How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human
Abstract
Can forests think? Do dogs dream? This book challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be human—and thus distinct from all other life forms. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, the book draws on ethnographic research to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world’s most complex ecosystems. Whether or not we recognize it, our anthropological tools hinge on those capacities that make us distinctly human. However, when we turn our ethnographic attention to how we relate to other kinds of beings, these tools (which have the effect of divorcing us from the rest of the world) break down. This book seizes on this breakdown as an opportunity. Avoiding reductionistic solutions, and without losing sight of how our lives and those of others are caught up in the moral webs we humans spin, it skillfully fashions new kinds of conceptual tools from the strange and unexpected properties of the living world itself. The work takes anthropology in a new direction—one that offers a more capacious way to think about the world we share with other kinds of beings.
... Shedding earlier assessments of animist ontology as a primitive over-attribution of the property of soul to natural phenomena (e.g. Durkheim 1915;Frazer 1890;Tylor 1871), landmark scholarship in recent decades has rehabilitated the world's animism(s) as sophisticated environmental epistemologies, grounded in entangled personhood, deictic ontology and agentful materialism (Brightman, Grotti, and Ulturgasheva 2012;Descola 2013;Hornborg 2006;Ingold 2000;Kohn 2013;Viveiros de Castro 1998;Willerslev 2007;inter alia). This shift, framed within the broader ontological turn in the social sciences (Henare, Holbraad, and Wastell 2007;Holbraad and Pedersen 2017;Kohn 2015;Viveiros de Castro 2014), conceptualises diversely multinatural systems, which elaborate fundamentally different realities rather than simply recognising different beliefs about a common one (Candea, 2010;Descola 2013;Viveiros de Castro 2004). ...
... At once, consciousness is also neither anatomically constrained nor exclusively human (Harvey 2005;Ingold 2000;Willerslev 2007). Topographic features, meteorological phenomena, material objects and various animals all manifest forms of behaviour that, where they become readable as indicating subjective perspectives and intentionalities, are encompassed by animist theory of mind (Brightman, Grotti, and Ulturgasheva 2012;Helvenston and Hodgson 2010;Kohn 2013). This stems from a reality of mutual awareness and intelligibility which lies at the core of many animistic practices and concerns, structured not solely by cultural attribution but also by certain textural features of experiential reality (as above; also Descola 2013;McGilchrist 2009). ...
... Awareness of this combined formal and functional asymmetry leads humans to practise diverse yet systematic detection management strategies, from careful attention to wind direction and scent (notably McGranaghan 2015; inter alia), to elaborate protocols governing the treatment of animal remains, to prohibitions on certain forms of speech or behaviour whilst navigating particular landscapes (notably Willerslev 2007; inter alia). Rather than treating these asymmetries as purely practical challenges, animistic frameworks approach them as social realities requiring careful negotiation (Bird-David 1999;Kohn 2013;McGranaghan and Challis 2016). The specialised management of reciprocal detection -of seeing and being seen, of sensing and being sensed, and their socialised implications for how obligations in the world are structured (Skinner 2023)becomes a fundamental aspect of environmental relationships. ...
The structural similarity of animist ontologies across world regions hints at common underlying threads between them. This contribution examines the neurophenomenological context of animist experience, focusing on how a sense of consciousness and relationality can emerge as a primary feature of environmental experience rather than an imposed interpretation. While shamanic cosmologies show clearer links to altered states of consciousness, animism's underlying basis presents a subtler challenge. This paper identifies how brain lateralisation-the specialisation of functions within and between hemispheres-contributes to sensory patterns structuring animistic perception. The brain maintains interconnected yet phenomenologically distinct modes of processing: self-referential processing (left hemisphere bias) and sociospatial cognition (right hemisphere bias). This creates distinct rhythms in environmental experience as individuals encounter the world at different scales of attention. Empirical accounts of developmental difference and neuropathology implicate specific brain structures and interactions, demonstrating how humanity's distinctively lateralised cognition manifests the world both as the subject of our observation, and as a domain populated by potential conscious observers of ourselves in turn. This perceptual potential, shaped by neural structures, interacts bidirectionally with cultural frameworks to produce diverse and yet structurally similar animistic realities.
... MtH space is "constitutive" not just "contextual" (Howe, 2009, p. 206) in human experiences. Scholars have termed the idea of the other-than-human components of human experience in varied manners: post-human, non-human, beyond human, etc. (See Barlett, 2005;Basso, 1996;Bell et al., 2017;Bennett, 2001Bennett, , 2010Braun, 2006;Castree, 2017;Fishel, 2019;Haraway, 2008Haraway, , 2016Howe, 2009;Kohn, 2013;Lowenhaupt-Tsing, 2005Raffles, 2002;Tsing et al., 2017;Wilkinson et al, 2020). These terms connote oppositional relationships between humans and "other", perpetuating the capitalocentric assumptions and practices that separate humans from the biological ecosystems to which they are intimately tied and reliant for survival. ...
... The term more-than-human is employed here for its inclusionary and non-binary connotations which allow humans to be considered within the morethan-human whole (See Bastian, 2017;Bell et al, 2017;Pitt, 2015). MtH scholars stress the importance of considering humans and MtH as interconnected, as living and "lively" and as productive of one another (Bennett, 2010;Braun, 2008;Haraway, 2016;Kohn, 2013;Lowenhaupt-Tsing, 2005. ...
... In response to these "society" vs. "environment" divides, scholars are presenting "nondualistic paradigms" with MtH at centre stage (Braun, 2008). MtH scholars stress the interconnections between humans and MtH, as productive of one another (Bennett, 2010;Braun, 2006Braun, , 2008Castree, 2014;Haraway, 2008Haraway, , 2016Kohn, 2013;Lowenhaupt-Tsing, 2005. Humans and MtHs are fundamentally connected in the "coconstitution" (Gibson-Graham & Roelvink, 2009, p. 322) of self and place, making MtH essential "participants" in research. ...
ABSTRACT
Within industrialized capitalist cultures, more-than-human (MtH)
biological environments are considered commodities that lack
sentience and agency. This leaves MtH’s underrepresented as
active agents in human-MtH engagements, without rights and
without voice. Scholars have been reluctant to engage in MtH
research due to perceived “messiness” or ethical complications of
speaking to and for those who do not communicate with human
language. Methodological innovation capable of highlighting MtH
agency in diverse research contexts is integral to shifting cultural
norms within Westernized and industrialized capitalist cultures
that treat nature as a resource instead of life. This paper details
novel MtH methods developed and practised with human naturebased recreators and their MtH counterparts in the Humboldt–
Toiyabe National Forest. Rooted in auto-ethnography and
journaling, participant auto-ethnographic trail journals rely on
human recreators as experiential and communicative relays of
MtH participation. The researcher’s absence makes space for
uninterrupted and synchronous human-MtH engagement. Trail
journals are prime examples of how expert positionality can and
should be afforded to human and MtH participants, and how
researchers need to be brave and embodied in inquiry
... It investigates not only human culture but also the roles of non-human actors-animals, plants, and microorganisms-in social and cultural processes (Hamilton & Taylor, 2017). By uncovering these complex relationships, multispecies ethnography reveals the interweaving of ecological, cultural, and social processes (Locke & Munster, 2015), and offers a post-humanist analysis of interspecies interdependence (Kohn, 2013). Integrating place theory with multispecies ethnography, scholars such as Cecilie Sachs Olsen (2022) explore the potential of arts-based methods to develop a multispecies placemaking framework for urban development. ...
