Cristobal Bonelli
University of Amsterdam, Cultural and Social Anthropology, Faculty Member
- With a background weaving together clinical psychology, systemic psychotherapy, medical anthropology, and sciences an... moreWith a background weaving together clinical psychology, systemic psychotherapy, medical anthropology, and sciences and technology studies, I see myself as a "clinical anthropologist." My academic passion lies in unraveling the complexities of human behavior and its relations with different human and non-human worlds amidst today's climate and geopolitical upheavals.
My academic journey began with training in clinical psychology in Chile (Pontificia Universidad Catolica, 1999), followed by specialization in family therapy in Italy (Milan Approach, 2006), and a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh (2012).
Currently, I hold the position of Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, and am a member of the research group “Health, care, and the body.”
Additionally, I am the principal investigator of an ERC project titled 'Worlds of Lithium,' where we investigate how lithium, an ancient, invisible, and reactive chemical material, shapes our aspirations for energy transition.
Through empirical studies conducted in Chile, China, and Norway, we uncover not only the transformative impacts of lithium extraction and the enhanced transport facilitated by lithium-ion batteries, but also our societal reliance on materials and technologies, often intertwined with the complexities and ambivalences inherent in myths of progress.
https://worldsoflithium.eu/edit
This article emerges from a transdisciplinary collaboration between a micro-biologist and an anthropologist deeply concerned with the protection of endangered salares (saltpans) in northern Chile. Our aim is to establish the concept of... more
This article emerges from a transdisciplinary collaboration between
a micro-biologist and an anthropologist deeply concerned with the
protection of endangered salares (saltpans) in northern Chile. Our
aim is to establish the concept of “micro-disaster” as a tool for
examining how extractivism is disrupting salares and their “deeptime”
microbial ecologies. These ecologies are key for
understanding early events on Earth, as their evolution enabled
the oxygenation of the planet 2.5 billion years ago and caused
the biodiversity explosion. By considering how being human
involves being microorganismal – and how human time is
entangled with microorganismic time –, this article connects
neoliberal extractivist history with geo-biological evolutionary
history. “Micro-disasters” therefore affect us deeply as complex
humans, and oblige us to develop further a planet-centered
mode of collaborating, thinking, feeling, and acting. In the
context of this special issue on extinction, we insist that concerns
over extinction must be considered in continuity with deep-time
ecologies. We propose to rethink humans as an “environmentally
complex we” simultaneously entangled with historical
experiential time and microbial “deep-time.”
a micro-biologist and an anthropologist deeply concerned with the
protection of endangered salares (saltpans) in northern Chile. Our
aim is to establish the concept of “micro-disaster” as a tool for
examining how extractivism is disrupting salares and their “deeptime”
microbial ecologies. These ecologies are key for
understanding early events on Earth, as their evolution enabled
the oxygenation of the planet 2.5 billion years ago and caused
the biodiversity explosion. By considering how being human
involves being microorganismal – and how human time is
entangled with microorganismic time –, this article connects
neoliberal extractivist history with geo-biological evolutionary
history. “Micro-disasters” therefore affect us deeply as complex
humans, and oblige us to develop further a planet-centered
mode of collaborating, thinking, feeling, and acting. In the
context of this special issue on extinction, we insist that concerns
over extinction must be considered in continuity with deep-time
ecologies. We propose to rethink humans as an “environmentally
complex we” simultaneously entangled with historical
experiential time and microbial “deep-time.”
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This essay explores several equivocations in the relationship between state healthcare workers and the Pewenche population in southern Chile. In particular, it focuses on radical differences in understanding the body, personhood, sleeping... more
This essay explores several equivocations in the relationship between state healthcare workers and the Pewenche population in southern Chile. In particular, it focuses on radical differences in understanding the body, personhood, sleeping and dreaming. In Alto Bío Bío, Chile, while healthcare workers diagnose their Pewenche patients with 'sleep disorders' and prescribe them sleep-inducing psychotropic drugs, some Pewenche persons fear that by preventing them from waking up, the drugs will render them unable to escape a fatal attack by evil spirits. The sleeping pills, therefore, enact understandings of the body, personhood, sleeping and dreaming that are not at all univocal. This enactment generates a controversy-inducing 'ontological disorder' based in an 'uncontrolled equivocation', as described by the anthropologist Viveiros de Castro, in which interlocutors are not speaking about the same thing, but they are not aware of this. In more general terms, the essay reflects on the application of technologies premised on multicultural ideology (one nature, many cultures) in contexts where alterity is radically manifested and where the limits of the actors' different conceptions of personhood appear in all their ontological splendor.
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To investigate some of the questions raised by the editors of this volume, I focus on one of the inspirational conceptual sources at stake. The editors invite us to think about multiplicity by substituting the word body with the term... more
To investigate some of the questions raised by the editors of this volume, I focus on one of the inspirational conceptual sources at stake. The editors invite us to think about multiplicity by substituting the word body with the term world. This substitution becomes possible when we think of both words as sharing a similar logical level: They operate in everyday language as classes of things, generic abstractions that we can mobilize to think about situated socio-material realities. Moreover, the substitution of these words spectrally echoes the book The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice by Annemarie Mol (2002), in which she experiments with tracing, or following, the multiple ways an object is relationally practiced. Indeed, and from the heart of Western biomedical techno-science, The Body Multiple invites us to reconsider static, predefined, and coherent notions of the body. Rather, Mol suggests that the body's ontological status depends upon heterogeneous practices, insofar as such body is enacted in multiple ways through different epistemic practices. Given Mol's argument, we might wonder: What is at stake when we are invited to substitute the word body with the generic word " world " ? Contributors to this volume have offered one answer: World should not be considered a coherent
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In southern Chile, the building of roads has triggered profound sociomaterial transformation in indigenous worlds. In this article, we attempt to comprehend and conceptualize the capacities of roads to reconstitute radically a... more
In southern Chile, the building of roads has triggered profound sociomaterial transformation in indigenous worlds. In this article, we attempt to comprehend and conceptualize the capacities of roads to reconstitute radically a relationally constituted world, a world that is therefore in itself contingent. We suggest that the material alteration of indigenous worlds produce uncertain results, including possibly its own destruction. The arguments raised in this article indicate that the analytical and political problem of ontological self-determination can be advanced once reshaped in infrastructural terms.
