context [fae/faer, fae/faer]

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: February 13th, 2021

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  • yeah, i’ll try to make an effort post soon. i’m not an expert, but it’s something i’ve been trying to correct my own understanding of, which is that “cargo cults” were generally revitalization movements promising to restore social relationships that were being destroyed through the process of colonialism. i think many westerners, myself included, have a notion that “cargo cults” originated from air drops during world war 2, and that simply isn’t true. such movements go back to the late 19th century and organized around charismatic indigenous leaders promising an alternative to the european colonialism being imposed upon them.


  • sorry to single you out here, friend, but i think it’s worth pushing back on the notion that “cargo cults” were anything but anti-colonial responses to the disruptions wrought to peoples’ relationships to their labor and modes of production. in some sense that’s also what’s happening now, but you seem to be buying into the notion that cargo cults were based primarily on superstition and gullibility, when they were in many ways a rational social response to their own subjugation and displacement.