Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies

At the outset of his reply to Ulrich Beck in this symposium, Bruno Latour cites a case study of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and repeats an anecdote he tells about Amerindians and conquistadors talking at cross-purposes. Latour deploys the story to illustrate his claim that even the most well-intentioned and sophisticated peacemakers can get us into worse trouble than we were in when negotiations began. The problem, he says, is that the likelihood is low that either side in a communication, let alone a formal negotiation, knows what the other side thinks is under discussion. Negotiating contradictory opinions may seem difficult enough, but in cases of deep enmity, opinions are not what is at stake. The disagreements are ontological: enemies disagree, as Latour cites Viveiros de Castro saying, about what world we inhabit. And when peace is achieved, it does not consist in agreement to a set of opinions or principles; the parties begin, rather, to live in a different world. The article that follows is not the one to which Latour refers but a later and related paper, appearing here in English for the first time. It has already been published, in a somewhat different version, in Italian and for an anthropological audience. It was not written for this symposium, in other words, and does not directly respond to either Latour or Beck; but Viveiros de Castro has revised the article for inclusion here, and its relevance should be immediately apparent. —Editor