... His synthesis of Buddhist ethics and ecological critique positioned the virus as emerging from destructive human-wildlife relations, illustrating how crises hybridise knowledge systems to forge new placemaking practices that recognise non-human agency. From a multispecies perspective, Chengley's interpretation exposes the deep entanglement of viral, animal, and human lifeworlds, resonating with posthuman critiques of anthropocentrism (Kohn, 2013). By attributing causal power to wildlife retribution, he reframed the pandemic as an act of non-human placemaking-one that unsettled human spatial domination and necessitated a renegotiation of interspecies coexistence. ...
... En sintonía, Kohn (2007Kohn ( , 2013, plantea la necesidad de configurar una antropología que trascienda lo-humano, identificando la multiplicidad de seres que habitan un espacio, no sólo para analizar la relación entre humanos y no-humanos, sino los modos en que estos últimos dan sentido a las prácticas de los primeros. ...
... Si bien, el lenguaje humano como sistema de representación basado en signos, se caracteriza por ser preferentemente simbólico, no es la única forma de representación, arguye Kohn (2013), existen formas alternativas como la icónica e indexical, también basadas en signos, que son comunes a toda vida biológica. En la vida cotidiana se presentan múltiples intermediaciones entre humanos y no-humanos, donde ambas partes usan sus propios marcos de representación para relacionarse. ...
Hoy experimentamos una crisis de sintonización con la naturaleza y el mundo, que desde la década de los 60 y 70, viene siendo anticipada por diversos autores. La obsesión moderna de poner el mundo a disponibilidad, de hacerlo predecible, calculable y dominable, reifica nuestra relación con este, promoviendo vínculos en gran medida extractivistas y economizables. Desde una analítica temporal, este artículo argumenta que nos encontramos frente a una crisis de sintonización temporal con el mundo. La aceleración que es la estructura temporal de la modernidad se intenta imponer sobre las existencias heterogéneas que lo conforman y que están reguladas por otras temporalidades. De este modo, las temporalidades plurales surgen como puntos de agresión e intervención humana. El objetivo del texto es problematizar desde una ontología del presente, la tiranía del tiempo humano, cuya hegemonía conlleva a un proceso de aplanamiento del campo plural de la experiencia temporal. Esta problematización se construye en la discusión con postulados de las ciencias sociales y humanas que vienen replanteando la forma dualista de entender lo-social y lo-natural, en especial, planteamientos como los propuestos por la Teoría del Actor Red, el modelo rizomático de Deleuze y Guattari, y las contribuciones variopintas del Giro Ontológico. A partir de un diagnóstico sobre el régimen de temporalidad contemporáneo, se propone el concepto de Sintonización Temporal Rizomática como destino compartido y relacional para enfrentar la actual crisis de sintonización, salvaguardar la alteridad y defender la conjunción entre duraciones plurales. Este concepto abre la discusión en torno a la posibilidad de creación de otros paradigmas de concatenación entre existencias humanas y no humanas, que funcionen por conjunción entre ontologías heterogéneas, y no por conexión.
... This shows not only OSL's deep connection with dugong, but it also shows how they respect their ancestral (sea) spirits and position the latter as their protector while navigating and (re)making livelihoods at sea. For OSL, fishing does not stand in isolation from their relations with the sea and their ancestral spirits (Elsera et al., 2024;Hill, 1989;Kohn, 2013;Lenhart, 2001). Here, fluid territory emerges from cultural and spiritual connections between OSL and the sea, manifested in specific places and geographies (e.g. ...
... This folktale shows how OSL do not distinguish human, non-human, and environment as a separate entity, but rather an integrated whole (Choy et al., 2009;Haraway, 2008;Kohn, 2013;Mullin & Cassidy, 2007). The mother does not miss the baby or feeling sad for losing the baby because in this story the baby is not only transformed into Lingga Archipelago but is embodied in the latter altogether. ...
This paper looks at one of the sea nomads groups, namely Orang Suku Laut (OSL), focusing on their knowledge systems, cultural values, and agency, manifested in the Bakelam nomadic tradition. It highlights how Bakelam serves as both a cultural continuum and space for knowledge (re)production for OSL's livelihood (re)making. Taking the Lingga Archipelago in Riau Islands Province, Indonesia, as a case study, the paper centrally puts Bakelam as key foundation for OSL's knowledge systems and potential building block for coping and living with changes. Building on existing concepts and scholarly work on territoriality and placing this within the broader context of indigenous movements and marine resource governance, we present the conceptualization of fluid territory as a resemblance of OSL's life philosophy, governing structure, and rules shaping, while navigating through the seascapes and landscapes. We argue that understanding the (re)shaping of these fluid territories is crucial for rethinking existing approaches to marine governance.
... Instead, Plumwood writes, we must "remake" these stories of conquest and control -and the relationships and identities they engender -into a configuration which encourages sensitivity to "a non-hierarchical concept of difference," one which acknowledges and holds space for the denied relationships of dependency (60). Anthropologist Eduardo Kohn (2013) corroborates this approach by suggesting a politics that "grows from attention to another way of being, one that involves other kinds of beings" (14). Kohn and Plumwood both propose that we embrace our continuity with and differences from nonhuman entities, which would allow us to situate distinctively human ways of being in the world as both emergent from and in common with a broader living realm, from the glittering stars to the thorniest of roses. ...
