Resurgence as a Method to Overcome the Abyssal Line: Challenging Notions of Epistemology and Ontology

This article explores how Indigenous practices of resurgence challenge Western assumptions of a hierarchical ontological and epistemological divide. Colonization constructed a Euro-centric, dichotomous conception of knowledge that marginalized (appropriated and erased) Indigenous communities and their approaches to knowledge production. In this article I first review a secondary literature concerning how Western thinkers such as Kant, Descartes, and Newton posited a limited understanding of epistemology and ontology. I then highlight alternative understandings generated by Indigenous practices of resurgence. I propose that resurgence articulates ontology and epistemology as entangled while centering a community-oriented and politically poignant framework of knowledge creation. In so doing, I place the value framework of Indigenous resurgent practices into conversation with quantum social science theories of entanglement to argue that a resurgent approach challenges the Western-centric ontological and epistemological divide, generating alternative ways of knowing and being. I thus propose that resurgence is one way for quantum theorists to engage more deeply with Indigenous theorists and contribute toward a decolonial, ethically oriented epistemology and ontology framework.