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In Pieter Odendaal’s debut, asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie (as if no mountains ever lived here), the poet expands the complex question “re mang?” (who are we?) into an important theme and utilises it as a structural element by building the different sections of the volume around various conceptions of ‘us’. In this article, I argue that Odendaal’s poetry should be read in terms of relational ontology, seeing as relationality and interconnectedness are important themes in the text. The poetry creatively introduces a posthumanist way of looking at subjectivity and intersubjectivity. The text problematises the position of humankind on earth and in the larger universe, and asks questions regarding the basic ways in which we understand the concept of ‘us’, our existence and the ways in which we relate to every other inhabitant of the planet (human or non-human; living or non-living). In the process the Cartesian view of humankind is deconstructed and the human’s ontological position is decentralised. Everything on earth is placed on equal ontological footing as part of a never-ending network of interactions, associations, and influences. This kind of posthumanist and relational ontological thinking is foregrounded throughout asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie. I analyse this foregrounding in poems which explore the following themes and topics: interpersonal relationships between people that experience life differently because of differing backgrounds (but also between family members and lovers); the relationship between humans and nature (in the broadest sense of the word); time, and the inevitability of finitude and death that connects everything; and the difficulty of dialogue aimed at finding justice, reconciliation, acceptance and appreciation, by means of a realisation of posthuman interdependence.

In Pieter Odendaal's debut, asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie (as if no mountains ever lived here), the poet expands the complex question \"re mang?\" (who are we?) into an important theme and utilises it as a structural element by building the diferent sections of the volume around various conceptions of 'us'. In this article, I argue that Odendaal's poetry should be read in terms of relational ontology, seeing as relationality and interconnectedness are important themes in the text. The poetry creatively introduces a posthumanist way of looking at subjectivity and intersubjectivity. The text problematises the position of humankind on earth and in the larger universe, and asks questions regarding the basic ways in which we understand the concept of 'us', our existence and the ways in which we relate to every other inhabitant of the planet (human or nonhuman; living or non-living). In the process the Cartesian view of humankind is deconstructed and the human's ontological position is decentralised. Everything on earth is placed on equal ontological footing as part of a never-ending network of interactions, associations, and infuences. This kind of posthumanist and relational ontological thinking is foregrounded throughout asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie. I analyse this foregrounding in poems which explore the following themes and topics: interpersonal relationships between people that experience life diferently because of difering backgrounds (but also between family members and lovers); the relationship between humans and nature (in the broadest sense of the word); time, and the inevitability of finitude and death that connects everything; and the dificulty of dialogue aimed at finding justice, reconciliation, acceptance and appreciation, by means of a realisation of posthuman interdependence. Keywords: relational ontology, posthuman subjectivity, relationality, asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie, Pieter Odendaal, Rosi Braidotti, Bruno Latour.

The reason for hosting the second colloquium on the QwaQwa campus of the University of the Free State and not in Bloemfontein was precisely to acknowledge the tension between the local and the global, and is in keeping with the Unlaagering Project's ideals of moving away from the central and the centralised. In his welcoming address, the Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the QwaQwa campus, Jared McDonald, addressed the complex history of this campus that was incorporated into the University of the Free State in 2003. McDonald describes the campus as being situated \"in a context of transboundaries and transfrontiers, at a geographical and social crossroads\"; being positioned, as it is, in a former 'homeland', close to the Golden Gate National Park, the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg world heritage site, between the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal provinces and neighbouring Lesotho. The cover art was created by Afrikaans comic book artists André and Nathan Trantraal.