This paper reflects on the Earth Sensations conference that took place in Aarhus, Denmark in October 2022. I consider a selection of presentations and expand on the emergent discussions those presentations engendered around ideas connected with agency, subjectivity, entanglement and the tensions between mind/body, theory/practice, and interiority/exteriority. Keywords: sensory experience; theory and practice; internal and external landscapes; cosmic forces; entanglement, Jane Bennett
... Reunindo pesquisas multidisciplinares que reflitam as transformações teóricoepistemológicas dos conceitos de natureza e cultura e alguns de seus desdobramentos, esperase evidenciar que nenhum conhecimento se encontra ou pode se desejar desengajado do mundo (Ingold 2000;Surralés & Hierro 2005). Tal enraizamento dos saberes e práticas de conhecimento no mundoalgo para o qual o mesmo Claude Lévi-Strauss já chamara tanto nossa atenção -aponta para o fato de que "o mundo" não é um material cru a espera da humanização (por meio das práticas de conhecimento), mas uma síntese sempre dinâmica entre as materialidades e as modalidades de conhecê-las, entre alicerces ontológicos e procedimentos epistemológicos, entre a plasticidade da matéria e os meandros da atividade simbólico-semiótica humana (Kohn, 2013). Tomar a presença insistente dessa pletora de não humanos na vida social, reconhecendo as agências de todos os sujeitos, humanos e não humanos, como condutoras de inquietantes possibilidades reflexivasespecialmente no não tratamento do conceito de natureza e seus correlatos enquanto meros "recursos"deve operar V. 05, nº 01, jan-abr., 2019, artigo nº 1640 | claec.org/relacult ...
... Authors such as anthropologist Christian Rätsch (1988) urge the modern reader to reconnect with the plant world, shunning views that try to demystify 'ancient wisdom' as pre-scientific knowledge and engage in a disenchantment of the human-plant relationship. Recent studies such as the books by anthropologists Eduardo Kohn (2013) and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2015), biologist Daniel Chamovitz (2012), and the forester Peter Wohlleben (2016) attempt to rethink this relationship in various different and compelling ways using new data from natural scientific and anthropological research. In many of these works, the authors adopt the view that plants possess an intrinsic potency. ...
Buddhist ritual healing and medical therapies included care for domestic animals, such as the horse. In pre-modern Japan, equine medicine (ba’i 馬医) was not restricted to the treatment of military horses; it was also practiced in a religious context. The Scroll of Equine Medicine (Ba’i sōshi emaki 馬医草紙絵 巻, 1267) is an enigmatic picture scroll held by the Tokyo National Museum. It extends to more than six meters and contains images of ten divine figures related to the healing of horses, followed by seventeen pictures of plants, and a postscript emphasizing that the content of the scroll should be kept secret. Many of the plants listed in the scroll are either associated with the world of Buddhism, e.g. Yakushi-sō 薬 師草, ‘Medicine Buddha plant,’ or with horses, e.g. metsu-sō 馬頭草, ‘horsehead plant.’ Previous analyses of the scroll largely focused on the botanical identification of the sketches of the plants. This article reviews current interpretations of the scroll and explores the question of whether the plant names were thought to empower the plants to be used as potent materia medica for veterinary purposes. Based on earlier analyses, I suggest a new interpretation of the scroll from a study of religions perspective taking into consideration that some of the plant names in the scroll indicate both health-related and salvific potency. I also address the possible use of the scroll. The scarcity of textual information and the choice of textual detail and imagery in this ‘secret’ scroll suggests that it was used in the context of an oral transmission and empowerment ritual. The scroll itself seems to have been an object of ritual empowerment, rather than a compendium of materia medica for practical daily use when caring for horses.
... This common medium can be called "semiotic ground"-the fabric much older and more complex than anything in human culture. The concept of semiotic ground was proposed by anthropologists Eduardo Kohn (2013) and Andrew Whitehouse (2015), and its ecosemiotic interpretation by Maran (2023). The semiotic ground is the basis of the relations for different species, the medium in which they meet, recognize and respond to each other. ...
This collected volume celebrates the life and work of the late Andrew Stables, a renowned scholar in semiotics and in educational philosophy and theory. He is known, in particular, for having pioneered the semiotic approach to education. This book celebrates his work with scholarly contributions by leading researchers in these areas of scholarship, reflecting on Andrew Stables’ thought and intellectual legacy. The contributions are interdisciplinary, which reflects Stables’ eclectic work. Also included are new and unpublished texts of Andrew Stables. The text is divided into three parts: Philosophy of Education, Learning as Semiotic, and Environmental Literacies. It appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of education broadly, semiotic-oriented approaches to education, as well as discussions on multimodality.
... What our bodies say, quite literally, matters. Or to take a less anthropocentric perspective on the way all bodies and systems inter-signify, we might contemplate Eduardo Kohn's (2013) words and wonder at the nuanced insights writing might provide if we were able to consider ourselves and our bodies as a complex material language. "Signs," he writes, "are alive" (p. ...
This paper is a three-way conversation about grief that follows a graduate program. We explore our experiences with post-graduate grief in community, attending to each other’s sense of loss following separation from supervisors, theses, and graduate programs. In committing to slow scholarship, processes—such as navigating feelings and living—have been valued over producing a manuscript quickly. Slowness, including long gaps between meetings, enabled us to follow the diverse contours of quiet alchemical processes such as grieving, opening up to emptiness, self-acceptance, being enough, and letting go. After years of compression and dialogic friction with her mentor, Tanya confronts feelings akin to postpartum depression, an anticlimactic melancholy accompanying the completion of her doctorate. Chris is haunted by his inability to recognize the authenticity of repeated invitations from his committee to engage following his Master’s degree, finally breaking his 16-year silence through narrative inquiry into losing what he never knew he had. Anna admits to filling emotional and intellectual gaps following her Master’s degree by pursuing her doctorate. She honors wholeness of herself that encompasses ruptures of grief, confusion, and her journey towards self-acceptance. Emerging from our collaboration is something entirely unexpected: healing. We share our private experiences of post-graduate mourning and re-emergence as an invitation to students to honor what comes unbidden following a graduate journey and an opportunity for relational scholarship.
... In other words, the Anthropocene requires anthropologists to expand the range of actors involved in knowledge-making. This includes collaboration between disciplines, science, and society Fortun 2021;Hastrup 2018;Hastrup and Hastrup 2015;Mathews 2020), and engagement with non-human entities (Kohn 2013;Kirksey and Helmreich 2010;Mathews 2018;Mathews 2020). Collectively, environmental anthropologists highlight that the complexities of the Anthropocene call for concerted efforts among diverse professionals and laypeople alike to understand and address the pressing issues facing our planet. ...
The Anthropocene calls for collaboration between heterogeneous actors and knowledge about indisputable planetary boundaries and environmental cha(lle)nges. One dimension of such collaboration is interdisciplinary efforts, where anthropology’s potential contributions often fall under the radar. Based on a field study and ten semi-structured interviews, this article reassesses environmental anthropology as a collaborative companion in knowledge-making. Introducing the notion of balancing acts, it reveals how environmental anthropological fieldwork navigates elements of expansion triggered by the Anthropocene in knowledge-making processes, and how this fieldwork balances diverse knowledge forms, modes of inquiry, and venues of actions (fields), thereby contributing to knowledge-making of the complexities of this “epoch.”