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With the 2019 Chilean ‘estallido social’ we write-think-feel the myriad images that, actors of the outburst, covered walls of Santiago streets. We read those images as an archive written from the wounds that colonialism-capitalism... more
With the 2019 Chilean ‘estallido social’ we write-think-feel the myriad images that, actors of the outburst, covered walls of Santiago streets. We read those images as an archive written from the wounds that colonialism-capitalism inflicted on bodies and territories that are together. Albeit ephemeral (authorities can delete them) the images expose mutilations of bodies-territories that are never to be erased, always to be cared for. Composed of presences both, unimaginable (the dead, walls, dogs) and imaginable (music, people, images), the outbursts are those wounds. Their presence haunts usual politics: without teleology or leadership—let alone representation—outbursts do not disappear for their mission is to pursue life against destruction. Pursuing life they roam the streets like mutts, and very specifically like the Chilean kiltro dogs—their decision to negotiate independence and accompaniment as way of life may be an inspiration of an alternative politics: a ‘kiltro’ politics.
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Este artículo es fruto de la colaboración transdisciplinaria entre una microbióloga y un antropólogo fuertemente preocupados por la protección de salares del norte de Chile que actualmente se encuentran en peligro de extinción. Nuestro... more
Este artículo es fruto de la colaboración transdisciplinaria entre una microbióloga y un antropólogo fuertemente preocupados por la protección de salares del norte de Chile que actualmente se encuentran en peligro de extinción. Nuestro objetivo es proponer el concepto de “micro-desastre” como herramienta que examina los modos en que el extractivismo está alterando a estos salares y a sus ecologías microbianas de tiempo-profundo. Estas ecologías son claves para entender eventos tempranos en la Tierra, en tanto la evolución de ellas hizo posible la oxigenación del planeta hace 2500 millones de años, causando así la explosión de biodiversidad.
Considerando como el ser humano implica un ser micro-organísmico -y como el tiempo humano está enredado con un tiempo micro-organísmico- este artículo conecta la historia extractivista neoliberal chilena con la historia de la evolución geo-biológica. Por lo tanto, mostramos como estos “micro-desastres” nos afectan fuertemente como humanos complejos, y nos obligan a desarrollar, una y otra vez, un modo de colaborar, pensar, sentir y actuar fuertemente centrado en el planeta. En el contexto de este número especial interesado en repensar la ‘extinción’, insistimos en la necesidad de considerar los problemas puestos por la posibilidad de extinción humana en continuidad con ecologías de tiempo-profundo. Proponemos repensarnos como humanos como un “nosotros ambientalmente complejo”, simultáneamente enredado en el tiempo histórico experiencial y el tiempo microbiano profundo.
Considerando como el ser humano implica un ser micro-organísmico -y como el tiempo humano está enredado con un tiempo micro-organísmico- este artículo conecta la historia extractivista neoliberal chilena con la historia de la evolución geo-biológica. Por lo tanto, mostramos como estos “micro-desastres” nos afectan fuertemente como humanos complejos, y nos obligan a desarrollar, una y otra vez, un modo de colaborar, pensar, sentir y actuar fuertemente centrado en el planeta. En el contexto de este número especial interesado en repensar la ‘extinción’, insistimos en la necesidad de considerar los problemas puestos por la posibilidad de extinción humana en continuidad con ecologías de tiempo-profundo. Proponemos repensarnos como humanos como un “nosotros ambientalmente complejo”, simultáneamente enredado en el tiempo histórico experiencial y el tiempo microbiano profundo.
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Resumen: a lo largo de las últimas décadas, diversas sensibilidades analíticas dentro de las ciencias sociales y, en particular, dentro de la antropología, han intentado descolonizar la alteridad con la creación de nuevos espacios... more
Resumen: a lo largo de las últimas décadas, diversas sensibilidades analíticas dentro de las ciencias sociales y, en particular, dentro de la antropología, han intentado descolonizar la alteridad con la creación de nuevos espacios conceptuales y empíricos que respeten y den lugar a la coexistencia sociomaterial de mundos múltiples. Abrazando este proyecto intelectual y cosmopolítico, este artículo explora conceptual y etnográficamente qué tipo de evidencias surgen en distintos modos de hacer mundo, desde la premisa de que no sabemos qué es la evidencia hasta no conocer cuáles son sus capacidades. A partir de un análisis crítico a dos perspectivas que posibilitan una peligrosa clausura frente a otros posibles horizontes, a saber, la posverdad y la ciencia objetivadora, en este texto consideramos la etnografía como una aliada fundamental en el intento colectivo de hacer espacio para otros mundos. Así, nos interesa multiplicar la noción de evidencia más allá de su comprensión como artefacto moderno. Para estos fines, sugerimos la idea de evidencia para hacer pensar como heurística que da cuenta de la hiperreflexividad relacional necesaria al momento de cuestionar la ausencia del pensar propia de la posverdad y la univocidad propia de la evidencia moderna. Luego de esta discusión, se presentan los artículos que forman parte de este dosier y la manera en que creemos promueven esta evidencia respetuosa de todos los mundos posibles.
