HUMANS, NONHUMAN OTHERS, MATTER AND LANGUAGE: A DISCUSSION FROM POSTHUMANIST AND DECOLONIAL PERSPECTIVES

ABSTRACT Our objective is to discuss decolonial and, mainly, posthumanist perspectives, as we engage in an inter-epistemic dialogue, which encompasses discussions on matter and language. At first, we address Indigenous thoughts in order to relate them to decolonial and posthumanist worldviews, briefly concentrating our attention on some arguments concerning their relation, and we justify our choices. We draw on critiques of colonial and humanist ideas about humans, nonhuman others and matter, and we then discuss traditional conceptions of language. From a posthumanist framework, we approach understandings of language that directly intertwine it with materiality. Based on the problematizations we present, our aim is to expand understandings of what it means to be human and perceptions of language, as we become involved in a project that seeks to see and go beyond human hubris. Therefore, we encourage an onto-epistemological review of language, based on its entanglement with matter.