Évènements

Poor mestizos in northern Peru respond to climate change and environmental devastation by engaging indigenous sentient landscapes- with the capacity to sense, feel and act- as moral leaders of environmental movements and co-creators of an interethnic world. They challenge social models normalized by neoliberal capitalism and settler colonialism, which are based on the distinction between the human and non-human, culture and nature, and which promote human exceptionalism and environmental devastation. Scholars have considered radically different forms of non-human persons and their multiple ways of being in the world. This ethnography explores how local mestizos engage sentient landscapes ritually and politically to challenge governments and industries as leaders in movements for environmental justice and collective ethics. By working beyond the theoretical limitations of both ontological approaches (different was of being) and political ecology, and within the realm of a local, place-based environmental and spiritual politics, my research shows how the historical dichotomies of Western thought and their effects can be disrupted and displaced. I analyze how Peruvian mestizos’ engagement with sentient landscapes can provide a model for radical moral-environmental-political action. By defining “community” and “well-being” as humans in relationship-to-places as-persons, poor mestizos resignify “nature” itself as an anchor for social justice.

Plus d'informations sur ce projet de recherche.

Photo : Apu Cuculicote taken from the Moche ritual platform featuring the mesa of curandero Omballec, Taken by Ana Mariella Bacigalupo in 2019