Palabras clave: colaboración, democracia, etnografía, evidencia, multiplicidad, mundo unívoco.
Politics of Evidence: Between Truthfulness, Objectivity, and Ethnography
Abstract: Throughout the last decades, a number of analytical sensibilities within the social sciences, and in particular within anthropology, have endeavored to decolonize alterity by creating new conceptual and empirical spaces that respect and make room for the sociomaterial coexistence of multiple worlds. Embracing this intellectual and cosmopolitical project, this article explores, conceptually and ethnographically, what kind of evidence emerges in different worldings, from the premise that we do not know what evidence is until we know what its capabilities are. Based on a critical analysis of two perspectives that afford a dangerous foreclosure to other possible horizons, namely, post-truth politics and objectivizing Science, this article considers ethnography as a fundamental ally in the collective attempt to make space for other worlds. We are thus interested in multiplying the notion of evidence beyond its understanding as a modern artifact. To this end, we suggest the idea of evidence to make think as a heuristic that accounts for the necessary relational hyperreflexivity needed to questioning the absence of thought, which is inherent to post-truth politics univocality of modern evidence. Following this discussion, we present the articles that are part of this dossier by foregrounding how they promote this respectful evidence towards many possible worlds.
Keywords: Collaboration, democracy, ethnography, evidence, multiplicity, univocal world.
Políticas da evidência: entre pós-verdade, objetividade e etnografia
Resumo: ao longo das últimas décadas, diversas sensibilidades analíticas das ciências sociais e, em particular, da antropologia, vêm tentando descolonizar a alteridade com a criação de espaços conceituais e empíricos que respeitem a coexistência sociomaterial de mundos variados e deem lugar a ela. Abraçando esse projeto intelectual e cosmopolítico, este artigo explora conceitual e etnograficamente que tipo de evidências surge em diferentes modos de fazer mundo, a partir do princípio de que não sabemos o que é a evidência até não conhecermos quais são suas capacidades. Com base em uma análise crítica de duas perspectivas que possibilitam um perigoso encerramento ante outros possíveis horizontes, a saber, a pós-verdade e a ciência objetivadora, neste texto, consideramos a etnografia como uma aliada fundamental na tentativa coletiva de criar espaço para outros mundos. Assim, interessa-nos multiplicar a noção de evidência para mais além de sua compreensão como artefato moderno. Para isso, sugerimos a ideia de evidência para fazer pensar como heurística que demonstra a hiperreflexividade relacional necessária na hora de questionar a ausência do pensar próprio da pós-verdade e da univocidade da evidência moderna. Após a discussão, são apresentados os artigos que fazem parte deste número e a maneira na qual acreditamos que promovem essa evidência respeitosa de todos os mundos possíveis.
Palavras-chave: colaboração, democracia, etnografia, evidência, multiplicidade, mundo unívoco.
Palabras clave: colaboración, democracia, etnografía, evidencia, multiplicidad, mundo unívoco.
Politics of Evidence: Between Truthfulness, Objectivity, and Ethnography
Abstract: Throughout the last decades, a number of analytical sensibilities within the social sciences, and in particular within anthropology, have endeavored to decolonize alterity by creating new conceptual and empirical spaces that respect and make room for the sociomaterial coexistence of multiple worlds. Embracing this intellectual and cosmopolitical project, this article explores, conceptually and ethnographically, what kind of evidence emerges in different worldings, from the premise that we do not know what evidence is until we know what its capabilities are. Based on a critical analysis of two perspectives that afford a dangerous foreclosure to other possible horizons, namely, post-truth politics and objectivizing Science, this article considers ethnography as a fundamental ally in the collective attempt to make space for other worlds. We are thus interested in multiplying the notion of evidence beyond its understanding as a modern artifact. To this end, we suggest the idea of evidence to make think as a heuristic that accounts for the necessary relational hyperreflexivity needed to questioning the absence of thought, which is inherent to post-truth politics univocality of modern evidence. Following this discussion, we present the articles that are part of this dossier by foregrounding how they promote this respectful evidence towards many possible worlds.
Keywords: Collaboration, democracy, ethnography, evidence, multiplicity, univocal world.
Políticas da evidência: entre pós-verdade, objetividade e etnografia
Resumo: ao longo das últimas décadas, diversas sensibilidades analíticas das ciências sociais e, em particular, da antropologia, vêm tentando descolonizar a alteridade com a criação de espaços conceituais e empíricos que respeitem a coexistência sociomaterial de mundos variados e deem lugar a ela. Abraçando esse projeto intelectual e cosmopolítico, este artigo explora conceitual e etnograficamente que tipo de evidências surge em diferentes modos de fazer mundo, a partir do princípio de que não sabemos o que é a evidência até não conhecermos quais são suas capacidades. Com base em uma análise crítica de duas perspectivas que possibilitam um perigoso encerramento ante outros possíveis horizontes, a saber, a pós-verdade e a ciência objetivadora, neste texto, consideramos a etnografia como uma aliada fundamental na tentativa coletiva de criar espaço para outros mundos. Assim, interessa-nos multiplicar a noção de evidência para mais além de sua compreensão como artefato moderno. Para isso, sugerimos a ideia de evidência para fazer pensar como heurística que demonstra a hiperreflexividade relacional necessária na hora de questionar a ausência do pensar próprio da pós-verdade e da univocidade da evidência moderna. Após a discussão, são apresentados os artigos que fazem parte deste número e a maneira na qual acreditamos que promovem essa evidência respeitosa de todos os mundos possíveis.
