Andean philosophy of nature or pachasophy results from topography and mode of production that, merged together, have produced an integrated and interacting worldview that blurs the line between culture and nature. Respecting Pacha, or the interconnectedness of life and geography, maintaining complementarity and equilibrium through symbolic interactions, and caring for Pachamama, the feminine presence of Pacha manifested mainly as cultivable soil are the basis of Andean environmental and social ethics. Reciprocity or ayni is the glue that holds (...) everything together. This weaving of traditional beliefs, customs, and ecologi­cal knowledge is rooted in the landscape and has sustained Quechua and Aymara societies during many millennia of knowing, using, and transforming the varied environments of the central Andes of South America. Any environmental ethics that influences people’s lives and promotes respectful and sustainable relationships with nature will be framed by already held worldviews. In Bolivia indigenous intellectuals are drawing on the ancient tradition of Pacha to trace an environmental ethics of pacha qamaña or the harmonious and integral well-being of life, the Earth, and the cosmos, and the ethics of suma qamaña as an all em­bracing ethical framework for the “good life” or “living well.” Although pacha qamaña and suma qamaña are rooted in the Andean mythological worldview, they will interest Western philosophers because the values they promote can be correctives for Western cultural traits that see little more than instrumental value in nature. In this sense, pacha qamaña and suma qamaña contribute to the broader discussion of environmental ethics. (shrink)

Microsystems are described as contexts formed by a subject, their roles, interactions, and a specific physical space and time, such as housing and the school environment. Although several studies suggest the importance of studying this type of environment and its repercussion on children's development, in a Latin American context few studies integrate the interaction of two primary settings in the development of executive functioning. The present study explores the effects of the quality of housing and school environments on the perception (...) of stress, decision making, and planning among children. A total of 114 children (43% girls and 57% boys, Mage = 10.57) from a primary school located in a community classified as poor participated in the study. It was measured: environmental quality of classrooms, housing, stress and executive functioning of children. The results reveal a model linking environmental quality levels in children's homes and schools and executive functioning. We also obtain a mediating role of stress between microsystems and performance, finding a deficit in executive performance when children experienced higher levels of stress as a result of poor environmental quality both in their homes and in their schools. (shrink)

El presente artículo propone el paradigma andino del “Vivir Bien” como alternativa al modelo económico, civilizatorio y social de un capitalismo neoliberal y depredador que manifiesta serias señales de crisis. Estas crisis se manifiestan en lo financiero, económico, político, axiológico y ecológico, de modo que se puede hablar de una “crisis civilizatoria”. El “Vivir Bien” andino es la expresión de una civilización opuesta en muchos aspectos al paradigma filosófico y civilizatorio de Occidente. Las contradicciones y tensiones entre los dos modelos (...) pueden verse, por ejemplo, en el proceso de cambio actual en Bolivia. (shrink)

Informed by Gloria Anzaldúa's and José Carlos Mariátegui's work, as well as by Andean cosmology, Omar Rivera turns to Inka stonework and architecture as an example of a "Cosmological Aesthetics." He articulates ways of sensing, feeling and remembering that are attuned to an aesthetic of water, earth and light. On this basis, Rivera brings forth a corporeal orientation that can be inhabited by the oppressed, one that withdraws from predominant modern/Western conceptions of the human. By providing an aesthetic analysis (...) of cosmological sensing, Rivera sets the stage for exploring physical dimensions of anti-colonial resistance, and furthers the Latinx and Latin American tradition of anti-colonial and liberatory philosophy. Seeingaesthetic involvements with the cosmos as a source for embodied modes of resistance, Rivera turns to the work of María Lugones and Enrique Dussel in order to make explicit the aesthetic dimensions of their work. Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance creates a new dialogue between art historians, artists, and philosophers working on Latin American thought, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. It weaves together a Latin American philosophy that connects pre-Columbian cosmologies with contemporary thinkers. Rivera's original approach introduces us to the living, evolving and aesthetic alternatives to coloniality of power and of knowledge, overhauling current understandings of decolonial theory and opening the tradition in transformative ways. (shrink)

This volume explores the Pre-Columbian Andean concepts of time, space, and the human body through objects, skeletal remains, and language. This interdisciplinary approach to conceptualizing what the Andean concepts of being may have been brings contemporary approaches to past notions of the sacred, with each discipline adding its own unique perspective to the Andean ontology. A particular strength of this volume is that most of the contributors are South American researchers, offering North American scholars entry into scholarship (...) that has been confined to Spanish language publications. (shrink)

