New Tribalism as a Zoetological Web of Becomings: Building Conceptual Kinships between Anzaldúan Studies and Chinese Philosophy

Abstract In comparison to her other theories on radical inclusivity, Chicana feminist philosopher Gloria Anzaldúa’s new tribalism has faced relatively harsh criticism, especially from Indigenous perspectives. However, new tribalism remains a valuable theory for relational identity formation and planetary politics. This is especially relevant in the current historical moment when dichotomous thinking and exclusive nationalism return to govern our lived realities. For Anzaldúa’s new tribalism to continue to build connections across differences, this article proposes revisiting the theory from a Chinese philosophical lens. Specifically, this article adopts a comparative philosophical approach to translate Anzaldúa’s theory of new tribalism through a Chinese worldview attentive to relational becoming, cosmological resonance, and the interdependence of diverse lives, a worldview encapsulated by Roger Ames’s neologism of zoetology. In contrast with substance ontology, zoetology views humans not as beings but as becomings, driven by associative rather than categorical thinking. From a zoetological perspective, this article argues that, instead of appropriating Indigeneity, Anzaldúa’s new tribalism aims to approximate indigeneity with ethical distance in order to unfold potential pathways of identity and political becoming. In this spirit, this article also enacts intellectual new tribalism by creating conceptual kinships between Anzaldúa’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy.