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Waters, Anne. Language Matters: Nondiscrete Nonbinary Dualisms
2003, In Waters A., ed. American Indian Thought, pp.97-115.
Added by: Franci Mangraviti

From the Introduction: "Anne Waters shows how nondiscrete nonbinary ontologies of being operate as background framework to some of America’s Indigenous languages. This background logic explains
why and how gender, for example, can be understood as a non-essentialized concept in
some Indigenous languages of the Americas. [...] The Indigenous understanding that all things interpenetrate and are relationally interdependent embraces a manifold of complexity, resembling a world of multifariously associated connections and intimate fusions Such a nondiscretely aggregate ontology ought not to be expected to easily give way to a metaphysics of a sharply defined discretely organized binary ontology. From an Indigenous ontology, some multigendered identities may be more kaleidoscopic and protean concepts than Euro-American culture has yet to imagine."

Comment: Adequate for any course discussing Indigenous metaphysics; given the lack of particular prerequisites and emphasis on the gender example, it can also be used in a philosophy of gender course. Natural further reading for any course assigning Eichler's "Sacred truths, fables, and falsehoods. Intersections between feminist and native american logics", which heavily builds on it.

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