The subject of the analysis of this paper is the Andean civilization view by the Peruvian author of the XVI century Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, a Quechua Indian by origin, who became a Catholic monk, as well as a translator and mediator between two civilizations: European, personalized by Spanish administration and Catholic Church present in the conquered lands, and Andean civilization, represented by local population speaking native Quechua and other Native American languages. The collision of two worlds (...) is clearly visible in the Chronicle «El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno», which belongs to this author. This literary monument is an invaluable document because it describes in Medieval Spanish a disappearing world left behind, due to the lack of writing, having only artifacts of material culture and proto-hieroglyphic recording tools. The main methods of this research – analysis, synthesis, generalization. Analyzing the statements of the author of the Chronicle, who is trying to reconcile the two worlds, it is possible to recreate the panorama of the life of Andean society of that era and the sociolinguistic situation developed in it. The novelty of the study can be considered the combination of cultural and sociolinguistic approaches in the analysis of the material. The conclusion reached by the authors of the article is that the death of the Andean civilization was inevitable under the onslaught of the European one. But the Andean world, native languages and culture have not disappeared, and today are being revived, since the Peruvian society has formed a request to restore the social functions of native languages in full. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibility that the development of the Chavín Horizon may have stimulated the expansion of one of the major central Andean language families, particularly Aymara, once spread much more widely and further north than today. Pre-Chavín cultures on the coast and in the highlands are reviewed and found to be unlikely sources of this expansion. While the Chavín Horizon may provide a possible source for the first expansion of Aymara, in terms of both its chronology and (...) widespread geographical impact, the ‘strong hypotheses’ proposed to explain the expansion are found to be unconvincing, particularly that linking the expansion to the adoption of maize as a staple. Other hypotheses emphasizing the role of religion and cosmopolitanism are proposed as possible alternatives. The current discussion is placed within the larger context of the history of Andean archaeology and historical linguistics and is viewed as an important step forward in resolving this long-standing problem. (shrink)

Chucho is an Andean bear who had lived most of his life in semicaptivity in a nature reserve in Manizales, Colombia. After his sister’s death, he became severely depressed, so the environmental authority transferred him to Barranquilla Zoo. A local lawyer filed a writ of habeas corpus based on Chucho’s right as a sentient being to live in his natural habitat. This writ has triggered a complex debate on nonhuman animal legal personhood and animal rights between two of the (...) highest courts in the country: the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court. (shrink)

Included in the acute response of lowlanders exposed to reduced oxygen availability is an elevated red blood cell count due to increased erythropoietin (Epo) synthesis. According to current thinking, hypoxia is “sensed” by hydroxylases that permit Hypoxia Inducible Factor 1α (HIF‐1α) to complex with HIF‐1β to form a transcriptional activator (HIF‐1) that drives expression of hypoxia‐sensitive genes (such as EPO) under hypoxic conditions. In altitude‐adapted Andean natives, the Epo hypoxic response may be blunted; however, our data indicate that the (...) DNA sequences of the genes encoding Epo (including the 3′ regulatory region) and HIF‐1α appear to be conserved. Hence, adaptive changes in the Andean hypoxic response are not a consequence of changes in the primary sequence of these proteins or of known transcriptional regulatory domains of EPO. These results suggest that the altered erthropoietic response in Andean natives reflects adaptations in hypoxia sensing, rather than hypoxia response, mechanisms. BioEssays 25:515–519, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The dispersal of the Romance language family by the Roman Empire is an attractive model for examining the spread of Quechua. Wari and Tiwanaku are often considered the first Andean empires, during the Middle Horizon. Despite being contemporaries sharing the same religious iconography, they were unlikely to have spoken and dispersed the same language. Tiwanaku material culture rather implies ethnic and linguistic diversity, not least in its best-documented colonization in Moquegua. Wari, meanwhile, appears culturally and administratively unified, colonizing and (...) controlling a territory across southern Peru, from Cuzco to Nasca. If Wari was responsible for a language dispersal, then this should represent its core territory; and it is indeed the heart of Southern Quechua. In northern Peru, Wari presence seems less intense, its rule more complex and indirect. The Moche region remained essentially beyond Wari influence, while for the central coast and distant Aguada culture more research is needed. (shrink)

