Viveiros de Castro and Saer

two ways of devouring the world

Abstract

This paper proposes a comparison between the anthropology of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and the fictional universe of Juan José Saer, taking as its point of departure the theme of anthropophagy as it appears in Cannibal Metaphysics and The Witness. The comparison is warranted not only by the shared presence of cannibalism in both works, but also by the fact that each discourse configures itself as a form of speculative anthropology: in Viveiros de Castro's case, through the intersection between the worldview of Amerindian peoples and the conceptual framework of Western anthropology; in Saer's case, through the literary rendering of a reality that resists assimilation into signification. The problematics in which these two anthropologies converge is that of translation. The incorporation of the world under the figure of the other raises the question of whether this process can be understood as a fusion of horizons or whether, on the contrary, translation necessarily entails a new act of creation. Both Viveiros de Castro and Saer affirm the second possibility.