EARTHLY INDIGENEITY: THE COGNITIVE AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF A DISREGARDED COSMIC OCCURRENCE

In any form, ‘being indigenous’ has a relational signification. Therefore, what consequences might there be for a conceptualization of indigenism that recognizes the commonality of our being indigenous to the Earth? Could we think of each instance of this common tendency to indigenize the Earth as a vernacularization of a universal inclination to produce indigeneity? In this vein, could we infer that indigenization is nothing but the spatial projection of a universal human inclination to engender culture? These questions and their implications could have a substantial impact on how we conceive of the relationship between indigeneity and space. Taking the idea of ‘earthly indigeneity’ seriously means reading every place as an epitome of processive threads interwoven through other places and, potentially, originating from every part of the earth. If so considered, the ‘fact’ of indigeneity becomes the result of a dynamic process carried out through a spectrum of planetary semiotic connections, and guided by responsible cognitive action. ‘Ought’ and ‘is,’ the cognitive and the ethical, materiality and immateriality, local and global, can be seen to intermingle within indigeneity in a transformative orbit around the continually self-respatializing life of culture that could be, semiotically speaking, a veritable form of ‘renewable energy.’