... This common medium can be called "semiotic ground" -the fabric much older and more complex than anything in human culture. The concept of semiotic ground was proposed by anthropologists Eduardo Kohn (2013) and Andrew ...
Andrew Stables proposed the concept of semiotic engagement in educational theory as the negotiation of the web of significations that comprises an environment. I will argue that the concept has undiscovered potential for addressing ecological crises, because it allows for a revision of the human condition as that of a relational being in the multi-species world. The idea of semiotic engagement can be fruitfully combined with positive activism as a practical strategy for challenging existing cultural habits and proposing new ones in interspecies co-creation. Meaning-making strategies that derive the meaning of human life from interactions with ecosystem, and its other inhabitants, can lead to a culture that is less resource-intensive. A culture that is likewise still meaningful and emotionally and intellectually fulfilling.
... IIC has mostly been analysed in indigenous contexts, where it is commonly integrated and supported by local ontologies (Kohn 2007(Kohn , 2013Callicott 2013;Michell 2005;Deloria 2006;Watts 2013), but over the past few decades it has become increasingly visibly employed and institutionalized in northern contexts and by non-indigenous users all over the world (Abbott 2021;Barrett et al. 2021;Hafen 2013;TEDx 2017;Thiyagarajan and Foster 2012;Pitschen 2018;Vittitoe 2005). Although it remains unclear as to how IIC functions exactly, my own as well as other studies have observed its accuracy, effectiveness, and usability. ...
Intuitive interspecies communication (IIC) is a technique used worldwide by Indigenous peoples and a rising number of professional animal communicators, to interact with the more-than-human world. It importantly disrupts a number of historically contingent boundaries that have secured hierarchical oppositions between the human/non-human and the modern/Indigenous, while interrogating the fundamental dichotomy between presumably distinct physical (natural, sensually perceivable, ‘objective’) and non-physical (social, mentally/emotionally perceivable, ‘subjective’) worlds. In light of novel insights from diverse fields, including animal behaviour, cognitive ethology, and biosemiotics, as well as new theoretical spaces opened up through posthumanist and relational approaches, this less anthropocentric form of communication can no longer be disregarded as merely exotic or mythological. Insights into IIC can contribute to the animal turn in linguistics by cross-fertilizing phenomenological, relational, and indigenous approaches, to contribute to ongoing efforts to decolonize methodologies, to further strengthen cognitive and interspecies justice, and to multiply voices in academia by practically and collaboratively engaging with human and non-human forms of knowing.
... Although not always recognized formally in the Global North because it does not easily fit the dominant Northern ontology, this kind of intersubjective communication is a quite common experience to many people worldwide, and generally associated with intuition. It is practiced commonly in a variety of southern and Indigenous societies, being integrated in and supported by local ontologies (Callicott 2013;Deloria 2006;Guttorm 2021;Kohn 2007Kohn , 2013Marshall 1957;Michell 2005;Watts 2013). ...
W: I don’t know what to make of this picture, but he [Wild One]1 is showing me a long line of people, walking in a line, traipsing along a road into the wilderness. A long journey that people are taking. He’s showing me the animals and the birds moving with them, above them. To me, it feels like there’s been a long journey of humans and animals together. He’s showing me that, at the endpoint is a merge, an emergence. He was, at first, showing me the separation. The journey – it (initially) looked like separate paths: the humans and then the birds flying above the humans and the animals walking. As it goes further and further into the distance, they merge as one. It’s all merging into one. One spirit, one soul, one heart, I suppose. From the human perspective, we’re all so separate, but ultimately, we are all connected and one. It’s about that feeling, not just saying the words, but actually feeling it.
... One does not need to embrace a flat ontology, like OOO or ANT, to grant a more significant role to materiality and address non-human agency. Anthropologists drawing on Peircean semiotics and biosemiotics have been able to identify a distinctively human difference by appealing to the human capacity to use symbolic signs, instead of just iconic or indexical signs (Kohn 2015). Similarly, a focus on cognition can help us differentiate between various kinds of actors with different cognitive capacities, essential in decision-making. ...
This chapter challenges conventional assumptions about institutions, societies, and governance, especially in the context of contemporary debates on technology and artificial intelligence. It scrutinizes two prevailing premises: the notion that differences among people are primarily cognitive or abstract, and the anthropocentric view that institutions are solely the product of human cognitive processes. Drawing on anthropology and science and technology studies, the author argues for a more nuanced institutionalist perspective that acknowledges the role of non-human agency, including natural agents, infrastructures, artificial intelligence, and human-made objects. By adopting the concept of cognitive assemblage (Hayles, 2017), the chapter aims to better explain how institutional work occurs through the entanglement of humans and non-humans. The first section critiques the idea that differences among people stem solely from cognitive processes, proposing instead that these differences are also distributed within the body and environment. This argument is supported by the perspective of embodied cognition, heavily informed by anthropological research. The second section extends the notion of agency to non-human actors, both natural and artificial, through various social science approaches categorized under the "ontological turn", while urging to rethink the subject-object divide and reconceptualize institutional work. The final part examines case studies that intersect with the institutional analysis and development framework, offering insights that could enhance this approach.
... The Overstory portrays an arc of change in humans' social interaction with trees from domination to acceptance, to what Kohn (2013) refers to as an 'of selves' paradigm where nonhuman entities are viewed as agents rather than subjects. This change is especially prominently felt in the nine human characters whose personal development involves a transition or change in attitudes toward trees. ...
This research paper aims to analyze Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel titled The Overstory, published in 2018, by considering it through the lens of ecohumanism. This text investigates how Powers subverts anthropocentric epistemology through engagement with storytelling and emerges with an innovative solution to environmental issues. This paper relies on textual readings and the principles of ecocriticism, assessing how Powers dismantles the anthropocentric human-nature opposition, challenges the framework of time frameworks beyond human control, and sketches the framework for a new environmental ethic. The study shows how tonal and epistemological variations in The Overstory make it a literary work and a form of ecocritical activism that may change how readers approach the more-than-human world and embrace non-anthropocentric modes of interacting with it.
... A trace on the sand, a fossil, the stratifications of the terrain, the erosion on a rock, evolutionary processes, the mimetic and symbiotic phenomena in nature, the similarities and differences among species, they are all products of multiple signifying processes that exist in the world beyond human semiosis, signs in the world registered in the soil, stones, rivers, plants, and climate and are capable of affecting our ways of living and feeling (Kohn, 2013). ...
... Para los runa, los bosques piensan. Según Eduardo Kohn (2013), esta afirmación sólo es posible cuando concebimos al pensamiento más allá de lo humano, más allá del cogito cartesiano, y descartamos nuestras ideas anquilosadas sobre representación como algo que tiene que ser convencional, lingüístico y simbólico. Las formas de vida no-humanas también representan al mundo; son seres semióticos (crean y son capaces de interpretar signos), y esto lo hacen a través de formas no lingüísticas. ...
