Mario Blaser - Böcker

When the UN adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, it brought the negative effect of globalization on the lives of Indigenous peoples to the centre of public debate. The contributors to this innovative collection extend the discussion by asking what can Indigenous peoples' experiences with and thoughts on globalization tell us about the relationship between globalization and autonomy and the meaning of the concepts themselves? Indigenous Peoples and Autonomy brings together scholars from multiple disciplines and backgrounds who seek answers to this question in grounded case studies. Whether the focus is on sea rights among Torres Strait Islanders, James Bay Cree co-governance, the transformation of East Cree spirituality, or the co-optation of linguistics by Mayan activists, each chapter opens a window to view how Iindigenous people are engaging with and challenging globalization and Western views of autonomy.

When the UN adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, it brought the negative effect of globalization on the lives of Indigenous peoples to the centre of public debate. The contributors to this innovative collection extend the discussion by asking what can Indigenous peoples' experiences with and thoughts on globalization tell us about the relationship between globalization and autonomy and the meaning of the concepts themselves? Indigenous Peoples and Autonomy brings together scholars from multiple disciplines and backgrounds who seek answers to this question in grounded case studies. Whether the focus is on sea rights among Torres Strait Islanders, James Bay Cree co-governance, the transformation of East Cree spirituality, or the co-optation of linguistics by Mayan activists, each chapter opens a window to view how Iindigenous people are engaging with and challenging globalization and Western views of autonomy.

For more than fifteen years, Mario Blaser has been involved with the Yshiro people of the Paraguayan Chaco as they have sought to maintain their world in the face of conservation and development programs promoted by the state and various nongovernmental organizations. In this ethnography of the encounter between modernizing visions of development, the place-based “life projects” of the Yshiro, and the agendas of scholars and activists, Blaser argues for an understanding of the political mobilization of the Yshiro and other indigenous peoples as part of a struggle to make the global age hospitable to a “pluriverse” containing multiple worlds or realities. As he explains, most knowledge about the Yshiro produced by non-indigenous “experts” has been based on modern Cartesian dualisms separating subject and object, mind and body, and nature and culture. Such thinking differs profoundly from the relational ontology enacted by the Yshiro and other indigenous peoples. Attentive to people’s unique experiences of place and self, the Yshiro reject universal knowledge claims, unlike Western modernity, which assumes the existence of a universal reality and refuses the existence of other ontologies or realities. In Storytelling Globalization from the Chaco and Beyond, Blaser engages in storytelling as a knowledge practice grounded in a relational ontology and attuned to the ongoing struggle for a pluriversal globality.

For more than fifteen years, Mario Blaser has been involved with the Yshiro people of the Paraguayan Chaco as they have sought to maintain their world in the face of conservation and development programs promoted by the state and various nongovernmental organizations. In this ethnography of the encounter between modernizing visions of development, the place-based “life projects” of the Yshiro, and the agendas of scholars and activists, Blaser argues for an understanding of the political mobilization of the Yshiro and other indigenous peoples as part of a struggle to make the global age hospitable to a “pluriverse” containing multiple worlds or realities. As he explains, most knowledge about the Yshiro produced by non-indigenous “experts” has been based on modern Cartesian dualisms separating subject and object, mind and body, and nature and culture. Such thinking differs profoundly from the relational ontology enacted by the Yshiro and other indigenous peoples. Attentive to people’s unique experiences of place and self, the Yshiro reject universal knowledge claims, unlike Western modernity, which assumes the existence of a universal reality and refuses the existence of other ontologies or realities. In Storytelling Globalization from the Chaco and Beyond, Blaser engages in storytelling as a knowledge practice grounded in a relational ontology and attuned to the ongoing struggle for a pluriversal globality.

