Ontological Turn
Updated 2026-08-05
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A movement in anthropology and social theory, associated with Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Bruno Latour, that shifts analysis from how reality is represented to what is taken to exist. Rather than treating indigenous claims as alternative cultural interpretations of a single nature, it grants ontological pluralism: for some Amazonian peoples, jaguars are persons rather than animals merely symbolizing persons. The core claim is that worlds are enacted in practice, not only described. The qualification is that it complements discourse analysis instead of rejecting questions of power.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Use Radical Perspective Taking: Assume a foreign group inhabits a different reality rather than holding different opinions. - Use Entity Audit: Ask what exists and acts in their account instead of only how things are described. - Use Nonhuman Inclusion: Treat technologies and natural entities as participants with real agency in the analysis.
Anchor fast decisions
When a group's practices consistently treat an entity as a subject with intentions, that treatment shapes what the group can perceive and do, so the entity becomes real within that world. Analyzing only the words used misses the causal work those entities perform. Taking existence claims at face value therefore changes what counts as data, which is why this shift produces different findings than representational analysis does.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_turnverified
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