Palavras-chave: colaboração, democracia, etnografia, evidência, multiplicidade, mundo unívoco.
Research Interests: Ethnography, Collaboration, Cross-Cultural Collaborations, Evidence, Democracy, and 15 moreEtnografía, Multiplicity, Democracia, Mundos Posibles, Etnografia, Truthfulness, Colaboración Científica, Evidencia, multiplicidad, Pós-verdade, posverdad (post truth), Políticas de la evidencia, Mundo Unívoco, Policies of evidence, and Univocal worlds
Resumen: fuertemente inspirado por el misterioso ejercicio que supone registrar, proteger y revelar las imágenes del archivo fotográfico de Luis Poirot, este trabajo experimenta con un modo de escribir etnográficamente que, más que... more
Resumen: fuertemente inspirado por el misterioso ejercicio que supone registrar, proteger y revelar las imágenes del archivo fotográfico de Luis Poirot, este trabajo experimenta con un modo de escribir etnográficamente que, más que intentar convencer al lector sobre lo adecuado de sus proposiciones conceptuales, simplemente sugiere secretos de luz, imágenes que aparecen en temporalidades múltiples como evidencia viva de la presencia de la ausencia. Intentando evitar la esterilización de la experiencia vivida y sus múltiples temporalidades, muchas veces producida por la misma disciplina antropológica, este trabajo imagina una antropología expuesta que, más que interesarse en el análisis y creación de conceptos, se aboca a abrir espacios sugestivos de coexistencia con la presencia de la ausencia y ofrecer una evidencia singular del encuentro entre mundos que, al tocarse, van más allá de lo conceptual. En particular, este trabajo da cuenta de cómo el archivo fotográfico de Poirot y las ausencias presentes que habitan sus imágenes, afectan, resuenan y hasta incorporan la propia escritura etnográfica dentro del mismo archivo vivo.
Palabras clave: archivo, Chile, etnografía, fotografía, imágenes, temporalidades múltiples.
Secrets of Light: Notes on an Exposed Anthropology
Abstract: Strongly inspired by the mysterious exercise of recording, protecting, and revealing the images in Luis Poirot’s photographic archive, this article experiments with a mode of ethnographic writing that, rather than trying to convince the reader about the correctness of its conceptual propositions, it simply suggests certain secrets of light. These are images appearing in multiple temporalities as vivid evidence of the presence of absences. Attempting to avoid the sterilization of ‘lived experience’ and its multiple temporalities, often produced by the anthropological discipline itself, this article imagines an exposed anthropology. Rather than being interested in the creation and analysis of concepts, this exposed anthropology focuses on opening up suggestive spaces of coexistence with the presence of absence. Thus, it offers singular evidence of the encounter of worlds occurring beyond concepts. In particular, this work gives an account of how Poirot’s photographic archive, and the present absences that inhabit his images affect, resonate and even incorporate the ethnographic writing itself within the same living archive.
Keywords: Archive, Chile, images, ethnography, multiple temporalities, photography.
Segredos de luz: anotações para uma antropologia exposta
Resumo: fortemente inspirado pelo misterioso exercício que supõe registrar, proteger e revelar as imagens do arquivo fotográfico de Luis Poirot, este trabalho experimenta com um modo de escrever etnograficamente que, mais que tentar convencer o leitor sobre o adequado de suas proposições conceituais, simplesmente sugere “segredos de luz”, imagens que aparecem em temporalidades diversas como evidência viva da presença da ausência. Pretendendo evitar a esterilização da experiência vivida e suas múltiplas temporalidades, muitas vezes produzida pela mesma disciplina antropológica, este trabalho imagina uma “antropologia exposta” que se interessa na análise e criação de conceitos além de conduzir à abertura de espaços sugestivos de coexistência com a presença da ausência e oferecer uma evidência singular do encontro entre mundos que, ao se tocarem, vão mais além do conceitual. Em particular, este trabalho evidencia como o arquivo fotográfico de Poirot e as ausências presentes que habitam suas imagens afetam, ressoam e até incorporam a própria escrita etnográfica do arquivo vivo em si.
Palavras-chave: arquivo, Chile, etnografia, fotografia, imagens, temporalidades múltiplas.
Palabras clave: archivo, Chile, etnografía, fotografía, imágenes, temporalidades múltiples.
Secrets of Light: Notes on an Exposed Anthropology
Abstract: Strongly inspired by the mysterious exercise of recording, protecting, and revealing the images in Luis Poirot’s photographic archive, this article experiments with a mode of ethnographic writing that, rather than trying to convince the reader about the correctness of its conceptual propositions, it simply suggests certain secrets of light. These are images appearing in multiple temporalities as vivid evidence of the presence of absences. Attempting to avoid the sterilization of ‘lived experience’ and its multiple temporalities, often produced by the anthropological discipline itself, this article imagines an exposed anthropology. Rather than being interested in the creation and analysis of concepts, this exposed anthropology focuses on opening up suggestive spaces of coexistence with the presence of absence. Thus, it offers singular evidence of the encounter of worlds occurring beyond concepts. In particular, this work gives an account of how Poirot’s photographic archive, and the present absences that inhabit his images affect, resonate and even incorporate the ethnographic writing itself within the same living archive.
