Work · Structuralism & Poststructuralism
Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism
Article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute: in many Amerindian cosmologies humans, animals and spirits all see themselves as persons and share one culture, while their bodies differ; this “multinaturalism” reverses the Western pairing of one nature with many cultures.
Introduction
Viveiros de Castro first set out the argument in Portuguese in 1996, in the journal Mana, as “Os pronomes cosmológicos e o perspectivismo ameríndio”; the English version appeared in 1998 in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (vol. 4, no. 3). Drawing on ethnographies from across Amazonia, the article describes the idea that animals and spirits see themselves as humans, with houses, ornaments and beer, and see humans as prey or as predators. Since all share the point of view of a person, what differs is the body, understood as a bundle of affects and capacities. Viveiros de Castro calls this “multinaturalism”, contrasts it with Western multiculturalism and connects it with shamanism and bodily transformation. Later debates on perspectivism start from this article.
Connections
Taken up in
- Beyond Nature and Culture2005 · Philippe Descola
More works by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Sources: Wikidata
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