Description
Book SynopsisConversing with Mariano and Nazario Turpo, father and son, Marisol de la Cadena explores the entanglements and partial connections between indigenous and non-indigenous worlds, and the ways in which indigenous knowing both include and exceed modern and non-modern practices.
Trade Review"While theoretically sophisticated, the book’s concrete language and brief introductory asides make it suitable for advanced undergraduates unfamiliar with its core concepts." -- Carwil Bjork-James * Anthropological Quarterly *
"
Earth Beings is essential reading for those following current research on relational ontologies and the importance of other-than-human contributions to society (
ayllu) by encouraging us to think about how beings, places, knowledges, and power interact, particularly in the Peruvian Andes, but in a way that is relevant to much of South America and beyond.... [T]he exceptional ethnographic narratives and the clarity of writing make this a monograph that could be incorporated into a senior undergraduate or, more likely, a graduate level anthropology, geography, environmental studies, political sciences, or Indigenous studies class." -- Katherine MacDonald * Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies *
"De la Cadena's
Earth Beings reads, from start to finish, as a labor of love. . . . Each page is dense with insights about the intricacies and challenges of collaborative politics." -- Emily Yates-Doerr * Medicine Anthropology Theory *
"De la Cadena’s book is an important read and a profound application of contemporary theory to Quechua struggles in South America. It is a moving yet challenging read where the discussions, specifically on cultural politics and representation, can be applied in numerous Indigenous contexts to better transform the relational mode of interactions and divisions between nature, humans and other- than- human entities within a political realm." -- Agnieszka Pawlowska-Mainville * AlterNative *
"
Earth Beings is a powerful ethnography, the result of more than a decade of fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes.... [T]he reader can visualize the changes in the political opportunities for indigenous peoples in Peru’s political trajectory from liberalism to socialism to, most recently, the neoliberal multiculturalism of the new millennium." -- Anita Carrasco * American Ethnologist *
"[T]his book is important and vividly written and deserves to be widely read for how it revalorizes and brings fresh insight to the Andean living earth as a subject of social relations." -- Peter Gose * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *
"A remarkable feat of ethnographic writing with a keen linguistic sensitivity and a stunning accomplishment of cultural translation." -- Enrique Mayer * Journal of Anthropological Research *
"A remarkable achievement, not only merely in the compelling case it makes for ecologies of nature-humanity practices, but above all, at the level of method and authorship, where it models a concept of anthropology as of colaboring and writing 'from' rather than 'about' a specific place and land." -- Valentina Napolitano * Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory *
Table of ContentsForeword xi
Preface. Ending This Book without Nazario Turpo xv
Story 1. Agreeing to Remember, Translating, and Carefully Co-laboring 1
Interlude 1. Mariano Turpo: A Leader In-Ayllu 35
Story 2. Mariano Engages "the Land Struggle": An Unthinkable Indian Leader 59
Story 3. Mariano's Cosmopolitics: Between Lawyers and Ausangate 91
Story 4. Mariano's Archive: The Eventfulness of the Ahistorical 117
Interlude 2. Nazario Turpo: "The Altomisayuq Who Went to Heaven" 153
Story 5.
Chamanismo Andino in the Third Millennium: Multiculturalism Meets Earth-Beings 179
Story 6. A Comedy of Equivocations: Nazario Turpo's Collaboration with the National Musuem of the American Indian 209
Story 7.
Munayniyuq: The Owner of the Will (and How to Control That Will) 243
Epilogue. Ethnographic Cosmopolitics 273
Acknowledgments 287
Notes 291
References 303
Index 317