Keywords: Archive, Chile, images, ethnography, multiple temporalities, photography.
Segredos de luz: anotações para uma antropologia exposta
Resumo: fortemente inspirado pelo misterioso exercício que supõe registrar, proteger e revelar as imagens do arquivo fotográfico de Luis Poirot, este trabalho experimenta com um modo de escrever etnograficamente que, mais que tentar convencer o leitor sobre o adequado de suas proposições conceituais, simplesmente sugere “segredos de luz”, imagens que aparecem em temporalidades diversas como evidência viva da presença da ausência. Pretendendo evitar a esterilização da experiência vivida e suas múltiplas temporalidades, muitas vezes produzida pela mesma disciplina antropológica, este trabalho imagina uma “antropologia exposta” que se interessa na análise e criação de conceitos além de conduzir à abertura de espaços sugestivos de coexistência com a presença da ausência e oferecer uma evidência singular do encontro entre mundos que, ao se tocarem, vão mais além do conceitual. Em particular, este trabalho evidencia como o arquivo fotográfico de Poirot e as ausências presentes que habitam suas imagens afetam, ressoam e até incorporam a própria escrita etnográfica do arquivo vivo em si.
Palavras-chave: arquivo, Chile, etnografia, fotografia, imagens, temporalidades múltiplas.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
El siguiente artículo es una reflexión sobre teoría etnográfica que se ‘inspira’ en tres intervenciones propuestas por los Estudios de Ciencia y Tecnología y, en especial, por la Teoría Actor-Red, a saber: a) el descentramiento de lo... more
El siguiente artículo es una reflexión sobre teoría etnográfica que se
‘inspira’ en tres intervenciones propuestas por los Estudios de Ciencia y Tecnología
y, en especial, por la Teoría Actor-Red, a saber: a) el descentramiento de lo
humano y el enfoque en la capacidad de las cosas para hacer política, b) la consideración
de los objetos etnográficos como objetos múltiples y c) la desestabilización
de la división entre dominios teóricos y empíricos. El objeto etnográfico
que articula esta reflexión teórica es una piedra del sur de Chile que es capaz, en
alguna medida, de: a) hacer política, b) evocar multiplicidades y c) desestabilizar
la distinción entre lo teórico y lo empírico.
En el intento de describir etnográficamente esta piedra, planteo la necesidad de
desarrollar una sensibilidad etnográfica que no se limite a replicar las categorías
analíticas de las fuentes de ‘inspiración conceptual’, sino que sobre todo desarrolle
lo que llamaré heurísticamente ‘procesos de exhalación etnográfica’, entendidos
como un proceso que regenera las fuentes conceptuales ‘inspiradas’. Así, busco
complementar el interés ontológico de la Teoría Actor-Red sobre las ‘políticas del
qué’ con el desarrollo de las ‘políticas del dónde’, constituidas por fuerzas y temporalidades
plegadas en el campo etnográfico y sus tensiones ontológicas, por las
características singulares del lenguaje de los actores estudiados y por los repertorios conceptuales de las disciplinas movilizadas en la escritura etnográfica.
‘inspira’ en tres intervenciones propuestas por los Estudios de Ciencia y Tecnología
y, en especial, por la Teoría Actor-Red, a saber: a) el descentramiento de lo
humano y el enfoque en la capacidad de las cosas para hacer política, b) la consideración
de los objetos etnográficos como objetos múltiples y c) la desestabilización
de la división entre dominios teóricos y empíricos. El objeto etnográfico
que articula esta reflexión teórica es una piedra del sur de Chile que es capaz, en
alguna medida, de: a) hacer política, b) evocar multiplicidades y c) desestabilizar
la distinción entre lo teórico y lo empírico.
En el intento de describir etnográficamente esta piedra, planteo la necesidad de
desarrollar una sensibilidad etnográfica que no se limite a replicar las categorías
analíticas de las fuentes de ‘inspiración conceptual’, sino que sobre todo desarrolle
lo que llamaré heurísticamente ‘procesos de exhalación etnográfica’, entendidos
como un proceso que regenera las fuentes conceptuales ‘inspiradas’. Así, busco
complementar el interés ontológico de la Teoría Actor-Red sobre las ‘políticas del
qué’ con el desarrollo de las ‘políticas del dónde’, constituidas por fuerzas y temporalidades
plegadas en el campo etnográfico y sus tensiones ontológicas, por las
características singulares del lenguaje de los actores estudiados y por los repertorios conceptuales de las disciplinas movilizadas en la escritura etnográfica.
Research Interests:
El objetivo de este trabajo es expandir críticamente el difundido énfasis epistemológico que tiende a ser movilizado en las arenas de la ecología política, cuando se intenta conceptualizar los así llamados «territorios hidrosociales» .... more
El objetivo de este trabajo es expandir críticamente el difundido énfasis epistemológico que tiende a ser movilizado en las arenas de la ecología política, cuando se intenta conceptualizar los así llamados «territorios hidrosociales» . Este énfasis epistemológico implica asumir que el conocimiento y las prácticas de conocimiento funcionan como un operador implícito transversal para entender las diferencias que emergen en las luchas territoriales, diferencias que tienden a ser conceptualizadas a través de categorías tales como «luchas de significado» o diferencias analizables a partir de distintas «creencias culturales». En vez de intentar explorar el modo en el que el agua es conocida por distintos actores, en este capítulo intentaré desarrollar un análisis que se concentre en el modo en como distintos actores conciben lo que el agua es. En otras palabras, en este capítulo me interesa pensar la dimensión ontológica de los territorios hídricos. Este ejercicio, dicho sea de antemano, no significa esencializar las perspectivas ecológicas «alter-nativas» de la vida rural Peweche en el sur de Chile que inspiran este trabajo, sino más bien, involucra repensar la cualidad ontológica equivoca del agua presente en procesos relacionales de transformación ambiental.
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To see that which cannot be seen: Ontological differences and public health policies in Southern Chile In this article, I explore different visual practices performed by Pehuenche Indigenous healers and State public health professionals... more
To see that which cannot be seen: Ontological differences and public health policies in Southern Chile
In this article, I explore different visual practices performed by Pehuenche Indigenous healers and State public health professionals in southern Chile. While non-Indigenous health workers seek to make 'traditional' Pehuenche healing visible within or alongside their own 'modern' practices, Pehuenche people are concerned with making visible the evil spirits whose 'eating' of persons produces illness. Focusing in particular on different healing practices triggered by the existence of Pehuenche spiritual illnesses that are 'seen' by both Indigenous healers and State professionals, this paper discusses how different ontologies ground differences between the indigenous healers and what they 'see'; as well as how a broader and substantive binary between Pehuenche and non Pehuenche realities goes above and beyond these multiplicities. By exploring and discussing the endurance of Pehuenche cosmo-political relations in a world inhabited by visible and invisible eaters, I hope to create awareness about how a failure to recognize these different realities limits current multicultural policies in Southern Chile, and Indigenous health policies more broadly. At a more theoretical level, the following ethnographic account sheds light on unresolved tensions between the ways ontological difference has been conceptualized within the so-called 'ontological turn' in anthropology and within the field of Science and Technologies Studies (STS).
In this article, I explore different visual practices performed by Pehuenche Indigenous healers and State public health professionals in southern Chile. While non-Indigenous health workers seek to make 'traditional' Pehuenche healing visible within or alongside their own 'modern' practices, Pehuenche people are concerned with making visible the evil spirits whose 'eating' of persons produces illness. Focusing in particular on different healing practices triggered by the existence of Pehuenche spiritual illnesses that are 'seen' by both Indigenous healers and State professionals, this paper discusses how different ontologies ground differences between the indigenous healers and what they 'see'; as well as how a broader and substantive binary between Pehuenche and non Pehuenche realities goes above and beyond these multiplicities. By exploring and discussing the endurance of Pehuenche cosmo-political relations in a world inhabited by visible and invisible eaters, I hope to create awareness about how a failure to recognize these different realities limits current multicultural policies in Southern Chile, and Indigenous health policies more broadly. At a more theoretical level, the following ethnographic account sheds light on unresolved tensions between the ways ontological difference has been conceptualized within the so-called 'ontological turn' in anthropology and within the field of Science and Technologies Studies (STS).
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En este artículo, intentamos dar cuenta de la transformación sociomaterial que ha gatillado la construcción de caminos en los mundos indígenas del sur de Chile. Inspirados inicialmente por la noción de “mente inmanente” batesoniana,... more
En este artículo, intentamos dar cuenta de la transformación sociomaterial que ha gatillado la construcción de caminos en los mundos indígenas
del sur de Chile. Inspirados inicialmente por la noción de “mente inmanente” batesoniana, intentamos comprender y conceptualizar las capacidades de los caminos para potenciar radicalmente la reconstitución
de un mundo relacionalmente constituido, y que por tanto es de suyo contingente. A partir de nuestras exploraciones etnográficas, proponemos que el camino no posibilita la alteración simplemente porque promueve el contacto, la interconexión, y las relaciones interculturales, sino porque altera materialmente el mundo, promoviendo relaciones intersociomateriales determinadas infraestructuralmente. Finalmente,
exponemos que la alteración material del mundo produce resultados inciertos, posibilitando incluso su propia destrucción. En este sentido, este trabajo discute etnográficamente el problema de la auto-determinación
ontológica en términos infraestructurales.
del sur de Chile. Inspirados inicialmente por la noción de “mente inmanente” batesoniana, intentamos comprender y conceptualizar las capacidades de los caminos para potenciar radicalmente la reconstitución
de un mundo relacionalmente constituido, y que por tanto es de suyo contingente. A partir de nuestras exploraciones etnográficas, proponemos que el camino no posibilita la alteración simplemente porque promueve el contacto, la interconexión, y las relaciones interculturales, sino porque altera materialmente el mundo, promoviendo relaciones intersociomateriales determinadas infraestructuralmente. Finalmente,
exponemos que la alteración material del mundo produce resultados inciertos, posibilitando incluso su propia destrucción. En este sentido, este trabajo discute etnográficamente el problema de la auto-determinación
ontológica en términos infraestructurales.
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En el presente artículo exploro la relevancia crucial de la " visión " como el eje central sobre el cual distintos mundos son enactuados en distintas prácticas de salud en el Sur de Chile. En este trabajo intento demostrar que el mundo... more
En el presente artículo exploro la relevancia crucial de la " visión " como el eje central sobre el cual distintos mundos son enactuados en distintas prácticas de salud en el Sur de Chile. En este trabajo intento demostrar que el mundo indígena rural, a pesar de una larga historia de colonización, violento conflicto y contacto con las sociedades chilenas, presenta características que le son propias y a la vez inconmensurables con modelos de salud estatal basados en premisas multiculturales. Esta aseveración, sin embargo, no intenta diluir los distintos mundos múltiples que existen dentro del mundo indígena rural, los que presentan diferencias substanciales pero también comparten premisas ontológicas básicas sobre lo que es " el ver " , y por lo tanto, sobre lo que es el diferenciar la causa de las enfermedades. Así, a nivel más teórico,el siguiente trabajo busca re-conceptualizar tensiones irresueltas entre los modos en los que diferencias ontológicas han sido propuestas en el " giro ontológico " en antropología y en la teoría del actor-red en los Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (CTS).
