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Pluriversal Knowledges and the Planetary Polycrisis: Balancing the Cognitive and the Material
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Abstract:
It is now widely recognized that the urgent responses required by the planetary polycrisis, could well come from pluriversal knowledges. This is because their epistemologies focus on the balance between humans and nature and rooted in local ecologies, their practices foster interdependent, sustainable relations of production between humans and nature. Thus, the cognitive manifests in the material, such that the cycles of production and regeneration in nature determine that of production by humans. The epistemology also governs patterns of consumption and distribution – allowing for the possibility of balance overall. This set them distinctly apart from, and in terms of ‘sustainability’, superior to capitalist systems of production.
Capitalist systems that entered the ecologies where these knowledge systems had been in practice, disrupted the production systems significantly. The disruption elicited two kinds of responses. The first was that of these knowledge systems mirroring the dominant one, and creating their Double. The second response was more creative, drawing upon new technologies of production and distribution systems, while trying to to retain their epistemological distinctiveness—that is, to remain the Other. So the challenge was in the balance between the cognitive and the material.
This paper, based on the study of specific initiatives in India, will explore in some depth the second of the two above--that of remaining the Other. It will examine how this response faced two challenges. One is external-- from the capitalist systems of production, consumption and distribution, which are challenges of standardization, creation of new commodities and scale. The other challenge is internal – of deep social and economic hierarchies like caste and gender, that are endemic to the societies in which these knowledge systems are practiced. Yet, they have recognized that retaining the distinctive epistemology of the Other need not necessitate retaining these hierarchies and inequalities. So, they have explored paths that include democratization of the practices of these knowledge systems. This paper argues that together, the pathways generated in response to these challenges, offer more equitable and just responses to the polycrisis.
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