A Possibility of Thinking the “Ontological Violence”: the Question of “Otherness” in the Figure of the “Colonized”

Abstract

This paper approaches the problem of “otherness” through the figure of “the colonized.” Bringing this question into focus requires the problematization of all attempts to naturalize any form of philosophical absolutism, i.e. of “ontological violence”, while also inviting “other” ways of thinking and referring to that which is “strange,” the colonized. Such alternative ways are outlined in a space of resistance to any appropriation that seeks to bury that which is different in the territory of “the same”. This openness to the “other”, to the “stranger,” implies not accepting any form of seizure; ultimately, it entails resisting any form of thought exercised by a homogenizing violence.