Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds

The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures

by Marisol de la Cadena, Robert J. Foster (Foreword), Daniel R. Reichman (Foreword)

Earth Beings is the fruit of Marisol de la Cadena's decade-long conversations with Mariano and Nazario Turpo, father and son, runakuna or Quechua people. Concerned with the mutual entanglements of indigenous and nonindigenous worlds, and the partial connections between them, de la Cadena presents how the Turpos' indigenous ways of knowing and being include and exceed modern and nonmodern practices. Her discussion of indigenous political strategies—a realm that need not abide by binary logics—reconfigures how to think about and question modern politics, while pushing her readers to think beyond "hybridity" and toward translation, communication that accepts incommensurability, and mutual difference as conditions for ethnography to work.

 

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Indigenous, Philosophy, Ethnography, Nature, Ecology

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 9, 2015

About the author

Marisol de la Cadena is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds, also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely FANTASTIC book –– an illuminating linguistic, onto-epistemic journey that reads like a novel.

[nancy mansilla Alvarado · Rating 5 out of 5]

En una larga conversación con la familia Turpo la autora va indagando en las relaciones hermenéuticas y geopolíticas que desde el mundo andino - y en particular el runakuna- se van estableciendo entre lo indígena y lo no indígena desde el punto de vista del campesinado y su lucha, el chamanismo y la forma coexistencial a través de la cual todos estamos conectados con los seres de la tierra. Y como todo aquello choca o no... con el mundo occiental...

[Isabella Parisotto · Rating 5 out of 5]

lindo! essencial tanto pra quem quer estudar sobre os povos andinos especificamente quanto pra quem quer estudar qualquer coisa no campo dos estudos sócio culturais. Marisol reconta parte da história do Peru a partir de lideranças que foram excluídas da história e política hegemônicas (o que já valeria 5 estrelas pra mim) - mas "não apenas"; ela constrói uma reflexão sobre a forma que fazemos etnografia a partir de toda sua vivência em Pacchanta, oferecendo conceitos orientadores pra nossa interpretação de diferentes mundos. parabéns e quero mais 💫

[Nina Marcineková]

o tejto knihe som už napísala hrozne veľa slov do školy, tak len stručne: je to o bytí, vedení, rozumení a porozumení, spolupráci, komunite, mnohých realitách obsahujúcich komplexné svety, ktoré vedľa seba existujú a mosty medzi nimi sú skromné, s pokrivenou rovnováhou. hlavnými postavami sú Mario Turpo a Nazario Turpo, Quechua ľudia (runakuna). veľmi, veľmi náročné - odborníci väčšinou písali, že sofistikované.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una etnografia MERAVELLOSA del poble qui'chua dels Andes peruvians. Marisol de la Cadena aborda, a partir dels testimonis de Mariano i Nazario Turpo, la història de la comunitat de Pacchanta amb la modernitat i l'estat peruà, durant el darrer segle. M'ha semblat increible, ple de paraules vives, maneres de fer ancestrals, radicalment diferents i necessàriament futures, un xoc total de cosmologies i com s'articulen. Fantàstic.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written argument for the acknowledgement of a reality comprised of multiple worlds. De la Cadena thoughtfully ruminates on the discomfort inherent in writing about a worldview mediated through her relationships with residents of a partially connected world. I read her project also add a deeply personal process of grievance for her friends, and a meditation on how they are still in community with one another.

[Cayetana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es un libro que, metodológicamente, representa perfectamente lo que debe ser la antropología. Logra reflejar lo que vivió con increible cercanía y me encantó su perpectiva de los mundos distintos. Lo que más me gustó es que honra la memoria de una familia (Los Turpo), crecer junto a los participantes es al final lo más importante de la labor antropologica. Le pongo sus 5 estrellitas aun que me hubiese gustado que esté traducido al español y al quechua también.

[Roger Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book with rigorous attention to differences in ways of knowing and being. Drawing frequently from Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's concept of equivocation, de la Cadena gives multi-dimensional accounts of two runakuna practitioners that allow the reader to see the necessary flaws in translation.