This volume is a collection which includes the text of papers presented at the September 2008 Cambridge Symposium on Archaeology and Linguistics in the Andes. The Cambridge symposium sought to bring together the disciplines of linguistics and archaeology, in order to dispel a number of popular myths about the language history of the Andes. This introductory chapter first sets out the structure of the book and introduces its component chapters. Thereafter it clarifies briefly a number of principles from historical linguistics (...) that are indispensable to an understanding of how language data can inform us about prehistory at all, as a general methodological background to the chapters that follow. Next, it reviews the traditional model for associating the linguistic and archaeological records in the Andes, and the problems that attend it. Finally, it looks at one particular cross-disciplinary proposal that has commanded much attention worldwide, but precious little hitherto in the Andes: the ‘farming/language dispersal’ hypothesis. (shrink)

The seed system is a major component of traditional management of crop genetic diversity in developing countries. Seed flows are an important part of this system. They have been poorly studied for minor Andean crops, especially those that are propagated vegetatively. We examine the seed exchanges of Oxalis tuberosa Mol., a vegetatively propagated crop capable of sexual reproduction. We studied the seed exchanges of four rural communities in Candelaria district at the international and local levels, emphasizing the spread of (...) new sexually-produced genotypes through these exchanges. Interviews with 44 farmers generated socioeconomic, agronomic, crop diversity and seed exchange information, and data on the potential incorporation of new sexually-produced genotypes in the crop germplasm. We interviewed merchants to evaluate the input and output of genetic diversity in the communities studied. Results showed a positive effect of the farmers’ wealth on the diversity cultivated and on seed exchanges. Most seed exchanges occurred at market, creating a distinction between cash and self-consumption landraces. Cash landraces were intensively exchanged; self-consumption landraces were isolated at the farmer level and prone to genetic drift and complete loss. Merchants exported seeds of cash landraces across Bolivia and into Peru and Argentina. New sexually produced genotypes are less incorporated into cash landraces than in self-consumed landraces. However, new genotypes incorporated into cash landraces are diffused faster and better, being more intensively exchanged. We propose conservation strategies that can be applied to other vegetatively propagated and minor Andean crops. (shrink)

A partir del estudio de tres quechuismos vigentes en el habla mapuche williche² evidenciamos la existencia de relaciones interculturales en el horizonte andino. Nuestro análisis se concentra en voces de origen quechua que refieren a instituciones mapuches centrales en términos identitarios, religiosos y sociales. En cada uno de los casos, los préstamos lingüísticos revelan paralelismos culturales preexistentes. El estudio comparativo de los conceptos designados por estas voces y las prácticas culturales asociadas a ellas expone el correlato de sistemas de representaciones (...) simbólicas que se perfilan como variantes de una matriz cosmovisionaria común. From the study of three quechuisms in mapuche williche speech, we show the existence of intercultural relations in the Andean horizon. Our analysis focuses on Quechua voices which refer to central identitarian, religious, and social mapuche institutions. In each of the cases, the loaned words reveal preexisting cultural parallels. The comparative study of concepts designated by these voices and cultural practices associated with them exposes the correlation of symbolic representational systems which appear as variants of a common worldview matrix. (shrink)

La celebración de fiestas en honor a los santos patronos de las comunidades andinas es una de las manifestaciones de religiosidad más extendidas desde Colonia. Másallá de entenderla como una manifestación en continuidad directa con las prácticas cúlticas del Tawantinsuyo o la ritualidad católica española, consideramos que esta festividad es un fenómeno emergente que debe ser analizado en su especificidad. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la figura del santo y su eficacia simbólico-ritual en la fiesta patronal andina desarrollada (...) durante el periodo colonial (XVI-XVII). A partir del análisis de una serie de crónicas coloniales, intentaremos mostrar que las especificidades rituales de la fiesta y de la operación del santo como símbolo icónico dominante permiten comprender su eficacia simbólica, así como también la co-existencia de diversas interpretaciones y escenificaciones rituales que darían cuenta de la agencialidad ritual de la comunidad. The celebration of festivities in honor of the patron saints of the Andean communities is one of the most widespread manifestations of religiosity from the Colony. Beyond understood as a manifestation in direct continuity with the cultic practices of the Catholic ritual Tawantinsuyo or Spanish, we believe that this festival is an emerging phenomenon that must be analyzed in its specificity. The aim of this paper is to analyze the figure of the saint and their efficacy in symbolic ritual Andean fiesta developed during the colonial period (XVI-XVII). From the analysis of a series of colonial chronicles, try to show that the specific rituals of celebration and operation saint as provide insight dominant iconic symbol symbolic effectiveness, as well as the co-existence of different interpretations and stagings rituals give account of agency community ritual. (shrink)