A World of Many Worlds is a search into the possibilities that may emerge from conversations between indigenous collectives and the study of science's philosophical production. The contributors explore how divergent knowledges and practices make worlds. They work with difference and sameness, recursion, divergence, political ontology, cosmopolitics, and relations, using them as concepts, methods, and analytics to open up possibilities for a pluriverse: a cosmos composed through divergent political practices that do not need to become the same.Contributors. Mario Blaser, Alberto CorsÍn JimÉnez, DÉborah Danowski, Marisol de la Cadena, John Law, Marianne Lien, Isabelle Stengers, Marilyn Strathern, Helen Verran, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

A World of Many Worlds is a search into the possibilities that may emerge from conversations between indigenous collectives and the study of science's philosophical production. The contributors explore how divergent knowledges and practices make worlds. They work with difference and sameness, recursion, divergence, political ontology, cosmopolitics, and relations, using them as concepts, methods, and analytics to open up possibilities for a pluriverse: a cosmos composed through divergent political practices that do not need to become the same.Contributors. Mario Blaser, Alberto CorsÍn JimÉnez, DÉborah Danowski, Marisol de la Cadena, John Law, Marianne Lien, Isabelle Stengers, Marilyn Strathern, Helen Verran, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

In For Emplacement, Mario Blaser proposes a new lens for contending with the momentous challenges facing the world, from anthropogenic climate change to rampant socioeconomic inequalities to the rise of neofascism. Blaser shows that the prevalent solutions to these problems-which often depend on intensifying globalization, technological development, and extractivism-only deepen these crises. Effectively addressing these issues, he suggests, might require grounding our ways of being in the specificities of place. Drawing on decades of ethnographic experience in South America and the Canadian subarctic, and engaging with material semiotics, Blaser recasts the fundamental political question of how to live together well as a cosmopolitical one: how to become emplaced with others, in divergence. Ultimately, he presents a political ontology where visions of the good life oriented to the specificities of place guide us through the promises and challenges that a journey toward emplacement holds.

In For Emplacement, Mario Blaser proposes a new lens for contending with the momentous challenges facing the world, from anthropogenic climate change to rampant socioeconomic inequalities to the rise of neofascism. Blaser shows that the prevalent solutions to these problems-which often depend on intensifying globalization, technological development, and extractivism-only deepen these crises. Effectively addressing these issues, he suggests, might require grounding our ways of being in the specificities of place. Drawing on decades of ethnographic experience in South America and the Canadian subarctic, and engaging with material semiotics, Blaser recasts the fundamental political question of how to live together well as a cosmopolitical one: how to become emplaced with others, in divergence. Ultimately, he presents a political ontology where visions of the good life oriented to the specificities of place guide us through the promises and challenges that a journey toward emplacement holds.

Territories of Life highlights the multiplicity and heterogeneity of worlds and collectives, some labelled Indigenous, as they struggle to sustain their territories of life. “Territories of life” is the phrase used in this volume to speak about the shapes that these collectives or worlds adopt in the present as they endure the heavy shadow of modernization and coloniality. This label also highlights that the agencies that animate these struggles are never just human but also include entire more-than-human collectives. To portray the complexity of the relations between these collectives and the modernization front, the volume is organized around three keywords: equivocation, entanglement, and endurance. Each of the ten chapters is grounded in long-term ethnographic work from various countries, namely those colonially-known as Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Paraguay, and Taiwan. The book offers a grounding to discuss the challenges and possibilities that exist for the continuation of territories of life that have endured, for the renewal of those that have been severely damaged, and for the creation of those that must flourish to sustain diverse modes of existence. Contributors: Penelope Anthias, Jacinta Baragud, Mario Blaser, Yamila Gutierrez Callisaya, Benoit Éthier, Sipi Flamand, Hernán Ruiz Fournier, Sarah C. Moritz, Adam Nye, Sylvie Poirier, Lorna Quiroga, Qwalqwalten (Garry John), Cristina Rojas, Scott E. Simon, Kim Spurway, Annick Thomassin, Carolina Tytelman, and Paul Wattez.

Indigenous peoples today are enmeshed in the expanding modern economy, subject to the pressures of both market and government. This book takes indigenous peoples as actors, not victims, as its starting point in analysing this interaction. It assembles a rich diversity of statements, case studies and wider thematic explorations, primarily from North America, and particularly the Cree, the Haudenausaunee (Iroquois) and Chippewa-Ojibwe peoples who straddle the US/Canadian border, but also from South America and the former Soviet Union. It explores the complex relationships between indigenous peoples, civil society, and the environment. It shows how the boundaries between indigenous peoples' organizations, civil society, the state, markets, development and the environment are ambiguous and constantly changing. These complexities create both opportunities and threats for local agency. People resist or react to the pressures of market and state, while sustaining 'life projects' of their own, embodying their own local history, visions and strategies.