Esta contribución reflexiona sobre las literacidades que están codificadas en el paisaje y en formas naturales y que describen una relación diferente entre los humanos y el medio ambiente. Plantea una crítica a la visión occidental-eurocentrista que, además de equiparar literacidad con escritura, ha promovido la oposición falaz entre sociedades alfabetizadas frente a las orales. Aunque ha habido un giro en definir la literacidad como práctica social multidimensional, las políticas educativas en el mundo globalizado impulsan una literacidad funcional, implementando modelos que favorecen a la escritura alfabética, la numeración y los medios digitales, y con ello, promueven la enajenación de la naturaleza, cumpliendo con la retórica de la modernidad/colonialidad. El enfoque de este trabajo se centra en el territorio mesoamericano el cual ha experimentado un desmantelamiento sistemático de las literacidades indígenas. Se describen aquí dos ejemplos resilientes provenientes del pueblo ayöök (mixe): los presagios que se experimentan al ver, escuchar o sentir imágenes, sonidos o sensaciones en la naturaleza; y leer el maíz, una práctica adivinatoria y terapéutica que lee semillas y su acomodo. Estos ejemplos muestran que el mundo natural puede proporcionar signos que se leen y proporcionan mensajes claramente definidos, provocando afectos y efectos en el cuerpo humano y con ello, impulsando acciones y decisiones futuras. Al dar reconocimiento a estas literacidades, valorando a éstas como auténticas formas de ser "literado", este texto aboga por una posible forma de cambiar nuestra relación actual y destructiva con la naturaleza.
... Esto pasa por ampliar las categorías arqueológicas habituales a un objeto aparentemente alejado de la arqueología, aunque esta operación no deja de ser consecuente con el resultado histórico de la instrumentalización capitalista de la naturaleza. Los árboles también actúan como una tecnología basada en el aprovechamiento práctico de sus funciones biológicas para cumplir con distintas finalidades, entre las que destaca la modificación del paisaje (Ingold, 2000;Richardson, 2010;Kohn, 2013;Tsing, 2015: 167-176;Casey y Marder, 2024).A este respecto, proponemos un ejercicio de «imaginación arqueológica», entendida como «un trabajo creativo sobre los restos del pasado a partir de una facultad o sensibilidad estimulada por la recepción cultural de dicho pasado» (Shanks, 2012: 15). Desde esta perspectiva, las masas forestales forman parte de la cultura material, del mismo modo que una construcción arquitectónica o cual-Rafael Millán-Pascual Hacia una arqueología de la política forestal franquista: las repoblaciones forestales y el borrado cultural de los paisajes rurales (Hontanillas, c. 1950(Hontanillas, c. -2020 quier otro tipo de objeto arqueológico (González-Ruibal y Hernando, 2010;Balée, 2013: 29;Tavares, 2024). ...
En este artículo presentamos una primera aproximación arqueológica a las repoblaciones forestales del franquismo. Nuestro objetivo es comenzar a dibujar un campo inédito a partir de una adaptación de las fuentes históricas y etnográficas a la mirada arqueológica. Desde esta perspectiva, afín a una historia integral de inspiración gramsciana, caracterizamos la política forestal franquista como un dispositivo de pasivización orientado a modificar la memoria social y política del territorio mediante un «borrado cultural» de los paisajes históricos. A esto se añade el crecimiento de las masas forestales, que ha redundado en la naturalización de estos espacios y del legado político y jurídico-administrativo del que proceden. Para abordar este problema, proponemos una caracterización arqueológica de las masas forestales del franquismo desde las nociones de ruina ambiental y paisaje. En un segundo momento, añadiremos a estas categorías las coordenadas histórico-políticas del dispositivo forestal franquista para, a partir de ahí, exponer nuestra aproximación al caso particular de Hontanillas (Guadalajara). Este antiguo pueblo abandonado es un ejemplo de la ruptura histórica que implicaron las forestaciones, pero también de las inercias que impone este legado en el presente. La recuperación actual del pueblo vuelve a movilizar la memoria de su abandono que aquí ofrecemos como una recuperación de la significación cultural y política de su paisaje.
... Viveiros de Castro calls this a multinaturalism (one culture, many natures), to espouse the view's fundamental contrast with multiculturalism (one nature, many cultures) which dominates the modernist discourse. Interpretation across different kinds of beings, which is common practice in those communities (e.g., Kohn, 2013), relies on the ability to grasp the relational meaning of what is being communicated to find, through the web of analogies, the way back to the referent: ...
In this article, I discuss two perspectives on cross-linguistic disagreement and propose a third. Specifically, I examine Davidson’s rejection of the possibility of incommensurability of conceptual schemes and Viveiros de Castro’s anthropological perspective that highlights radical differences, seeing translation as a form of equivocation. I motivate this interdisciplinary pairing of thinkers with the importance of philosophical discourse’s engagement in the empirically informed debates on interpretative pluralism, in line with Viveiros de Castro’s ontological anthropology. Through a critical analysis, I scrutinize Davidson’s theory’s trouble with accounting for interpretative asymmetry and Viveiros de Castro’s stance for promoting the representational view on interpretation. As a central outcome of this examination, I synthesize these critiques to propose an alternative approach rooted in the phenomenological account of language and pragmatism. This perspective upholds interpretative pluralism, while rejecting the notions of strong incommensurability and relativism, thereby preserving the potential for meaningful cross-linguistic dialogue.
У статті проаналізовано філософські інтерпретації ідеї мультикультуралізму, експоновані представниками класичної та «нової» антропології (С. Жижек, Е. В. де Кастро, Е. Кон, К. Леві-Строс, Б. Латур). Констатовано багатовекторність підходів та множинність дефініцій мультикультуралізму у діапазоні від оптимістичного схвалення до жорсткої критики. Конкретизовано зміст критики ідеї мультикультуралізму у дискурсі «нової антропології», висвітлено філософське підґрунтя критичного контенту. Зазначено, що європейський та американський концепт мультикультуралізму ґрунтується на тезі про одиничність природи і множинності її культурозумовлених репрезентацій. Новий підхід, навпаки, припускає єдність духу й різноманітність тіл. У проєктах «нових антропологів» мононатуралізм змінюється на мультинатуралізм, що ставить під сумнів філософське обґрунтуванням мультикультуралізму та вимагає його подальшого філософського аналізу.
The ideas of spirituality and sociology rarely occur together. Certainly, the sub-discipline of the sociology of religion is long established, but this is the sociological study of religion, not of the potential penetration of spirituality into sociology. Such a move suggests the possibility of transforming the discipline of sociology in general into something very different from its ‘traditional’ or more conventional forms. This essay, building on a conversation initiated in this journal, explores the possibility of a fresh dialogue between sociology and spirituality, drawing mainly on Buddhism as its inspiration. It is suggested that Buddhism fundamentally challenges many of the assumptions on which ‘mainstream’ (largely Western and now hegemonic) sociology is based, including notions of causality, the self, suffering, ethics and ontology. It suggests ways in which such an alternative cosmology and image of social processes might greatly transform the nature, objectives and methodology of academic sociology.
