ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the problem of the otherwise from a strictly ontological perspective, against the backdrop of contemporary discussions on development and post-development. It focuses, more specifically, on decolonial practices implemented in various communities in Malawi to challenge short-sighted colonial developmentalist strategies that propose solutions to non-existent problems. This experience, the author argues, reflects the need for cognitive justice in the making of a pluriverse, which must not be confused with a more inclusive universe. For a pluriverse is, by definition, Multiple, and this means that “problems” and “solutions” cannot be the same everywhere. But this, in turn, requires to speak of different ontologies, as there is no one world diversely interpreted depending on each culture’s epistemological idiosyncrasy, that is, different situated knowledges of a pre-situated univocal reality, but as many situated realities as worlds in a pluriverse.
