Hacia una arqueología de lo caníbal: saber, discurso y subjetivación del “otro” caribeño

Abstract

This research project, presented as a monograph, seeks to make visible the historical conditions of possibility that led to the production of the statement “cannibal”, through a metathesis, as a means for the objectification of the “Caribbean”, its system of acceptability, and its power effects within what came to be known as the “New World.” To achieve this purpose, woven from the specificity of a colonial problematization in accordance with a critical ontology of the present, the study employs the archaeological method by virtue of its nature as a “toolbox”. This approach constitutes an analytic of discourse, open to constant renewal, that allows for the examination of statements as positivities that articulate power regimes through propositions of truth. The first chapter constructs a documentary foundation based on the expression “anthropophagy” across various mythical domains of knowledge, thereby assembling an archive that enables the identification of thresholds and sediments in the formation of regulatory systems within the forbidden-permitted typology concerning the consumption of human flesh. The second chapter analyzes the regimes of truth associated with the production of the cannibal–caribbean subject, its unfoldings and resistances, from the perspective of a critical ontology of the present. Finally, the work offers some reflections and considerations for the continuation of this endeavor, both as a future educator in the field of language and as a political agent.