Using the phenomenological perspective provided by the concept of embodiment, this article shows that in Cuenca, Ecuador, knowledge about the body is fluid and during illness women can seek reassurance and explanations from multiple knowledge systems, including locally understood subordinate ones. Employing the concept of `character', as described by Ricoeur, as an explanation for why some women are more vulnerable to illness than others, the author argues that gender ideologies and notions of self-identity intersect in Ecuadorian conceptions of weakness and (...) illness. Women's narrative descriptions of themselves and their experiences with envy illness (envidia) indicate that the experience of illness is an extremely powerful one and that women's interpretations of it cross typical social class divisions. Embodied illness creates a place and moment for revealing that which is often hidden. (shrink)

Watersheds constitute a special case of multiple-use common pool resources (CPRs). In a textual sense, watersheds tend to be mosaics of privately owned and managed patches of land. At the same time, however, watersheds are also ecosystems in which multiple resources and people interact through an infinity of bio-physical processes. Through such interaction, new watershed-level qualities emerge that, together with other factors, condition watershed users' continued resource use and access. In this perspective, watersheds become common-pool resources. Hence, watershed users do (...) not only manage their individual plots, crops, forests, etc., knowingly or not, they manage landscape patterns and bio-physical processes that transcend their private property. In this context, drawing on experiences gained through participatory action research in a micro-watershed in the Andean hillsides of southern Colombia, this paper describes a process aimed at fostering collective watershed management. The paper illustrates the importance of platforms as a mechanism for negotiating and coordinating collective action by multiple users and discusses the issues of representation on such platforms as well as the importance of third party facilitation. (shrink)

Watersheds constitute a special case of multiple-use common pool resources (CPRs). In a textual sense, watersheds tend to be mosaics of privately owned and managed patches of land. At the same time, however, watersheds are also ecosystems in which multiple resources and people interact through an infinity of bio-physical processes. Through such interaction, new watershed-level qualities emerge that, together with other factors, condition watershed users' continued resource use and access. In this perspective, watersheds become common-pool resources. Hence, watershed users do (...) not only manage their individual plots, crops, forests, etc., knowingly or not, they manage landscape patterns and bio-physical processes that transcend their private property. In this context, drawing on experiences gained through participatory action research in a micro-watershed in the Andean hillsides of southern Colombia, this paper describes a process aimed at fostering collective watershed management. The paper illustrates the importance of platforms as a mechanism for negotiating and coordinating collective action by multiple users and discusses the issues of representation on such platforms as well as the importance of third party facilitation. (shrink)

As scientific objects, mummies were born of Europe’s encounter with two “ancient” bodily knowledges. The first is well known: the embalmed Egyptian dead who were ground into a materia medica named mumia and later were collected as “mummies” themselves. Yet mummies owe their global possibility—of ancient sciences of embalming and environmental manipulation apprehensible worldwide—to the sixteenth-century Spanish encounter with the Incas’ preserved dead, the yllapa. This article argues that their confiscation and display desecrated their sacred affect, but their recategorization as (...) “embalmed” bodies allowed Indigenous Peruvian writers to argue for the Incas’ lost medical sophistication. European scholars then used that sophistication to establish “mummies” as a comparative category. The original yllapas decayed, blurring both Inca sovereignty and the colonial Latin American sciences that anatomized it, but their imagined resurrection in the preserved bodies of other “ancient Peruvians” turned the “Inca mummy” into a highly collectible scientific object, embodying a newly national past of ancient learning and anti-imperial indictment. (shrink)

The Law has always been an instrument to exorcise different kinds of fear, primarily the fear of differences, through the distribution of shares of power. Perhaps, this system, inherently conflictual, is behind the failure of the multicultural policies of many countries, that have divided the society in as many separate communities as are the elements that differentiate each human being. The Law has also recognized to men a total power over Nature, feeding its illusion of control, that in recent decades (...) has shattered in front of several natural disasters. Ecuador, Buthan and South Africa have introduced in their Constitutions ideas belonging to the indigenous cultural tradition (buen vivir, buddhism and ubuntu), which express harmony between men and Nature. The paper analyzes these experiences in order to propose a new model of eco-friendly constitutionalism. (shrink)

This paper adds to the epistemological contributions of Latin American philosophy. In particular, I propose a “resistant epistemology” informed by contemporary indigenous Andean philosophies and cosmologies. Focusing on the work of María Lugones, Rodolfo Kusch, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, I explore ways in which communities are made and remade on the basis of knowledges from below, surviving political and ecological crises, including colonialism and modern development. These kinds of resistive knowledges draw from rituals, quotidian and cosmic rhythms, and affective (...) withdrawals from instrumental and objectifying dispositions. (shrink)

