The Case for a Radically Relational (Non-Anthropocentric) Democracy

Abstract While the election of authoritarian-style regimes in the West shocks those with liberal-democratic sensibilities, the authors argue it is not unexpected in a system that was founded upon the same colonial rationalities that produced the capitalist global order. The Cartesian logics that produce the liberal-democratic, autonomous-human subject also enable the emergence of the conquering ( ego conquiro ) and genocidal ( ego extermino ) subject – whether through White ignorance, White supremacy, ecocide, or other structures of violence. The authors argue, however, that this moment of shock represents a critical opportunity for us to radically (from the roots) transform our liberal democracies. Turning to multiple, extant Indigenous, alternative, and emancipatory democratic traditions, they call for the composting of liberal democracy’s hyper-individualism through a transformative politics of radical, non-anthropocentric relational democracy.