Los Estudios Multiespecie (EM) nos comprometen con la vitalidad del mundo en un momento de deterioro planetario alarmante. Este abordaje critica los binarismos impuestos por la modernidad occidental y, en su lugar, da prioridad a los "ensamblajes naturoculturales" que integran a seres humanos y más-que-humanos en redes complejas de interacciones. Este ensayo identifica puntos de encuentro entre los EM, la Historia Ambiental y la Historia de los Animales en América Latina y el Caribe (ALC), que pueden impulsar un diálogo interdisciplinario. El objetivo es instar a los investigadores de estas áreas a analizar con mayor detalle las dinámicas que conforman las relaciones humanos-animales y a reflexionar críticamente sobre cómo la coexistencia multiespecie, enmarcada en contextos históricos específicos, se transforma en un proceso co-constitutivo de mundos compartidos. Se argumenta que temas emergentes en la agenda climática global, como la justicia ecológica y la protección efectiva del ambiente, requieren la colaboración con otros seres vivos y la formación de alianzas que trasciendan nuestra propia especie. Abordar de manera integral los desafíos del cambio climático antropogénico y la neoliberalización de la naturaleza demanda no solo cambios paradigmáticos en los niveles epistemológico y discursivo, sino también la adopción de posturas onto-políticas. En ALC, la Historia Ambiental y la Historia de los Animales pueden enriquecerse mediante un diálogo con perspectivas multiespecie que reconocen la importancia de integrar la agencia y las capacidades performativas de los seres más-que-humanos en la construcción de futuros sostenibles.
Mi proyecto de investigación-creación se sitúa en la intersección entre el arte y la antropología de Norteamérica, en el que la arcilla, un material propio de las prácticas creativas, se convierte también en objeto de conocimiento. Este material incentiva preguntas y reflexiones sobre nuestros marcos perceptivos, nuestras formas de aprendizaje, nuestro conocimiento sensible y nuestras relaciones con otros seres vivos. La investigación con macacos que presento aquí es un ejemplo de ello. Primatoscopy-01 es un proyecto de investigación-creación dividido en cuatro fases distintas, que comienza con la búsqueda de elementos comparativos entre entornos perceptivos afines. El experimento se inicia con el siguiente procedimiento: se disponen bloques de arcilla en un recinto, equidistantes unos de otros y alejados de cualquier equipamiento usado en condiciones de cautividad. Esta disposición tiene por objeto delimitar ciertas características de los primates no humanos —como la fuerza física, la jerarquización, la prehensión, el desplazamiento, etc.—, pero también maximizar la relación entre los individuos y la arcilla. La fase inicial, aunque decisiva, resultó decepcionante, lo que condujo a una reorientación completa de mis expectativas: los macacos japoneses (Macaca fuscata) son portadores del virus del herpes B (Herpesvirus simiae), que limita el acceso a los artefactos tras su manipulación. El virus se ha convertido en una restricción del protocolo experimental: limita mis intervenciones en los recintos después de cada fase, exige el uso de arcilla tratada con Virkon® (viricida, bactericida y fungicida) y me obliga a aislar los artefactos hasta su cocción. Como arqueólogo, registré metódicamente el estado de los recintos e intenté reconstruir las actividades a partir de los rastros materiales, tratando de dar sentido a estos artefactos conductuales. Los resultados, desde el principio, me parecieron desastrosos: la arcilla estaba esparcida entre la comida y los excrementos; apenas había huellas en la arcilla, y los bloques se habían manipulado poco. Los primates parecían molestos por estas «intrusiones» físicas en su recinto. Las fases posteriores (de la 2 a la 4) se caracterizaron por una diversificación de los estímulos mediante la introducción de formas de arcilla más «atractivas» en los recintos. El uso de formas tradicionales, sobre todo jarrones y cuencos de té de influencia Edo y Heian, como recipientes para la comida resultó especialmente eficaz para estimular la manipulación por parte de los macacos. Hasta el final de la fase 2 no se llegó a una comprensión más significativa de los patrones de comportamiento, revelando una separación de las actividades de los primates según las divisiones funcionales de su recinto: los macacos en cautiverio no juegan donde comen. El análisis de las evidencias reveló un patrón recurrente: los primates tienden a fragmentar la arcilla una vez seca, aprovechando su materialidad para trazar líneas en el suelo. La multitud de líneas enmarañadas resultaba asombrosa, por su constancia y repetición. Parecía ser el principal interés que la materialidad de la arcilla les sugería. He clasificado las líneas en dos categorías: líneas de transporte (lineales, simples y que se cruzan) y líneas de persistencia (localizadas, superpuestas, que evidencian un movimiento de vaivén). Las líneas de persistencia se comparan con los patrones de anidamiento elaborados por los primatólogos, evocando vínculos entre cognición, entorno y construcción cultural. Estas relaciones se manifiestan primero en el giro fusiforme, una estructura cerebral compartida por todos los primates, que permite el reconocimiento de líneas en el entorno y en los rostros, al tiempo que abre la posibilidad de realizar una analogía alternativa con antiguos sistemas de escritura. Estas conexiones revelan la continuidad entre el macrocosmos en el que evolucionamos y el microcosmos de nuestras representaciones internas, asumiendo tanto nuestra condición animal como el papel de la imaginación en la performatividad de los mundos humanos y su impacto en todos los seres vivos.
Reciprocity and relationality are themes which frequently emerge with respect to human–nature associations in Indigenous groups around the world. But many hunter‐gatherers have been shown to reject systems of reciprocity, instead favouring unconditional sharing both between each other and their environment through egalitarian social structures. Investigations of human–nature reciprocity in Central African hunter‐gatherers has been neglected. In this article, we investigate how Baka‐forest relationships intersect with concepts of reciprocity and what the implications are for forest managers.
The work is the result of a collaboration between local knowledge holders and an anthropologist who carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork in a Baka village in south‐eastern Cameroon.
Through the examples of three phenomena—origin stories, human–animal shapeshifting, and forest and ancestral spirits—we show that the Baka hold a complex and deeply rooted relational connection with the forest, whereby the two are closely tied.
The common notion of direct human–nature reciprocity whereby ‘giving back’ or ‘giving thanks’ that appears in such a diversity of contexts is not present in the case of the Baka. Rather, the focus is on celebrating the abundance of the forest experienced, expressed through sharing properly with others. There is no expectation that this will lead to getting something in return, but instead is known as the ultimate way to achieve joy. As the Baka consider themselves as part of the forest, ensuring their own well‐being is ensuring the well‐being of the forest, an ideology dependent on close relational ties.
