Contribution short abstract:

Drawing on my ethnography of the relationship between Indigenous mountain communities and Western alternative spirituality in Colombia and the Czech Republic, I argue that mountains serve as a primary source for understanding human-nonhuman interconnectedness and global environmental sustainability.

Contribution long abstract:

The Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, are often stereotyped as "traditional cultures", separate and fossilised groups inhabiting a remote mountainous region. In Western alternative spirituality, they are romantically portrayed as those who have not been completely corrupted by our civilisation and have therefore been able to preserve ancient wisdom about how to live in harmony with nature. However, far from cultural purity and pristine tradition, these groups have been in contact with various types of nonindigenous actors for centuries and have been profoundly influenced by missionaries, trade, migration and tourism.

Drawing on my ethnographic research in Colombia and the Czech Republic, I examine this relationship between Indigenous mountain communities and Western alternative spirituality. In particular, I focus on the visits of Indigenous people from Colombia to Europe, highlighting the ways in which Indigenous political and religious agendas meet Western environmental and spiritual discourses. Indigenous ways of knowing, based on lived experience of the mountains, are being reshaped by narratives of harmony with nature, ecological crisis and climate change. The aim of this paper is to show that it is the mountains that serve as a primary source for understanding the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman beings, their coexistence and global environmental sustainability.