Introduction

Exploring Multifarious Worlds and the Political within the Ontological Turn(s)

Abstract

This introduction to the issue presents the political dimensions of research carried out within the framework of the ontological turns that stretch between Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Drawing on the concept of political ontology, practical ontology, and the papers assembled in this issue, we embrace the political to be practically sitting transversally in different political fields that foster the constitution of new forms of life as alternative ontologies. In this sense, politics is a critical endeavor to unravel power asymmetries. It attempts to not only illuminate different ontologies, but to realize and co-constitute them. To avoid getting trapped in a mere description of alteritarian worlds and their political power structures, we propose focusing on the largely invisible moments of ontological uncertainties. These eerie moments, which exist in common but non-contemporaneous environments appearing in between something and -time, can provide a learning opportunity for understanding inheritance as responsibility. Their appearance jumbles time and ontological orders, granting us insights into automatic modes of action that normally go unseen. We thus sketch a policy for making oddkins throughout worlds, including its specters.