The ontological turn names a movement across philosophy, anthropology, and science studies that takes seriously the possibility that different peoples do not merely hold different beliefs about the same world but inhabit different worlds — that ontological difference is not reducible to cultural interpretation. This topic area collects the thinkers, concepts, and debates that constitute the turn and connects them to the relational ontology developed in this research program.
Key figures include Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (Amerindian perspectivism), Graham Harvey (new animism), Philippe Descola (four ontological modes), and Bruno Latour (actor-network theory). The ontological turn intersects with process philosophy, Indigenous resurgence, and the critique of substance metaphysics.