Neocolonial decoloniality?: Ontological (in)security and the Pantayong Pananaw master fantasy

Abstract This paper develops ontological security theorizing beyond its Eurocentric focus by probing the Filipino pantayong pananaw (from-us-for-us perspective) movement as a potentially decolonial intellectual and political framework. Drawing on Lacanian theorization of ontological security, I argue that pantayong pananaw can be thought of as a master fantasy that guides the desire for and quest by a formerly colonized group to become coherent, complete, and indivisible Filipinos . Amidst the inescapable ontological lack and anxiety deeply entwined with their colonial experience, the pantayong pananaw fantasy operates as a protective mechanism that promises a resolution to an original deadlock: the absence of Filipinoness . Owing to its inherently Self-versus-Other orientation, however, the pantayong pananaw fantasy inevitably imposes a closure based on a singular version of social reality aligned with an idealized vision of the Filipino identity, homeland, and nation-state. The result is neocolonial decoloniality , that is, a condition where the pursuit of intellectual and political decoloniality paradoxically creates and entrenches existing (neo)colonial structures and arrangements that perpetually marginalize certain groups within a postcolonial society. Such a dilemma has significant implications for the ethos and practice of decoloniality both as an intellectual and a political project.