ABSTRACT
This chapter answers the question: Is it possible for anthropological theory to engage with Indigenous alterity in ways that do not render Indigenous people and problems invisible? In addressing this question, this chapter first traces out the various ways that anthropologists and archaeologists have approached alterity, particularly focusing on recent scholarly interest in object agency and relational approaches. These intellectual interventions are part of the ontological turn, which has radically reconceptualized the role of Indigenous knowledge and theory in research. While the shift toward Indigenous philosophy as theory has gone a long way toward dismantling dualistic forms of Western thought, these alternative theoretical frameworks have often failed to attend to Indigenous politics. Building on this critique, this chapter lays out several principles of a critical Indigenous philosophy in order to develop a more socially engaged archaeological praxis. Ultimately, this chapter argues that Indigenous alterity demands that archaeologists attend to politics, either in the form of critique (anti-politics) or in an effort to imagine an alternative system (alter-politics).
