Paper short abstract:

The indigenous Matsigenka, of the Peruvian Amazon, and representatives of the modernist Peruvian society live in ontologically distinct worlds and they frequently fail to understand each other. When Matsigenka people act (cosmo)politically it is understood by their adversaries in distinct terms.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will discuss an expression of cosmopolitics that differs in many respects from, for instance, Andean cases as described by de la Cadena. The presentation will deal with encounters between indigenous Matsigenka and representatives of the modernist Peruvian society taking place in the Amazon of south-eastern Peru. The two groups of people belong to ontologically different worlds, one animist and one naturalists, which means that they frequently fail to understand each other.

While the Matsigenka once practically were the sole human inhabitants of the area, immigration to the area during the last decades have now reduced them to a minority. In contrast to the migrants who present themselves as modern people, the Matsigenka are seen as backward and irrational and they wield almost no influence in their dealings with the local and national authorities. This political asymmetry is partly an outcome of the lack of a political leadership that has not been introduced by non-Matsigenka agents. When Matsigenka people act politically they use the forces to which they have access. While the Andean articulation of cosmopolitics largely relies on the spiritual embodiment of the land no such forces are part of Matsigenka cosmological understandings. Spirits do, nonetheless, play an important part in the lives of Matsigenka people even though they mainly intervene indirectly. In conflicts with non-indigenous people, spirits principally provide indirect assistance through the subjectification of objects that subsequently are deployed by humans to reach their ends, thus I rely on Gell's notion of 'secondary agents'.

Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to explore how indigenous peoples in Taiwan negotiate claims to land and autonomy within the nation-state by analyzing the Bunun's movement to reclaim their traditional territory through embodied engagement with ancestral entities.

Paper long abstract:

The delineation of Indigenous Peoples' traditional territory is a highly contested political issue in Taiwan. On February 18, 2017, the Council of Indigenous Peoples decided to exclude all private lands from being designated indigenous territories. The exclusion has sparked heated debate, and a group of indigenous activists have staged a "sleepout" protest for several months on Ketagalan Boulevard down the street from the Presidential Office Building since February 23, 2017. According to the demonstrators, the policy is tantamount to letting large corporations arbitrarily develop lands that would otherwise be protected as traditional indigenous territories. The notions that indigenous peoples have natural sovereignty over their traditional territories, and they are the best custodians of land who can resist the encroachment of capitalist invasion, are central to their rhetoric of protest. The somewhat romanticized notion that indigenous peoples are the moral guardians of land is inspired by global indigenism. However, under the larger trend of indigenism and identity politics, differences between various indigenous peoples' concepts of land and land tenure system have been ignored, and socio-cultural contexts unattended, thus producing a simplified and essentialized indigeneity. This paper will attempt to provide a more nuanced analysis of how the indigenous peoples in Taiwan negotiate claims to land, livelihood, and autonomy within the nation-state by investigating the Bunun's movement to reclaim their traditional territory through embodied engagement with ancestral entities. By attending to land as a cosmopolitic axis of sociality, we can move beyond a reified construction of indigeneity.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to describe the spatial project of the Maraguá in the Abacaxis river valley and how it interacts with other superimposed projects being developed in the same region.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to do three things: the first is to describe the spatial project of the Maraguá, a people who inhabit the Abacaxis river valley, in the central Amazon, and who were considered extinct by the Brazilian state until 2007. They speak a language that contains elements from the Arawak (referred to as old Maraguá) and Tupi language families (principally Sateré-Mawé and Nheengatu). For the past two decades the Maraguá have sought to obtain government recognition for their land, called Maraguápaji, a process which has involved complex negotiations with other regional agents, both human and non-human. The second is to explore the interactions resulting from the superimposition of Maraguápaji with other spatial projects being developed in the Abacaxis river valley by tourism agencies, logging companies, illegal drug traffickers, gold miners, agribusiness and local, state and national government agencies. Lastly it seeks to exposit a few methodological considerations regarding Maraguá expectations of my research and how they are continuously affected by the sign of non-existence.