Due to the societal dissemination of digital technology, people are increasingly experiencing environmental topics through digital media channels such as social networks. Several researchers therefore have proposed these channels as a possibility to strengthen sustainable development based on their cost-efficient nature. But while prior studies have investigated isolated factors for understanding environmental social media behavior, there is still scarce understanding of the relevant underlying motivational factors and possible connections with more traditional environmental behaviors. Therefore, the present study applied the established (...) socio-psychological model of goal-directed behavior (MGB) and compared the desires for liking as a fundamental form of digital social media behavior with the desires for two traditional environmental behaviors (money donation and volunteering) in a cross-sectional research design. Within the biodiversity conservation case of the Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) in Ecuador, we compared the antecedents for the desires for the corresponding environmental behaviors (RQ1) as well as their connections between each other (RQ2). Within a sample of 407 Ecuadorian students (Mage = 20.94 years, SD = 2.25, 61.2 % female), we found the marginal effect of perceived behavioral control on the desires for liking on social media as the main difference concerning the antecedents of the behaviors because money donation and volunteering largely depended on personal resources such as time or money. Furthermore, gender emerged as the second main difference between the behaviors due to it only being predictive for the liking motivation. Enjoyment was the only variable that coherently predicted all three behaviors. Finally, desires for liking on social media predicted both other behaviors in robust regression analyses, but were only predictive for volunteering in corresponding path models. The results illustrate how cost-efficient digital environmental behaviors such as liking may be suitable for sparking low-level environmental action, which may entail more pronounced forms of environmental activism, at least when they involve feasible personal costs. Overall, the findings are in line with prior research regarding the less demanding nature of liking, but further elaborate on the importance of gender for digital environmental behavior and correlates between digital and classical environmental behaviors. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Contact‐Period Indigenous Andean Philosophy Contact‐Era Aztec or Nahua Philosophy Conclusion References.

The field of Latin American philosophy has established itself as a relevant subfield of philosophical inquiry. However, there might be good reasons to consider that our focus on the subfield could have distracted us from considering another subfield that, although it might share some geographical proximity, does not share the same historical basic elements. In this paper, I argue for a possible and meaningful conceptual difference between Latin American Philosophy and Indigenous philosophy produced in Latin America. First, I raise what (...) I call Mariátegui’s Solidarity Challenge to show that there might be some neglectful treatment of the philosophical views of different Indigenous groups. I then depart from Mariátegui and engage in a critical exercise to show that even he would be guilty of failing in his own solidarity demands. I follow that by drawing out some implications of the argument. I first sketch how this differentiation would play out against the political project of “Mestizaje,” a project that seems to inform some of the Latin American philosophical tradition. I then speculate about the kinds of duties that the field of Latin American philosophy might have towards the field of Indigenous Philosophy produced in Latin America. (shrink)

For centuries Andean civilization and ecology has afforded a special fascination for European travellers and officials. In this volume, eight writers - anthropologists, economists and historians working in Bolivia, Britain, France, Ireland and Peru - describe and analyse aspects of rural society in various Andean regions. They focus on the impact of capitalist development on both the peasant economy and the landed elite in the Andes and the ways in which that impact has been shaped by a specific (...) Andean culture and a characteristic Andean ecology and climate. Their discussion of Andean specificity centres on the notion of verticality, first developed by John Murra to describe political and economic adaptation to climatic variation in the Andean eco-system. The volume represents a substantial contribution to our understanding of Andean rural society and the nature of the Latin American peasantry and peasant economy. It will appeal to all those interested in economic anthropology, Latin America, peasant studies and the capitalist world-economy. (shrink)

Farmers of the Peruvian Andesmake use of seed-size variation as a source offlexibility in the production of ``nativecommercial'' farmer varieties of Andeanpotatoes and ulluco. In a case study of easternCuzco, the use of varied sizes of seed tubers isfound to underpin versatile farm strategiessuited to partial commercialization (combinedwith on-farm consumption and the next season'sseed). Use of seed-size variation also providesadaptation to diverse soil-moistureenvironments. The importance and widespread useof seed-size variation among farmers isdemonstrated in the emphasis and consistency oflinguistic expressions about (...) this trait. Smalland small-medium seed is typically sown in thecommunity's ``Hill'' unit of sub-humid,upper-elevation agriculture. Seed tubers ofmedium-size and larger are needed fordrought-stressed locales in lower-elevationlandscape units. Farm-level preferences for theseed-size of tubers also suggest potentialrelations to resource endowments of farmhouseholds and gender-related management,although these tendencies were notstatistically significant in the study. Anintra-varietal, landscape-environmentalperspective on seed-size management, whichincludes an emphasis on within-fieldversatility, helps to strengthen the researchsupport of local seed production in policiesand programs aiming for in situagrobiodiversity conservation, marketingcapacity, and food security. (shrink)

