The Settler Baggage of Abstraction
The Settler Baggage of Abstraction
Author(s): Simon BarberSubject(s): Customs / Folklore, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure
Published by: Addleton Academic Publishers
Keywords: settler-colonial; Māori; Marx; Sohn-Rethel; Simondon;
Summary/Abstract: In this article, I describe one of the basal motifs of the Pākehā world in terms of its difference from the patternings of te Ao Māori. The motif is both a patterning traced by a mode of life and an epistemological diagram of the structures of thought that are co-constituted in that pattern. I read the Pākehā world from the perspective of its difference from Te Ao Māori, using Karl Marx, Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Gilbert Simondon as native informants of the European mode of life and questioning them about their difference from the perspective of a world primarily patterned on whakapapa. I argue that monetary exchange expresses the fundamental configuration of Pākehā life and thought, and I detail the hostility and incompatibility of this organisation of existence to that of te Ao Māori.
Journal: Knowledge Cultures
- Issue Year: 10/2022
- Issue No: 3
- Page Range: 12-34
- Page Count: 23
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF