Metics and the art of playing with contradictions

Bibliographic Data

ID4448068
AuthorsJulia Sushytska (Occidental College, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume2
Issue1
Pages408-425
Publication date2019-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTapuya Latin American Science Technology and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2572-9861 • E-ISSN: 2572-9861
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/25729861.2019.1670447
OpenAlexW2991192298
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited22

The metics, or those who live in-between several different cultures, nations, races, ethnicities, or identities, have a major epistemological advantage: they are more likely to develop a way of knowing, different from Western rationality, that could help transform oppressive institutions and identities. I will call this way of knowing metis, and argue that it allows one to handle more effectively ambiguous and complex situations. I will define it as the art of playing with contradictions, and maintain that it generates new knowledge from the tension between divergent forces. Even though metis works with or through contradictions, it does not violate the principle of non-contradiction, and in this sense is not incompatible with rationality. In fact, rationality is unsustainable without metis. To elaborate these ideas I will rely on several concepts developed by Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldúa and Eastern European philosopher Merab Mamardashvili. Speaking from different cultural and geopolitical contexts, both thinkers maintain that it is epistemologically more advantageous to position oneself in-between major cultures and identities

Contradiction · Epistemology · Geopolitics · Metis · Political science · Politics · Rationality · Sociology · Computer Science · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access