Extractive industries and mainstream conservation practices in south‐eastern Cameroon are often based on inappropriate approaches which may cause harm to forest communities and jeopardise the state of the forest in the long term. The social‐ecological philosophy we describe, which insists on caring for forest people as the primary means for caring for the forest, provides guidance for forest managers in the tropics and more widely in how to secure a sustainable future for both forests and people.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
The article draws on visual rhetoric as a research perspective focusing on images as tools of persuasion and offers a multi-layered analysis of selected posters awarded in the competition entitled “Zwierzę też człowiek” ("Animals are Humans Too”) organised by the advertising agency AMS. The analysed posters, displayed in 2020 in the showcases of bus shelters in Poland, constituted a social marketing campaign on the rights of animals to a dignified life. The analysis encompasses the linguistic layer, the visual component(s) and the interdependencies between the verbal and visual mode, as well as intertextual (visual and verbal) references to existing cultural texts employed to elicit emotional responses and sensitize the viewers to the issue of animal rights. The author also discusses the extent to which the analysed campaign under the meaningful title “Zwierzę też człowiek” (“Animals are Humans Too”) represents the anthropocentric mentality: Does it weaken and/or abandon the anthropocentric perspective or does it employ anthropocentrism to evoke empathy and facilitate the perception of non-human persons as part of an interspecies community?
This work is devoted to the issue of non-anthropocentric understanding of death in Jaga Słowińska's novel Czarnolas. It starts with general constatations concerning this topic in various western and non-western philosophies. Next part is devoted to the interpretation of the novel as the one containing the idea of non-anthtopocentric death. It shows how the literary work crafted by the author undermines human-centered ways of thinking.
Resumo Esse texto explora conceitos eticamente produtivos na dramatização da interrelacionalidade da vida planetária, na inquisição acerca dos efeitos destrutivos do antropoceno e de nossa responsabilidade por outras espécies. Além de antropoceno e suas reformulações, os conceitos são simpoiésis (HARAWAY, 2016), cosmologia íntima (inspirado pelo Pragmáticas íntimas de Povinelli), e atenção conjunta (POVINELLI, 2023), extraído do manifesto Karrabing. A partir dessas incursões conceituais e de narrativas situadas, o texto prevê dramatizar nossa relação com as espécies que nos cercam, inquerindo sobre nossa capacidade de comunicabilidade e sobre nosso papel ético nessa cadeia simbólica de vida. O artigo é uma etnografia multiespécie interessada em práticas comunicacionais, em que me lanço a estranhar meu próprio lar e as espécies que descobri como companheiras, produzindo um manifesto ético, que perturba o privilégio humano: a simpoiética, uma ética do fazer conjunto. Esse experimento de escrita foi mediado por afetos multiespécies vividos em minha cosmologia íntima, emaranhados em diferentes campos do saber, implicando-nos em uma experiência ética e atentiva de escrita etnográfica. Se etnografia é tradução, essa narrativa pode ser pensada como uma tradução multiespécie de ideias linguísticas, científicas e míticas.
Je mène une recherche-création à la croisée de l'art et de l'anthropologie nord-américaine, dans laquelle l'argile, support de pratiques de création, devient aussi un objet de connaissance. Ce matériau permet de stimuler des questions et des réflexions sur nos cadres de perception, nos manières d'apprendre, nos savoirs sensibles et nos relations aux autres vivants, à l'instar de la recherche présentée ici avec des macaques. Primatoscopy-01 est une recherche-création subdivisée en quatre phases distinctes qui a débuté par la recherche d'éléments comparatifs entre des environnements perceptifs apparentés. Les expérimentations commencent par un dispositif dans lequel des blocs d'argile sont dispersés dans des enclos à égale distance les uns des autres et éloignés de tout équipement nécessaire à la captivité. Cette disposition vise à délimiter certaines caractéristiques des primates non humains (force physique, hiérarchisation, préhension, déplacement, etc.), mais aussi à maximiser les relations entre les individus et l'argile. La phase initiale, bien que décisive, s'est avérée décevante, entraînant une réorientation complète de mes attentes : les macaques japonais (Macaca fuscata) sont porteurs du virus de l'herpès B (Herpesvirus simiae), ce qui restreint l'accès aux artefacts après leur manipulation. Le virus est devenu une contrainte du protocole expérimental : il limite mes interventions dans les enclos après chaque phase, impose le traitement de l'argile au Virkon© (virucide, bactéricide et fongicide) et m'oblige à isoler les artefacts jusqu'à leur exposition au feu. En tant qu'archéologue, j'ai méthodiquement archivé l'état des enclos et tenté de reconstruire les activités à partir des restes matériels, cherchant à donner du sens à ces artefacts comportementaux. Les résultats m'ont tout de suite semblé désastreux : l'argile était éparpillée au milieu de la nourriture et des excréments ; il y avait peu de traces imprégnées dans l'argile, et les blocs étaient peu manipulés. Les primates ont semblé dérangés par ces « intrusions » matérielles dans leur enclos. Les phases ultérieures (2 à 4) ont été caractérisées par une diversification des stimuli en introduisant des formes d'argile plus « incitatives » dans les enclos. L'utilisation de formes traditionnelles, principalement des vases et des bols à thé d'influence Edo et Heian, servant de contenants pour la nourriture, a été particulièrement efficace pour encourager les manipulations par les macaques. Une compréhension plus significative des schémas comportementaux n'a émergé qu'à la fin de la phase 2, révélant une séparation des activités des primates selon les divisions fonctionnelles de leur enclos : les macaques en captivité ne jouent pas là où ils mangent. L'analyse des archives a permis de dégager un schéma récurrent : les primates ont tendance à fragmenter l'argile une fois sèche, exploitant ainsi sa matérialité pour tracer des lignes au sol. Les multitudes de lignes enchevêtrées étaient étonnantes, car elles étaient constantes et répétitives. Elles semblaient être l'intérêt principal que leur suggérait la matérialité de l'argile. J'ai divisé les lignes en deux catégories : les lignes de transport (linéaires, simples et entrecoupées) et les lignes d'acharnement (localisées, superposées, démontrant un geste de va-et-vient). Les lignes d'acharnement sont comparées à des schémas de nidification dessinés par les primatologues, évoquant des liens entre cognition, environnement et construction culturelle. Ces relations se manifestent d'abord à travers le gyrus fusiforme, une structure cérébrale partagée par l'ensemble des primates, qui assure la reconnaissance des lignes de l'environnement et des visages tout en ouvrant la voie à des analogies alternatives avec d'anciens systèmes d'écriture. Celles-ci révèlent la continuité entre le macrocosme où nous évoluons et le microcosme de nos représentations intérieures, assumant notre condition animale, ainsi que le rôle de l'imagination dans la performativité des mondes humains et leur impact sur l'ensemble du vivant.
