture separations that grounds psychology. On the one hand, there is a totalising unification, which operates alongside a transcendental subject that subjugates its object. Beginning from nature’s homogeneity, the differentiation and hierarchy of each being depends on its representations or its soul, expressed as a people’s culture or as an individual psychology. This spiritual-representational aspect is the very foundation of the colonialism and racism of damnation, and their purpose in perpetuating the miserable ways of life of those considered to be scum. On the other hand, in Amerindian cosmogony, humanity is a pronominal mode, a non-exclusive perspectivist position of mankind, built in each context of relations. It is based on this idea that we posit other bases and a new agenda for psychology as a social practice which can enable us to broaden our ways of living towards ecosophical care, as a way of resistance to coloniality.

Keywords:

• Coloniality
• epistemology
• Amerindian perspectivism
• decolonial
• Brazilian thought

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflicts of interest. Furthermore, we understand that it is extremely important to circulate and disseminate Amerindian ideas and guidelines discussed in this article.

Notes

1 Amerindian perspectivism assumes that there is a mode of cultural organisation—anthropocentric—inherent in the human and non-human species that have souls and what differentiates them is their multiple natures. Differing from representations, each perspective is organised by the body, by the multiplicity of natures. Thus, the perspective is given by the pronominal mode that each element occupies, what makes humanity defined by the position given by the relationship, by the central position that oneself plays in a perspectivist cosmogonic system.

2 Ecosophy is a ethical-political-aesthetic project that articulates the psychological, social and political processes to place subjectivity in relation to its exteriority. Thus, it relates social and mental ecologies to the political, environmental, scientific, economic and urban management of the planet. This does not intend to encompass all of them in a totalitarian ideology, but to indicate the path of diversity, of the creative dissent and responsibility regarding difference and otherness (Guattari, 2015).

3 Yanomami is a native Brasilian people that lives in north of the Amazonian region, mostly in the State of Roraima. In Yanomami cosmogony, the xapiri occupy a special place, they are the images of the animal ancestors that were transformed in the first time, when the forest was young. The xapiri inhabit the ends of the earth and wake up at night in the forest to play; the shamans of today and the past make them dance. Therefore, for the Yanomami, all beings have their utupë image, these are the images that shamans call and bring down, these images become xapiri when they dance and present themselves to shamans who are ambassadors between the worlds, between different perspectives.

4 The idea that nonhuman agents—mostly animals, great predators, rivals of humans, and the main prey of humans, but also plants or in inanimate objects that play a prominent symbolic and practical role—perceive themselves and their behavior under a human form plays a crucial role in Amerindian perspectivism.