[tilda · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Earth Beings- Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds” (2015) by Marisol de la Cadena is a densely written and highly informative ethnography, mostly working in an anecdotal way. The book is based on her decade long conversation with Mariano Turpo and his son Nazario, Quechua speaking men from the Andean highlands in Peru. The ethnography has been written on one condition: de la Cadena promised to them that it be based on the life of Mariano and his activism, which is exactly what she has done. This surprised me at first, because I had thought the book would be centering around Earth Beings as the title suggests. Later I would understand that by writing about Mariano and Nazario, she interchangeably has written about Earth Beings, too. De la Cadena analyzes her conversations with the Turpos from 2002 till 2007, when Nazario died in a traffic accident. Mariano had already passed in 2004, leaving Marisol with the task of completing the book on her own. They were both influential men in their community of Pacchanta, a place that is also home to the powerful Earth Being Ausangate. Earth Beings can be mountains like Ausangate, but also other entities in nature like rivers or lakes.
The book contains two sections; one about Mariano and one about Nazario. Both open up with an interlude introducing them and are followed by chapters that discuss their lives more in-depth. The first section focuses on Mariano’s legal fight against the state of Peru and his leading position in the indigenous “Land struggle”. The second section positions Nazario as an “Andean Shaman”, a relatively new category for people engaging with Earth Beings and thus sparking debates about linguistic terms and hierarchies. The ethnography is packed with translations and concepts. But central for an understanding of Nazario and Mariano’s way of living is “Ayllu”. This is a relational mode that describes a group of humans (Runakuna) and also other-than-humans (e.g. Earth Beings or Terikuna) that are related to each other through various ties and also by the land that they inhabit. Being “In-Ayllu” creates a relationship between all others that walk in-ayllu. From the Ayllu, which is also used to refer to the community one lives, works and engages in, the exchange between humans and non-humans emerges, with a deep connectivity of place and entities. Thus, Runakuna from Pacchanta are Pacchanta and the mountain Ausangate is the Earth Being Ausangate. This also explains, why by writing about the runakuna, de la Cadena has written about all that are in-ayllu and thus also about Earth Beings.
Anecdotes from conversations are presented and then used to identify either a theoretical concept or a deeper understanding for Andean concepts of Being. The conversation is quickly paced and highly critical of itself: de la Cadena acknowledges her difficulties of being able to understand Nazario and Mariano at times, not in linguistic terms but rather because of lacking relationality towards their world. In turn they sometimes refuse to explain again, accepting the limits some concepts have. This mode of conversation is one of the two central arguments of the book. The way that all three converse and exchange thought sheds light on still existing hierarchies between European epistemology and other concepts of Worlding. Simultaneously it allows us to speak across differences and leave room for coexistence of concepts, which is de la Cadena’s second proposal. For de la Cadena, moving the Earth Beings into a religious sphere and thus translating these entities into European concepts of belief, would not only mean reproducing colonial hegemonies, but also reinforcing the divide between human and nature. Runakuna interactions with Earth Beings may sometimes look like what we would categorize as religious practices, but instead are ways of communicating with other entities in ayllu. Thus, these relationships and the Terikuna themselves do not abide by the division into nature, humanity and God. Additionally, by including Terikuna into discourse as entities, new possibilities for protection emerge. Ausangate has been saved from being a subject to mining, and other Earth Beings across Latin America have been granted rights as entities before the law.
Languages intertwine and merge with each other across the pages. I loved reading this book especially due to this multilingual way of writing. Anecdotes and concepts are typically first introduced in Quechua or Spanish, and then translated into English. De la Cadena also states that she had no particular interest in a 1:1 translation, but to “get the concepts”. And back to the condition that allowed de la Cadena’s to write the book: she promised that it be about Mariano and his work for the ayllu, so that his achievements be recognized by the community once again. Here I fail to understand how this book is supposed to reach such audience, being the younger generations of the still mostly illiterate ayllu of Mariano and Nazario. Nonetheless, this book is an important addition to a conversation between worlds, that can coexist and accept heterogeneity and for subaltern studies theory. De la Cadena’s suggestions for conversation and exchange between parallel worlds opens up new possibilities for Worlding practices.

[Leila Skinner · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Earth Beings, Marisol de la Cadena explores the process of story-telling by examining her positionality and the inescapable process of translating across those differences. To de la Cadena, making equivalent translations across differences would be pointless, instead these partial connections built through co-laboring and conversations with Mariano and Nazario construct what make Earth Beings. Understanding this desire is critical to reading through the ethnography, as translation and representation are strong undercurrents in every chapter, whether discussing archival papers or Andean shamanism in the tourist industry. The reader is introduced in interim pauses to major themes in ontological anthropology. De la Cadena from the outset challenges how we conceptualize political categories by including runakuna– indigenous peasants, tirukuna– ‘earth beings’ or natural entities, and ayllu– the summative world in which all these beings interact, at an equal level of relevance. At its core, Earth Beings is a cosmopolitical proposal, where relations among divergent worlds are a decolonial practice of politics, with no other guarantee than the absence of ontological sameness.