Las problemáticas ambientales a las que hoy se enfrenta el ser humano, como resultado de la lógica acumulativa de capital, han generado un interés particular por las relaciones bioculturales de los pueblos indígenas como alternativas para afrontarlas. Esto ha resultado en el planteamiento del concepto ‘Patrimonio Biocultural’ desde el que se busca reconocer y reivindicar a los pueblos originarios, sus conocimientos y relaciones con su entorno, esto debido a la relación que se observa a nivel global entre la conservación de la biodiversidad y su concentración en sus territorios. Sin embargo, lo anterior supone también la generación de escenarios que propician la desconexión y/o alteración de la axiología vinculada a las relaciones y prácticas de los pueblos originarios que forman parte del ‘Patrimonio Biocultural’, dado que se les sujeta a las aspiraciones de desarrollo y modernidad a las que se sigue espirando. En este sentido, se concluye que hablar de un ‘Patrimonio Biocultural’ de y desde los pueblos indígenas involucra ir en contra de este reconocimiento, así como de los intereses político-económicos desde los que se establece el patrimonio; es decir, (des)patrimonializar.
Palabras clave: Patrimonio biocultural, pueblos originarios, (des)patrimonializar
I lead an art-research project at the crossroads of art and North American anthropology, where clay, a medium for creative practices, also becomes an object of knowledge. This material can be used to foster questions and considerations about our perceptual frameworks, our ways of learning, our sensory knowledge, and our relationships with other living beings, as in the research presented here, with macaques. The art-research project Primatoscopy-01 is subdivided into four distinct phases, which began with the search for comparative elements between related perceptual environments. The experiments begin with a system in which blocks of clay are scattered in enclosures at equal distances from each other and far from any equipment used in captivity conditions. This arrangement aims to delimit certain characteristics of nonhuman primates (physical strength, hierarchization, grasping, movement, etc.), but also to maximize the relationship between individuals and clay. The initial phase, although decisive, proved disappointing, leading to a complete realignment of my expectations: Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) carry the herpes B virus (Herpesvirus simiae), which hinders access to artifacts after they've been handled. The virus has become a constraint of the experimental protocol, as it limits my involvement in the enclosures after each phase, requires the use of Virkon® clay (a virucide, bactericide, and fungicide), and forces me to isolate the artifacts until their firing. As an archaeologist, I methodically recorded the state of the enclosures and attempted to reconstruct the activities based on the material traces, seeking to make sense of these behavioral artifacts. The results looked disastrous straight away: clay was scattered among the food and excrement; there were few marks in the clay and the blocks had hardly been handled. The primates seemed disturbed by these physical “intrusions” in their enclosure. The later phases (2 to 4) were characterized by a diversification of stimuli by introducing more “enticing” clay forms in the enclosures. The use of traditional forms, mainly Edo- and Heian-influenced vases and teabowls, as food containers, was particularly effective in tempting the macaques to handle them. A more significant understanding of behavioral patterns only emerged at the end of phase 2, revealing a separation of primate activities according to the functional divisions of their enclosures: captive macaques do not play where they eat. Analysis of the evidence has revealed a recurring pattern: the primates tended to break up the clay once it was dry, using its materiality to draw lines on the ground. The multitude of tangled lines was astonishing, because they were constant and repetitive. It seemed to be the main interest suggested to them by the clay's malleability. I have divided the lines into two categories: the lines of transportation (linear, simple, and intermittent) and the lines of persistence (localized, superimposed, and demonstrating a back-and-forth movement). The persistence lines are compared with nesting diagrams drawn by primatologists, evoking links between cognition, environment, and cultural construction. These relationships are first evident through the fusiform gyrus, a cerebral structure shared by all primates, which ensures the recognition of the contours of the environment and faces, while opening the way to alternative analogies with ancient writing systems. These reveal the continuity between the macrocosm in which we evolve and the microcosm of our inner representations, accepting our animal condition as well as the role of the imagination in the performativity of human worlds and their impact on all living things.
This contribution discusses ‚working together‘ as a method in a collaborative, co-laborative, experimental and multi-modal research practice and as a possible response to transformation processes in the Anthropocene. We further refer to co-laboration as a tool for social and cultural anthropological research on dynamic hydrosocial territories in Berlin-Brandenburg and illustrate new forms of transdisciplinary working practices. We argue that co-laboration can both provide access to the overarching challenges of our time and generate new impulses for reflection within anthropology itself through processes of interaction with diverse scientific experts and those from everyday life.
The term multi-species ethnography (MSE) stands for a comparatively new research approach in the cultural and social sciences. It questions views that place humans at the center of understanding the world and instead focuses attention on the joint interaction, entanglements and cooperation or conflict among different species. MSE is based on the basic assumptions of ethnographic field research and is creatively expanded to include methods that enable access to non-human actors. The chapter presents the theoretical foundations and methods of MSE and uses the example of algae and rats to show how MSE can be conducted.
The text discusses the notion of nature sounds which are often presented in the form of Soundscapes. It argues that humans tend to create an ontological separation between what comes from humans (as technology) and what is natural (as pristine and unmodified). The expressions natura naturans, natura naturata in philosophy differentiate between creative nature and what is created. The text proposes to reexamine sound expressions that seek to portray Nature without human elements, such as Soundscapes. These Soundscapes, however, offer only an ideal of what Nature is through human subjectivity. The text claims that the entanglement between perception and culture influences the ontological differentiation of the human-made and Nature. Hearing, as an embodied perception, may not differentiate between the sounds of Nature and cultural (manmade) nature.
By contrasting three ongoing research projects along with complementary arguments, this paper explores mediating practices from environmental art and architecture perspectives in the context of industrial forestry and Sweden’s ‘green transition’. The general discourse on ‘green transitions’ significantly amplifies the cultural and economic values of forests within and beyond Sweden. This amplification turns forests into reflexive entities that compel broader value revisions, challenging the extractivist character of modern urbanism. An example is the recent public debate in Sweden about what distinguishes a ‘forest’ (skog) from a ‘plantation’ (plantage). The debate does not reinforce the binary divide between the terms. Instead, it is prompting renewed, if overdue, attention to suppressed Indigenous and rural ancestries, as well as to alternative narratives and techniques that rethink industrial forestry tropes. From that context, our arguments position our respective research works—regarding 1) tree nurseries and climate injustice, 2) the transnational timber industry, and 3) new resource economies for the built environment—in ways which form and encourage research intersections that recognize ancestral, physical, and temporal scales as a potential for enriching the model that is the Swedish ‘green transition’.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.