The Scientist, the Shaman and the Shaman’s Shaman: Climate Change as Ontographical Challenge
Trees and rainfall are related. Everybody knows that. But, to what extent? A climate scientist and a shaman claim that Amazonian trees are determining atmospheric dynamics on a global scale. But are they really talking about the same forest? The same rain? The same world? This talk engages with what has been presented in the vocabulary of the recent ‘ontological turn’ as being incommensurable anthropological differences. Aníbal G. Arregui assesses this discussion – and the role of its new actors – against the backdrop of climate change and environmental degradation.
Aníbal García Arregui does research and teaching in environmental anthropology, political ecology, Amazonian anthropology, ethnographic methods and theory. His regional focus lies on the lower Amazon and Brazil (ribeirinhos and quilombolas). In his current research project he works on „Translating the Climate: the Amazon as Cosmopolitical Tension“. In 2013 he published his doctoral thesis „La Selva Tecnológica: Sistemas Sociotécnicos y Antropología Simétrica en Comunidades Ribereñas del Bajo Amazonas„. He is currently working as a lecturer in “Economic Anthropology and Environmental Politics” at the University of Vienna.
Video by Antonio Donato Nobre (2010): The magic of the Amazon. The River that flows invisibly all around us (TEDxAmazonia) available here.