Ontocide

For an Ontological Radicalization of Decolonial Critique in International Relations

Abstract

This article introduces and articulates the concept of ontocide to radicalize the decolonial
project in International Relations (IR). We define ontocide as the founding violence of
colonial modernity: the systematic process of annihilating modes of existence and lifeworlds
that challenge liberal-colonial-modern ontology. We argue that the predominant focus on
the coloniality of knowledge (epistemicide), while crucial, maintains a bias by failing to
confront this deeper ontological dimension. To demonstrate the concept’s operational value,
we analyze three canonical pillars of IR: the denial of coevalness of other political forms (the
Westphalian myth), the erasure of the radical relationality of the international (the ‘Prison
of Political Science’), and the hierarchization of being by the colonial matrix. We conclude
that overcoming these ontocidal operations requires more than epistemological pluralism;
it demands an ontological turn towards a politics of multiplicity. This politics, grounded
on the recognition of the primacy of relationships, aims for the coexistence of plural and
irreducible worlds, moving beyond mere inclusion within the modern categorical universe.