In this article, I explore the centrality of " vision " as the axis around which different healing practices – related to different ontologies – turn. I intend to demonstrate that, despite a long history of colonization, violent conflicts and contact between Chilean societies and indigenous peoples in Southern Chile, Pewenche rural worlds are predicated upon ontological premises that are not commensurable with multicultural health state programmes. This statement, however, does not obscure the ontological multiplicity internal to the rural indigenous world. Despite this internal multiplicity, however, I show how these ontological differences are predicated upon similar ontological premises about what 'vision' and healing entail. At a more theoretical level, the following ethnographic account sheds light on unresolved tensions between the ways ontological difference has been conceptualized within the so-called 'ontological turn' in anthropology and within the field of Science and Technologies Studies (STS), particularly regarding Actor-Network Theory (ANT).
In this article, I explore the centrality of " vision " as the axis around which different healing practices – related to different ontologies – turn. I intend to demonstrate that, despite a long history of colonization, violent conflicts and contact between Chilean societies and indigenous peoples in Southern Chile, Pewenche rural worlds are predicated upon ontological premises that are not commensurable with multicultural health state programmes. This statement, however, does not obscure the ontological multiplicity internal to the rural indigenous world. Despite this internal multiplicity, however, I show how these ontological differences are predicated upon similar ontological premises about what 'vision' and healing entail. At a more theoretical level, the following ethnographic account sheds light on unresolved tensions between the ways ontological difference has been conceptualized within the so-called 'ontological turn' in anthropology and within the field of Science and Technologies Studies (STS), particularly regarding Actor-Network Theory (ANT).
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What happens to our academic writing when we are invited by our interactants to realize that what is serious for a situated set of practices might not be as serious for another set of practices? In this paper I explore such situations by... more
What happens to our academic writing when we are invited by our interactants to realize that what is serious for a situated set of practices might not be as serious for another set of practices? In this paper I explore such situations by considering the relations among eaters, ecologies, and the circulation of different types of food in the context of ontological pluralism in southern Chile. Inspired by debates on eating and subjectivities coming from empirical philosophy, as well as by theorizations on how to take others' worlds seriously offered by " the ontological turn " in anthropology, I explore how ethnographic situations related to eating and to foods transform epistemological distances between subjects and objects. More specifically, I show how taking our interactants seriously may lead us to eat our academic wor(l)ds, making room for unexpected ethnographic transactions emerging beyond ethnographic theorization.
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El presente trabajo emerge desde un territorio de asombro etnográfico en el que tecnologías multiculturales, en este caso píldoras para dormir, inadvertidamente obscurecen y amenazan la alteridad. Esto último es examinado a través del... more
El presente trabajo emerge desde un territorio de asombro etnográfico en el que
tecnologías multiculturales, en este caso píldoras para dormir, inadvertidamente
obscurecen y amenazan la alteridad. Esto último es examinado a través del poderoso
carácter relacional de mundos y prácticas –humanas y no-humanas–, que se resisten a
ser clasificados. En particular, reflexionaré sobre cómo ciertas “cuestiones médicas”
actúan en situaciones controvertidas para configurar lo que yo llamo “trastornos
ontológicos”. A lo largo de este escrito, he intentado respetar cuidadosa y seriamente la
lucha concreta por la vida -en toda su inclasificable intensidad- librada por una de mis
interactuantes en el sur de Chile. En su honor, este trabajo indaga territorios
etnográficos donde el mundo indígena es llevado al límite, y donde tomar una postura
onto-ética es la única manera de escapar de una equivocación casi fatal.
tecnologías multiculturales, en este caso píldoras para dormir, inadvertidamente
obscurecen y amenazan la alteridad. Esto último es examinado a través del poderoso
carácter relacional de mundos y prácticas –humanas y no-humanas–, que se resisten a
ser clasificados. En particular, reflexionaré sobre cómo ciertas “cuestiones médicas”
actúan en situaciones controvertidas para configurar lo que yo llamo “trastornos
ontológicos”. A lo largo de este escrito, he intentado respetar cuidadosa y seriamente la
lucha concreta por la vida -en toda su inclasificable intensidad- librada por una de mis
interactuantes en el sur de Chile. En su honor, este trabajo indaga territorios
etnográficos donde el mundo indígena es llevado al límite, y donde tomar una postura
onto-ética es la única manera de escapar de una equivocación casi fatal.
