Spirit Matters: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Cosmic Becoming across Human/Nonhuman Borderlands

The “New:” A Colonization of Non-Modern Scholars and Knowledges

“…It seems that new materialisms are the Euro-Westerner's attempts to heal the West (and all peoples and the earth who have been negatively affected) from the colonizer's oppressive logic-acts of separation, control, and violence. As Schaeffer contends, "The emergence of feminist materialism certainly marks the need for heightened attention to the toxic consequence of the Anthropocene on all forms of life" (Schaeffer 2018(Schaeffer , 1008. That is what is broken: he colonial logic-practices of power dominating the Anthropocene and exploiting non-modern peoples and the earth.…”

“…For example, we identified with Lugones's critique of the modern when we read works of new materialist scholarship and were reminded of our experiences with non-modern philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh's resonance with, but absence from, the published works of the “new” (Nhất Hạnh 1988; 1997; 2001/2009) Then we read Schaeffer's and Todd's analyses of the silencing of Indigenous philosophers from the conversations of the “new” (in some academic fields also called the ontological turn) (Todd 2016; Schaeffer 2018). And so it seems, not originating in modernity, the land of “progress,” “improvement,” and “advanced civilizations,” these multiple, varied and context-specific non-modern knowledges, and the ways in which they influence the conversations of the “new,” were (and are) delegitimized, silenced, and marginalized under the “new,” “modern,” Euro-Western philosophy.…”

“…What are we calling for? Not a savior complex of white scholars as the new materialisms might be read to be operating (Ahmed 2008), but a decolonial commitment and practice that centers around acknowledging non-modern philosophies as part of the conversation of new materialisms in substantial ways (Weheliye 2014; Tuck, Yang, and Gaztambide-Fernández 2015; Rodríguez 2018; Schaeffer 2018; Tuck and Yang 2018). In this section we (1) make a call for reparations of knowledge via a value shift toward “a logic of coalition of multiplicity” (Lugones 2010) that includes being intentional about citation practices (Ahmed 2013; Todd 2016; Schaeffer 2018; Tuck and Yang 2018) in order to (2) end the epistemology of ignorance we see functioning in the “new” (Tuana 2004).…”

“…But it's just not new. We are certainly not the first to make this claim (see Ahmed 2008; Todd 2016; Schaeffer 2018). As Ahmed argues, feminist scholars were already theorizing material and cultural relations and challenging the hegemony of traditional philosophical approaches.…”

“…AbstractWe engage in an affirmative feminist reading of the recent, predominantly Western, philosophical movement called the new materialisms—that is, we problematize the “new” while still valuing its contributions toward justice (Todd 2016; Schaeffer 2018). We put Sara Ahmed in conversation with María Lugones and Zoe Todd in order to recognize that not only have feminist scholars engaged in conversations around the material before publications of the “new” (Ahmed 2008; Lugones 2010; Todd 2016), but we also argue that the “new” creates a coloniality of non-modern knowledges that think and live some of the so-called groundbreaking ideas of the “new.” The new materialisms, then, function systematically to deny and silence the multiple and varied ways in which the concepts it engages have a prolonged and deep scholarship of theorization in both feminisms and non-modern knowledges.…”