The Slippery Fish Metaphor: A Derridean Reading of Ontological Pluralities in Indigenous Thought and the Ontological Turn in Anthropology

Abstract

This article critically examines the demand, shared by the ontological turn in anthropology and Indigenous thought in academia, to take the ontological claims of Indigenous peoples literally rather than metaphorically. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s reflections on the impossibility of pure literality or metaphoricity, Iargue that this distinction reproduces the metaphysics of presence and the transcendental humanism structuring Western thought—precisely what Indigenous thought seeks to dismantle, yet a focus on ontology tends to reinstate. The work of Indigenous scholar, artist, and philosopher Zoe Todd is analyzed, particularly her “Critical Indigenous Fish Philosophy,” which advances a literal reading of human/animal relations in her context. By bringing deconstruction, Indigenous thought, and anthropology into dialogue, I contend that the affirmation of pluralities of being—characteristic of the ontological turn—does not escape Western essentialism, and that it is politically more significant to affirm the multivocity of language than ontological multiplicity. In doing so, the article defends interpretation and metaphor as forms of resistance, particularly by reopening alimentary language as a philosophical and political field.