Despite the richness of stories, the defining, crucial statements in Earth Beings are confined to the epilogue. As a co-construction of knowledge, it would not make sense to lay the book out in a typical linear chronology; therefore, there is a particular significance to be made by putting ‘theory’, as a signifier against academia which so consistently privileges factual, historical knowledge. De la Cadena discusses the historical versus ahistorical in relation to Mariano’s fight against the hacendado and a box of archival documents. Originally, de la Cadena assumed that her discovery of a box of ‘historical archives’ was sufficient to tell the whole story of the land struggle. Mariano disagreed – there was more to the story of the struggle than what was written on paper. In this sense, Earth Beings artfully inverses the typical mode of academic knowledge by instead favoring stories that cannot be ‘factually’ checked – but are nonetheless the foundation of the ethnography, and the true proof underpinning her theoretical observations.

[Swarm Feral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthropology always feels gross. But out that grossness that is certainly felt by the practitioners too arrives a sort of self critical disposition that feels like it holds some valuable theory. It grapples with incommensurability and partial communication/connection and imperfect aspects of translation on all levels and the observer paradox.

This particularly seems like a challenge to western epistemology without creating an unbridgeable difference nor a totally knowable object of study. It attempts a mutual construction. It highlights the requisite missing orthopraxis that we don't get from reading. Towards a critical ontology. It also was good to read after how forests think in the way it shows the agency of mountains and rivers, and shows imperfect but interesting examples of attempts to argue such things before a court.

Also an interesting look at the commercial attempts at getting at something similar in the "Andean Shaman" craze where people make alienated market mediated leaps towards the missing orthopraxis.

Anyway, more to be said, but that should do for now. Felt important to get this thinking down since I'm taking in so much rn..

[paulinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seres-terra é um dos livros que me encontrou por acaso, mas que a confiança nele foi uma aposta não tão ao acaso, alguma certeza que falava no coração. Marisol de la Cadena faz um trabalho cosmopolítico (e diria cosmohistórico, sendo que não é nem exatamente político, nem histórico; ou não apenas isso) admirável e responsável, que pode ser etnográfico, mas também com a ressalva daquilo que é especulação, equivocação. Sobretudo é um exemplo de como co-laborar e coexistir respeitosamente com seres, humanos e outro-que-humanos, indígenas, mas não só (também pelas grandes referências que ela mobiliza, como a Donna Haraway). Espero eu ser tocada, mobilizada, revirada com esse livro, e que ele atravesse muito mais do que a leitura ou estudos que pretendo fazer posteriormente dele. Que ele me exceda. Que eu possa exceder também. Fractalmente, nunca em todas as superfícies, nunca completamente, mas jamais em total desconexão, jamais uma coisa outra, tampouco muitas.

[Steven Kensinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quintessential ethnography of the post-ontological turn "moment" in anthropology that is the latest attempt in anthropology to decenter the "West" and perform a kind of de-colonizing politics. That's not to say this book isn't impressive, which it is. De le Cadena centers her account on her relationships with a father and son from the remote highlands of Peru outside of Cuzco. In the process of narrating their struggles first against the hacienda owner and then later the neoliberal state, de la Cadena also offers up an interesting framework for conceptualizing inter and/or cross-cultural connections, or what she might call the "partial connections" between the interpenetrating worlds of the runakuna and the neoliberal mistis. Probably not interesting for the general reader, but those with an interest in anthropological theory and ethnography will likely find it interesting.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work co-labored by Marisol de la Cadena, Mariano Turpo, Nazario Turpo, and Ausangate; a must-read for every scholar of the Andes. A million things I understand more than I did before, and a million things I understand less.

"Ayllu is like a weaving, and all the beings in the world—people, animals, mountains, plants, etc.—are like the threads, we are part of the design." (Mariano Turpo, p. 44)

"In writing those stories I would also be writing the earth-beings—and this would happen only through their willingness." (Marisol de la Cadena, p. 29)

[evesav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really a 3.5 (Read this for class) This book is a good example of the problem with academics because they are not very good at writing accessibly. However Mariano’s story was compelling, all of the theory and concepts made it hard to have fun while reading it

[Leslye]

Excellent! Anthropological concepts and strategies are pertinent to living in today's diverse society.

[Merel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very comfortably and clearly written and it's always so nice to see such a convincing and coherent argument for what I feel intuitively to be true.

[Aysha Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good, but at times hard to follow.