How many worlds are there? One, but also many
Decolonial theory, comparison, ‘reality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6260004 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Didier Zuniga (0000-0001-9016-4460, University of Alberta, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 264-287 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Political Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-8851 • E-ISSN: 1741-2730 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/14748851231214252 |
| OpenAlex | W4388832958 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 68 |
Contemporary political theory (CPT) has approached questions of plurality and diversity by drawing rather implicitly on anthropological accounts of difference. This was the case with the ‘cultural turn’, which significantly shaped theories of multiculturalism. Similarly, the current ‘ontological turn’ is gaining influence and leaving a marked impact on CPT. I examine the recent turn and assess both the possibilities it offers and the challenges it poses for decentering CPT and opening radical, decolonial avenues for thinking difference otherwise. I take Paul Nadasdy's critique of the ontological turn as an invitation to reflect on the methodological precepts that inform how the field frames the scope and limits of comparison. In pursuit of this, I examine the Zapatistas’ notion of a ‘world of many worlds’, which provides a way of approaching difference that captures the generative aspects of the ontological turn while avoiding the pitfalls of relativism and political inertia. I argue that the Zapatistas’ insights offer ethical guidance towards social and ecological thriving. Ultimately, my goal is to move CPT towards a more capacious form of making sense of what is out there in the world, and thus make room for better ways of inhabiting the Earth
Diversity (politics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Multiculturalism · Political science · Politics · Relativism · Scope (computer science · Social science · Sociology · Thriving · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Water Governance and Infrastructure
The Claims of Culture
Storytelling Globalization from the Chaco and Beyond
How Forests Think
Not Quite Shamans
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory
The Dawn of Everything
Anthropology as Cosmic Diplomacy
The Ontological Turn
Deparochializing Political Theory
A World of Many Worlds
Strange Multiplicity
The Death of Nature
Coloniality, Ontology, and the Question of the Posthuman
Forest Forms and Ethical Life
Earth Beings
Matters of care
What Is Democratic Theory
De-colonizing the political ontology of Kantian ethics
Rethinking the political in the pluriverse
The role of political ontology for Indigenous self-determination
Decolonizing Global Ethics
From Gender to Omeotlization
Alternative Global Entanglements
Introduction to the Special Issue
Ontological Conflicts and the Stories of Peoples in Spite of Europe
The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs
Constructing the Pluriverse The Geopolitics of Knowledge
Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
Imagined communities
Culture In Political Theory
Gather Your People
Universalism After the Post-colonial Turn
Back to the rough ground
Comparative political theory, indigenous resurgence, and epistemic justice
What's wrong with a one-world world
The limits of culture in political theory
Earthcare
Strange Weather
An Indigenous Feminist's Take On The Ontological Turn
Steps Towards a Legal Ontological Turn
Egalitarian Ideology and Political Power in Prehispanic Central Mexico
Doing and undoing Caribou/Atiku
Becoming Indigenous
Majority Norms, Multiculturalism, and Gender Equality
Tlaxcallan
The Mushroom at the End of the World
Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism
On the Inapplicability of 'Oriental Despotism' and the 'Asiatic Mode of Production' to the Aztecs of Texcoco
The gift in the animal
"Radical alterity is just another way of saying "reality
The New Materialisms and Indigenous Theories of Non-Human Agency
Decolonial and Ontological Challenges in Social and Anthropological Theory
Anthropology of Ontologies
How many worlds are there
Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique
Contesting the Colonial Logics of the International
Delinking
Ceci n'est pas un subalterne. A Comment on Indigenous Erasure in Ontology-Related Archaeologies
Alternative pathways to power in late Postclassic Highland Mesoamerica
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |