The Pluriverse

I have tried to demystify the concept and notion of pluriverse. It was first used by the Zapatistas in their decolonial vision of a world where many worlds coexist in harmony. It is, however, not only a decolonial vision but also an imaginary of radical hope. Holding and nurturing the vision of a 'pluriverse' enables us to reimagine a world beyond nation-states, geopolitical power differentials, beyond 'man-made' borders and boundaries.

The vision expands our senses, allowing us to move beyond discrete and often colliding worldviews to a sense of our planetary wholeness. I call this world-sensing. A pluriverse is not an esoteric concept. It is our natural existence. The world is a pluriverse. The imposition of a hegemonic and conformist notion of a 'universe' with its singular narrative was essentially an Eurocentric imperial-colonial project.

This website and my work is committed to offering the vision and imaginaries of pluriversality as alternatives to the hegemonic monomyth that has been controlling the civilizational trajectory for more than 500 years. Reimagining and reconstituting a pluriversal world is a necessary step towards regeneration.

Click on the links below to explore the other sections on this page.

Why Pluriverse

Change of Era

Change of Narratives

Why Pluriverse

A Pluriverse is 'a world where many worlds fit'. It is a vision and imaginary of radical power. However, it is not an esoteric concept. Our world is pluriversal. It is wondrously entangled, abundantly diverse, and indelibly interconnected. The vision of a pluriverse, therefore, recalls and reinstates the very truth of our existence. It is predicated on Relationality, Decoloniality, and Nonduality. And therefore presents alternative visions for emerging possible futures.

It rejects the imperial-colonial project of a 'universal narrative' as capable of encapsulating this pulsating, vibrating, entwined, and living world. It is a vision of a world beyond anthropocentrism, growthism, resourcification, and mindless consumerism. It is an invitation to reimagine a world where many worlds coexist and cultures collide--not in competition but in curiosity, collaboration, and co-creation. It is an entanglement of many epistemologies, ontologies, and cosmologies. This convergence and synergy have the power to lead to the emergence of higher orders of complexity, elegance, resilience, and regeneration.

Seen through the lens of the Eurocentric, hegemonic worldview and its economic monomyth of infinite growth, the vision of a pluriverse may seem utopian or naive, or both. However, holding a pluriversal vision and nurturing the stories and narratives that are already reconstituting the world is crucial in these times of planetary collapse. As we stand on the brink of polycrisis, rapidly devolving into a metacrisis, a radical vision of pluriversal futures is one way to move out of this hegemonic matrix and cage.

The notions of Separation, Supremacy, and Hierarchy were imposed as an imperial-colonial project. This project has morphed and shapeshifted over the past five centuries from direct invasion and conquest to neoliberal capitalism manifesting as neocolonialism. The underlying narrative has remained unchallenged and unchanged. It has effectively become invisible and thus more insidious. This hegemonic narrative has permeated every facet of our existence from economy to ecology, education to healthcare, politics to spirituality.

Today's normal and business as usual are built upon centuries of extraction, exploitation, expropriation, and exclusion. These have taken many forms from direct ethnocide and genocide, ecocide and epistemicide to eco-apartheid, displacements, and dispossessions of the most vulnerable from their lands. The commons have been appropriated by a cartel of billionaires under the guise of progress and development. This illusory narrative is now falling apart; the myth of progress has spectacularly failed. And the myth of the normal is busted.

The myth of the normal, thus, begs the questions:
What is normal?
Who is it normal for?
Who defines the parameters of normal?
Whose stories are used to exemplify normal?
What undergirds the foundations of this normal?

As the hegemony crumbles, its Eurocentric narrative of self-proclaimed superiority and universality stands exposed. The facades of growth and progress have fallen away; our civilizational trajectory defined by an economic monomyth is floundering. The era of changes underscored by the same narrative of supremacy, imperialism, and hierarchy is giving way to a Change of Era. We are at a point of discontinuity. A portal has opened up. And new stories are wafting in. The foundational narratives are being rewritten. We are all witnesses to the reshaping of history.

The emergent futures herald radical transformations of metaphors, values, beliefs, stories, and paradigms. The many movements dotting the planet, the marching bodies, the bridge-builders and storytellers are harbingers of alternative visions. They have already moved us beyond the matrix into the cracks and crevices, into the fissures and fault lines that have always existed on the superficially smooth surface of hegemony.

If you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the rumbles and roiling beneath as the crevices widen. And new ways which are also age-old ways emerge to regain their rightful places. The metropole is shrinking and dissolving into the whole. As it should.

This dissolution of the hegemony is going to be violent and vicious. The hegemony will lash about in its death throes much like a dying dinosaur that doesn't recognize its end is near. Hence, the need to keep the vision of a pluriverse alive, build the capacities and skills needed to nurture and nourish the vision, and hold space for the emergence of possible futures.

The diagram below is a rough illustration of how more than 500 years of imperial-colonial imposition have led to a polycrisis, and a profound crisis of meaning-making . The antidote to this, I believe, is to seek alternative narrative(s) that have always existed but have been deliberately delegitimized, rendered invisible, and suppressed through various means.

