Research 4.0 and the Ontological Turn

Abstract Drawing on the term ‘Research 4.0’ to describe research that relies on twenty-first- century convergent technologies that are defining industry 4.0, including human sensory enhancements, this paper interrogates the ontological turn to interface spirituality and technology. Drawing on fieldwork in Zimbabwe, this paper contends that Research 4.0 enhances relational fieldwork, which is an aspect of the ontological turn, but it cautions that African ontologies should not be mistaken for relational ontologies that presuppose that humans and nonhumans are on the same ontological plane. The paper contends that with the human enhancements that come with Research 4.0 it would be possible to consider research on both human subjectivities and nonhuman umwelts , including those of animal familiars. And when humans begin to share genomes of nonhuman witches’ familiars, in chimera-hood, it becomes possible to study the visible and invisible of quantum anthropology in ways that obviate the pitfalls of the speculative turn.