El ajuste entre Estado y nación en Latinoamérica ha observado complicaciones desde la fundación de sus repúblicas. La pluralidad de subjetividades, realidades materiales y brechas, sumadas a las coyunturales demandas insatisfechas y una débil institucionalidad influyeron en que las construcciones nacionales hayan tenido un componente populista en diferentes intentos refundadores. En los países andinos ese componente se expresa a partir de unas condiciones sociopolíticas previas a las performativas identidades nacionales y la presencia de liderazgos personalistas. Parte de los estudios sobre (...) identidades nacionales en estos países se centraron en el análisis de sus liderazgos y discursos. Otros optaron por centrarse en los procesos o condiciones de posibilidad que favorecen la irrupción de estas identidades. El objetivo del trabajo es brindar una base epistemológica que emerja de la compatibilidad entre los anteriores abordajes explicativos de las identidades nacionales. (shrink)

Drawing from Andean cosmological, mythological and aesthetic lineages, this paper is about the possibility of a phenomenology of things at catastrophic ends. In this regard, I approach things under the sway of a (de)formative emptiness. In the first part, I develop a relational ontology on the basis of the Andean notion of pacha or cosmos, which provides a phenomenological frame for a determination of “place,” “world” and “topology.” I also contrast an elemental topology of the cosmos configured by (...) ouranic sunlight with an elemental catastrophism that overturns it. In the second part, I study a chronological series of artifacts in an Andean aesthetic lineage in order to attempt a phenomenology of “things” (utensils, buildings, mountains) that “spectrally” hover in overturns of the cosmos (pachakuti). (shrink)

Farmers in Andean communities depend on complex farming systems that combine native and introduced crops, production for subsistence, and production for the market. Home to the well-known potato, the Andean region is also the native place of hundreds of lesser known varieties of tubers such as oca, ulluco, and mashua. Using data from interviews and field observation in the Peruvian community of Picol, we describe the economic and social relevance of these tuber crops in the context of the (...) local farming system. A cross-case comparison of households is used to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status and the allocation of family resources. We also explore how different agricultural practices relate to the biodiversity of indigenous tuber crops. (shrink)

In attending to surfaces, as they wrap, layer and grow within sentient bodies, material formations and cosmological sates, this volume presents a series of ten anthropological studies stretching across five continents and in observation of earthly practices of making, knowing, living and dying. Through theoretically reflecting on time spent with Aymara and Mapuche Andean cultures, the Malagasy people of Madagascar, craftspeople and designers across Europe and Oceania, amongst the architectures of Australia and South Korea, and within the folds of (...) books, screens, landscape and the sea, the anthropologists in this volume communicate diverse ways of considering, working with and knowing surfaces. Together, these writings advance a knowledge of the world which resists any definitive settlement of existential categories and rather seeks to know the world in its emergence and transformation, as entities grow, cohere, shift, dissolve, decay and rebirth through the contact and exchange of surfaces, persisting with varying time, power and effect. The book principally invites readers from anthropology, the creative arts and environmental studies, but also across the wider humanities and social sciences as well as those in neighbouring scientific fields of archeology, biology, geography, geoscience, material science, neurology and psychology interested in the intersections of mind, body, materials and world. (shrink)

This book questions the value of the concept of 'agency', a term used in sociological and philosophical literature to refer to individual free will in archaeology. On the one hand it has been argued that previous generations of archaeologists, in explaining social change in terms of structural or environmental conditions, have lost sight of the 'real people' and reduced them to passive cultural pawns, on the other, introducing the concept of agency to counteract this can be said to perpetuate a (...) modern, Western view of the autonomous individual who is free from social constraints. This book discusses the balance between these two opposites, using a range of archaeological and historical case studies, including European and Asian prehistory, classical Greece and Rome, the Inka and other Andean cultures. While focusing on the relevance of 'agency' theory to archaeological interpretation and using it to create more diverse and open-ended accounts of ancient cultures, the authors also address the contemporary political and ethical implications of what is essentially a debate about the definition of human nature. (shrink)