Paper short abstract:

The purpose is to consider djeoromitxi indigenous ways of living and inhabiting the land through movements tied to founding and re-founding villages, involve intrahuman and transespecific relations with spirit beings. In this investigation, kinship, leadership and territory themes are all intricade.

Paper long abstract:

The paper's purpose is to consider indigenous ways of living and inhabiting the land. To do this, I situate myself ethnographically between the constitution of djeoromitxi places (speakers of a Macro-Jê language; inhabitants of southern Amazonia) and their history of territorial invasion, deaths by epidemics and forced displacement. The post-hecatomb movements tied to founding and re-founding villages, involve intrahuman and transespecific relations with spirit beings: game, fish, trees' owners, dead relatives and evil spirits. The ethnography of the djeoromitxi' places points to a certain sharing of ground between kinship, politics (leadership) and territory. Additionally, this ground-sharing contains an indigenous reflection on non-indigenous people.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines intensification of ecological fragility and rapidity of environmental change in the Arctic. The discussion focuses on human capacity to predict ecological disasters while pointing at potential limitations of available models for forecasting, risk mitigation and relief efforts.

Paper long abstract:

The intensification of ecological fragility and rapidity of environmental change in the Arctic questions adaptability and human capacity to predict and avert ecological disasters while pointing at potential limitations of available models for forecasting, risk mitigation and relief efforts. Given the bounded human capacity for predicting unpredictable, the challenge is to craft a tentative strategy that takes into detailed and balanced consideration of limitations and productive potential of knowledge whether scientific or public. However, it is the accounts of survival and lived experiences by those who went through environmental calamities that become vital for ascertaining human capacity to adapt and negotiate safety. This paper aims to examine the ways Siberian Eveny reindeer herders deal with environmental unpredictability and survive by relying on their own patterns of mobility, tactics of flexibility and divination rituals. My discussion will attempt to address the following questions: What type of knowledge and tactics are required to reduce uncertainty of increasingly erratic nature of climate events and shape new patterns of adaptability reflexive of and responsive to local particularities and their wider implications? How do affected communities make sense of such critical events as landslide, wildfire or flash floods? Are humans able to mitigate risk situations and calamities when available strategies and resources are getting increasingly unreliable and stretched too thin? Can humans adequately respond to multiple threats induced by climate change?

Paper short abstract:

Trophy hunting in Namibian CBNRM is critically scrutinised; a rather simplified discourse on economic benefits sells short to local realities of indigenous groups. I argue that the ontological concept of 'social affordances' to analyse trophy hunting provides for a much more complete debate.

Paper long abstract:

In the global neoliberal ecological discourse, trophy hunting proponents often articulate the economic benefits it creates for local communities, especially jobs and meat. Moreover, larger revenues are crucial to support the management of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes. In Namibia, for example, a large and rather powerful group of NGOs, donors and private trophy hunting associations (including the WWF and the Namibian Professional Hunting Association, NAPHA) keep repeating the importance of trophy hunting for CBNRM in academic and public debates, but without seriously reflecting on their own (researcher) position. The aim of this paper is to show that this rather simplified dominant discourse sells short to the local realities of some of the indigenous Khwe and Ju/'hoansi Bushmen (San) in the Bwabwata National Park and the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, Namibia, respectively. Generally, the Khwe and Ju/'hoansi are indeed in favour of economic benefits, but these need to be better contextualised as very limited in the first place and they come together with a variety of important social dynamics. Building on Gibson and Ingold, I use the ontological concept of 'social affordances'—thereby transcending the focus on economic benefits—to analyse trophy hunting in Bwabwata and Nyae Nyae. This leads me to argue for an expansion of the debate beyond economic benefits to the often overlooked social realm, to better understand the multiple experiences, perceptions and meanings (for good and ill) of local actors on trophy hunting and its main players.