PSYCHO-COSMOCIDE: A Theoretical Framework for Analysing the Destruction of Indigenous Cosmologies and Metaphysics

This paper introduces psycho-cosmocide as a critical theoretical framework for analysing colonial destruction, extending beyond conventional concepts such as genocide, ethnocide, and cultural destruction. Developed through the lived experience of Papuan displacement and a comparative analysis of Indigenous dispossession worldwide, psycho-cosmocide identifies the systematic annihilation of entire cosmological frameworks — the destruction not merely of peoples, but of their fundamental relationship with reality itself. Through an analysis of eight interconnected "atlases of human existence," this framework reveals how colonial power operates by reprogramming consciousness and transforming victims into willing participants in their own ontological extinction. This paradigm shift has profound implications for Indigenous studies, decolonial theory, and our understanding of structural violence in its most sophisticated form. The inadequacy of existing theoretical frameworks to fully capture the extent of colonial violence against Indigenous peoples has long been a concern for scholars, activists, and communities enduring ongoing dispossession. While terms such as genocide, ethnocide, culturecide, and ecocide have broadened our vocabulary for understanding systematic destruction, each remains insufficient to describe a particular form of violence: the total annihilation of a people's meaningful relationship with existence itself. This study introduces the concept of psycho-cosmocide as a necessary theoretical innovation to address this gap. Psycho-cosmocide refers to the systematic destruction of a people's inner world (psyche) and their cosmological framework for understanding reality (the cosmos). It is a form of violence that operates by reprogramming consciousness itself, transforming entire populations into participants in their own ontological extinction, while experiencing this process as progress, development, or liberation. The concept did not emerge from academic abstraction but from direct observation of the parallel processes of Indigenous dispossession across different times and geographic contexts. Specifically, a comparison between Australia's historical Indigenous dispossession and the ongoing colonisation of West Papua by Indonesia reveals a consistent pattern: a sophisticated mechanism of reality destruction that extends beyond physical violence to operate at the levels of meaning, perception, and cosmological orientation.