From the Edges

This Change of Era heralds the coming of a pluriversal world. The dangers of a single story have become abundantly evident; it is time to to replace this Eurocentric monomyth with the multitudes of stories arising from the edges and margins.

These stories are not to be found in documents and archives. They arise from the crucibles of myriad cultures and contexts; they are embodiments of lived experiences, of generational wisdom, of relationships with the land, the sea, the mountains, and more-than-humans. The many voices represent our wondrously entangled and enmeshed world. And as they intersect and interweave, a pluriversal world where many worlds coexist is being painfully but irreversibly born.

This shift will be as profound as the Agricultural Revolution or the Industrial Revolution. It is already shifting our collective imaginaries and expanding our realm of possibilities beyond the matrix / cage of the hegemony. The synergy of many cosmologies, ontologies, and epistemologies will lead to the emergence of systems of greater complexity, elegance, and resilience.

Let us slow down and listen to the unheard, unnoticed, unappreciated voices and narratives signaling to us from the peripheries, from the edges of “civilization”. Voices and stories that have for centuries been marginalized, demonized, invisibilized — the oppressed, brutalized, and systematically persecuted voices of the human and the more-than-human.

Global South exists in the peripheries and margins everywhere. We become aware of them in movements like #BlackLivesMatter, #IndiaFarmersProtest, #StudentsEncampments and many other local movements of dissidence and resistance that fly under the radar, are never reported, often brutally quelled. They are in the 'sacrificial zones,' in the refugee camps, in the blue boats traversing the ocean in seek of safety with babies in their arms. They are the billions standing up against the hegemonic cabal. They are the original inhabitants, the displaced and the dispossessed. Their land is expropriated in the name of development, their waters polluted for growth, and their sky poisoned for profit. The polycrisis, imminent planetary collapse, the silent steps of the Sixth Mass Extinction refuse to go away. They are all Global South--the unheard, unseen, unacknowledged and delegitimized voices. Now, they are bursting forth through the cracks.

This shift has always been evident in the edges and corners, and are now entering the center, the metropole. The hegemonic powers are lashing out in fury and futility. But the shift is inevitable. It becomes imperative to be able to nurture and nourish the emerging new stories. And to collectively build our capacities for radical imagination, community building, and collective sensing.

In that sense, to describe and inhabit a pluriverse requires not so much a worldview but a world-sense. It requires an understanding of our entangled lives on this sentient planet. The infallible truth of our inextricable interconnectedness and interdependence with all sentient beings and this Planet. It is predicated on the wondrous concept of Interbeing as propounded by Thich Nhat Hanh.

As we traverse this liminal space between stories, the journey requires thoughtful preparation. The path is neither easy nor well-laid. It is a path to be made by walking. The risks are many. The rewards are great.

Those who step into this liminal space will need a set of skills, tools, and capacities as compasses on this Path of Transition.
Questions are our compasses.
Radical Imagination our guide.
Collective Imaginaries our blueprint for possible futures.

1. What is the essence of a world that contains multitudes of narratives — a world where many worlds fit?

2. How can we collectively build the capacities for radical imagination and fearless imaginaries?

3. What are the founding principles and values of a Pluriverse?

The journey is not for the faint of heart. But should you wish to undertake this pilgrimage, I offer some tools, guidelines, and frameworks. They will help clear the undergrowth. If you or your organization(s) wish to become future ready, build capacities for a regenerative future, or embark on a journey of transformation, get in touch.

Welcome fellow travelers!

Change of Era

Every choice we make is a vote for the future
we wish to inhabit, inherit, and leave behind

We are moving into a Change of Era, where the foundational paradigms, metaphors, and narratives are shapeshifting, heralding very different futures. Whether we are aware of this shift or not. Even as the known world with all its paradigms of growth and progress collapses all around us, new narratives are rising from the cracks and crevices of this rupture. Joanna Macy called this The Great Turning.

This liminal space between two worlds--the old that is dying and a new that is painfully being born--is a space between stories. It is characterized by extreme dissonance, violence, polarization, fracture, confusion, and chaos. While it is easy to feel the rumblings of chaos, what gets lost is the fiercely tender work being done to midwife different possible futures, the birthing of new stories.

The arrival of the new has never been easy. The work of midwifing, mediating, facilitating, and bridge-building is happening all over the world from students' encampments across universities to the protests of young Afghan girls for their right to education.

The new narratives are already being scripted. History is rupturing and reshaping in real time as the imperial-colonial hegemonic empire crumbles. We are the witnesses. How we bear witness matters. Bearing witness is no easy task. It requires humility, integrity, and a rigor of observation that cuts through rampant propaganda. We are also the amanuensis. And it becomes our sacred work to become scribes for emergent possible futures.

In this moment, it is crucial to engage in radical reimagination, deliberate community building, and developing the capacities required to nurture and nourish the soils from which the seeds of the future can emerge.

As Arturo Escobar writes, 'there is still much in life that refuses to yield to the ontology of devastation and to the vacuous notion of progress'. It is this vibrant hybrid music that the vision of a pluriverse honors and applauds.

And the wisdom and vision for possible futures will come from the edges, margins, borders--the unheard, unseen, unacknowledged voices deliberately delegitimized and rendered invisible.

Change of Narrative(s)

Who gets to tell the stories? Whose stories are heard?
Who will be the storytellers of emergent futures?

"It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world." ~Ben Okri

The world is discarding the trappings of a single hegemonic monomyth and is moving towards webs and weaves of many narratives, many stories. The imposition of a narrative has always been an apparatus of control. And now the vestiges of that narrative are being rejected. The new narratives are emerging from unseen, unexpected, and unbidden corners.

Stories are our compasses giving us a sense of coherence and direction as we navigate our lives. They form the foundations of civilizations. The stories we tell, recall, and repeat matter. Today, the story of infinite growth on a finite planet has brought us to the brink of planetary collapse. A story rooted in Supremacy of certain cultures and civilizations, Superiority of certain bodies, Separation from Nature, Others, and Self, and a Denial of all limits have created a world where 1% thrive at the expense of the rest. Therefore, the stories we tell matter. As our civilization stands on the cusp of transition, stories matter exponentially more. The stories we hear, gather, and disseminate are crucial in these times of world-building. Exponentially more important in a uber-connected and tech-driven world.

Stories build for us a lucid web of understanding which then act as our guides in decoding the world and its messages. They literally codify the world for us. The stories we tell ourselves have immense power but this is often forgotten because they are invisible, pervasive, and appear in myriad forms.

For more than five centuries, a singular Eurocentric hegemonic narrative has been imposed on the rest of the planet as an imperial-colonial project. It has defined every aspect of life from politics to society, education to healthcare, ecology to economy. It no longer works. The economic monomyth spawned an extractive, exploitative, and exclusive economy that is devouring the planet for the benefit of a few. It has led to a cult of individualism that has killed communities and fractured societies. Extreme consumerism has created a vacuous world devoid of spiritual grace. And the machinations of its propaganda has deluded millions. However, none of this is working.

As the hegemony disintegrates into incoherence, the lost stories are reappearing from the shadowy, ignored, and invisible corners of the world. The hegemonic propaganda is failing and flailing about ever more wildly. They have lost the narrative war. Hegemony functions through propagating certain narratives and suppressing alternative visions and imaginaries. Therefore, the hegemony desperately tries to control the Narrative. This Change of Era is not only being fought through wars but also through narratives. And the narratives are shifting. Radically.

We are bearing witness as history is being remade and reshaped, as the old narrative of supremacy and separation flounders, and myriad other stories appear from the cracks and crevices of hegemony's fault lines. The cracks are hidden pathways that evade attention till they become wide enough, deep enough to completely fracture the carefully constructed facades of delusions and diffractions.

These emergent narratives inhabit multitudes of spaces, appear in many garbs, and rapidly spread via hidden alleys and pathways traversed by ordinary folks. This is how a pluriverse is co-created. Outside of established and endorsed power structures and status quo, a pluriversal world is slowly taking shape. New narratives and imaginaries are bringing forth different possible futures.

They claim no superiority or universality. They are contextual, local, partial. These stories form mosaics and constellations of epistemologies. And thus represent the abundant diversity of an entangled world.

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms,” wrote Muriel Rukeyser.

We have to invite the unseen, unheard, unacknowledged voices, and look for the hidden narratives in the edges and margins, rising through the cracks and crevices of a fractured, polarized, wounded world. In them lie the healing powers of regeneration.

Frequently Asked Questions

This is a living document of questions about the vision of a pluriverse and my offerings.
The questions here change over time as do the answers. This exploration is a journey of unlearning and relearning.
Very often, it is about not learning. Just sensing and being.

What is Proteeti?

Proteeti is the name of my boutique consulting company. It's a Sanskrit word which means 'wisdom that transforms'.

What are your offerings?

My writings are my primary offerings to you. You can read them on Substack for free. You can also visit Medium for my earlier writings in Age of Emergence. If my work resonates with you, and you wish to engage further in co-creating a pluriversal world, read on.

Who might find your offerings useful?

If your team, community, or organization is on the cusp of transformation, you will find my offerings useful. Transformation in the true sense of the word is not a project with a deadline; it is a journey to be undertaken with thoughtfully, and with adequate preparation. See me as your journey guide and facilitator. The journey is yours. I show you the guideposts, provide the compass, and help you clear the undergrowth. The process itself is transformative.

Do you offer courses, coaching, or workshops?

Yes, I do. My offerings are available both face to face and online. To know more about these services, contact me using the form below. Or email me directly at sahana2802@gmail.com.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently writing my book which I have tentatively titled, Reimagining the Pluriverse: A World where Many Worlds Fit. During this time, I will be doing mostly what I always do. Research, reflect, write, hold dialogues with people, and speak at panels and podcasts.

How do I get you to come speak at my organization, university, or conference?

Send me an email at sahana2802@gmail.com. It's really that simple. Whether it is to be a panelist, to do a session, to be interviewed on your podcast, or speak with your community, drop me an email with a brief description of your requirements. Or you can connect with me using the form below.

For an example of an interview, you can refer to the interview here: CREATING FORESIGHT FUELED ACTION: SAHANA CHATTOPADHYAY

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