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Among the Pehuenche, blood is extracted from humans and animals and shared and eaten among people, offered as food to land spirits and deities, as well as devoured by evil spirits and witches. Through an ethnographic analysis of eating... more
Among the Pehuenche, blood is extracted from humans and animals and shared and eaten among people, offered as food to land spirits and deities, as well as devoured by evil spirits and witches. Through an ethnographic analysis of eating and feeding practices involving a variety of blood eaters, this article argues that blood (Ch. mollvün), as it functions in rural Pehuenche people's practices in Southern Chile, indexes the capacity to create relationships and is itself the result of relationships. By focusing on what mollvün does as well as on the practices through which it is collectively made and maliciously unmade by witches, I show how mollvün challenges, interferes with, and reconfigures current anthropological conceptualizations of blood as substance. I will never forget the first time I met Marta, a Pehuenche woman in her forties who was my neighbor when I lived in the town of Ralko in Southern Chile. In the very first week of my fieldwork, Marta introduced herself while I was walking around town. She told me we were neighbors and invited me to her house to see the woollen socks she was working on. She told me I should buy them since winter nights were extremely cold in the mountains. One thing that really struck me that day was the way she referred to her husband. She told me that she was married to a man who had the same type of blood as me. She also mentioned that he was a non-Pehuenche person who had heard about my arrival and wanted to meet me too. We spoke about many things that day, and she also mentioned that recently, a young man had died on the road that ran along the Queuko River. Most people
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Through an ethnographic exploration of Pehuenche conceptu-alizations of doubles and of greeting and funerary practices in Southern Chile, this article considers the ontological relevance of sensorial perception as a main operator for... more
Through an ethnographic exploration of Pehuenche conceptu-alizations of doubles and of greeting and funerary practices in Southern Chile, this article considers the ontological relevance of sensorial perception as a main operator for stabilizing the tension between autonomy and dependence on otherness. The article aims to establish how relations between 'real people' or che, in Pehuenche daily life, do not precede mutual sensorial perception; instead, they can be seen as the result of such perceptions. In so doing, and building upon the concept of 'potential affinity' as a persisting relational principle of relatedness, I show how the minimal unit of analysis of sensorial perception is not composed of separated unities. Rather, it is an assemblage of multiple capacities involving both visible and invisible relational entities.
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¿Winka o katripache? Consejos prácticos para un Chile no racista
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Purpose — Based on the research, the authors identify how four key concepts in disaster studies-agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability-are interrupted, and how these interruptions offer new perspectives for doing disaster research... more
Purpose — Based on the research, the authors identify how four key concepts in disaster studies-agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability-are interrupted, and how these interruptions offer new perspectives for doing disaster research from and for the South. Design/methodology/approach — Meta-analysis of case studies and revision of past and current collaborations of authors with communities across Chile.
Findings — The findings suggest that agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability, as fundamental concepts for disaster risk reduction (DRR) theory and practice, need to allow for ambivalences, ironies, granularization
and further materializations. The authors identify these characteristics as the conditions that emerge when doing disaster research from within the disaster itself, perhaps the critical condition of what is usually known
as the South.
Originality/value — The authors contribute to a reflexive assessment of fundamental concepts for critical disaster studies. The authors offer research-based and empirically rich redefinitions of these concepts. The
authors also offer a novel understanding of the political and epistemological conditions of the “South” as both a geography and a project.
Findings — The findings suggest that agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability, as fundamental concepts for disaster risk reduction (DRR) theory and practice, need to allow for ambivalences, ironies, granularization
and further materializations. The authors identify these characteristics as the conditions that emerge when doing disaster research from within the disaster itself, perhaps the critical condition of what is usually known
as the South.
Originality/value — The authors contribute to a reflexive assessment of fundamental concepts for critical disaster studies. The authors offer research-based and empirically rich redefinitions of these concepts. The
authors also offer a novel understanding of the political and epistemological conditions of the “South” as both a geography and a project.
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With the notion of heterotopia Foucault describes spaces that are somehow "different", mirroring and yet distinguishing themselves from what is outside, like gardens, cemeteries, or ships. Heterotopias are places of imagination, escape,... more
With the notion of heterotopia Foucault describes spaces that are somehow "different", mirroring and yet distinguishing themselves from what is outside, like gardens, cemeteries, or ships. Heterotopias are places of imagination, escape, otherness and a microcosm of different environments. Cristobal Bonelli found his own heterotopia in the IHE library, during the presentation of the book "Water, Technology and the Nation-State".
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In the context of accelerating environmental crises and exhausted intellectual paradigms, this book asks what comes after ‘after nature’. Instead of demanding new models and approaches, it invites its readers to look to the endpoints and... more
In the context of accelerating environmental crises and exhausted intellectual paradigms, this book asks what comes after ‘after nature’. Instead of demanding new models and approaches, it invites its readers to look to the endpoints and failures of what is already known, in order to generate alternative forms of ethical engagement with worlds both on this planet, and beyond it. Drawing together scholarship from across science and technology studies, philosophy, and anthropology and bringing it into conversation with rich ethnographic and empirical material, the book asks how we might potentialise the contradictions and oppositions of critical social scientific thinking in order to develop a mode of paradoxical engagement that is in constant movement between knowledge and its edges, practices and their limits, and which allows us to relate to that which is excessive to relations and relationality.
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¿Cómo están afectando las crisis políticas de la región a las estrategias de transición energética -y viceversa- basadas en el extractivismo de litio? Proyecto ERC Mundos de Litio invita a conversar críticamente sobre las paradojas que... more
¿Cómo están afectando las crisis políticas de la región a las estrategias de transición energética -y viceversa- basadas en el extractivismo de litio?
Proyecto ERC Mundos de Litio invita a conversar críticamente sobre las paradojas que se nos presentan a partir de la noción de sostenibilidad en un escenario tan cambiante y combustionado de transformaciones en los mundos y territorios presentes en el desierto de Atacama, fuertemente afectado por prácticas extractivistas.
Proyecto ERC Mundos de Litio invita a conversar críticamente sobre las paradojas que se nos presentan a partir de la noción de sostenibilidad en un escenario tan cambiante y combustionado de transformaciones en los mundos y territorios presentes en el desierto de Atacama, fuertemente afectado por prácticas extractivistas.