An-Arché, Xeinos, urihi a: The Primordial Other in a Cosmopolitical Forest

Abstract

An-arché is the absence of ground. Heidegger contributed to the study of an-archaeology by postulating a new beginning that, despite being a beginning, is not capable of grounding anything. This second beginning is more primordial than the first, which is the basis of metaphysics and its effects in the history of intelligence. The second beginning is not a foundation, an arché, but the an-arché that underlies physis. This paper attempts to transpose this an-archaeology to a different, quasi-Levinasian context where ontologism is rejected and therefore what is at stake is not being (or beyng) but rather the Other. In analogy to Heidegger's underlying abyss of beyng, there is a more primordial otherness (Xeinos) underneath any Other we meet (Xenos). In order to conceive this second beginning of Xeinos, I mobilize the notion of forest (urihi a) as formulated by Kopenawa and Valentim. What emerges is a framework for a history of otherness, a history of Xeinos as a cosmopolitical narrative.