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How forests think : toward an anthropology beyond the human / Eduardo Kohn.
Van Pelt Library F2230.2.K4 K68 2013
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Kohn, Eduardo.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Quechua Indians--Social life and customs.
- Quechua Indians.
- Quechua mythology.
- Ethnoecology--Amazon River Region.
- Ethnoecology.
- Social sciences.
- Philosophy.
- Semiotics.
- Philosophy of nature.
- Human-plant relationships.
- Human-animal relationships.
- Amazon River Region.
- Human-animal relationships--Amazon River Region.
- Human-plant relationships--Amazon River Region.
- Philosophy of nature--Amazon River Region.
- Semiotics--Amazon River Region.
- Social sciences--Amazon River Region--Philosophy.
- Physical Description:
- xiii, 267 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Berkeley : University of California Press, [2013]
- Summary:
- Can forests think? Do dogs dream? In this astonishing book, Eduardo Kohn challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be human-and thus distinct from all other life forms. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador's Upper Amazon, Kohn explores how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world's most complex ecosystems. Whether we recognize it or not, our anthropological tools rely on the capacities that make us distinctly human. However, when we turn our ethnographic attention to how we relate to other kinds of beings, these tools-which have the effect of divorcing us from the rest of the world-break down. How Forests Think seizes on this breakdown as an opportunity. Avoiding reductionist solutions, and without losing sight of how our lives and those of other beings are caught up in the moral webs we humans spin, this book skillfully fashions new kinds of conceptual tools from the strange and unexpected properties of the living world itself. In this groundbreaking work, Kohn takes anthropology in a new and exciting direction-one that offers a more capacious way to think about the world we share with other kinds of beings. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- 1 The Open Whole 27
- 2 The Living Thought 71
- 3 Soul Blindness 103
- 4 Trans-Species Pidgins 131
- 5 Form's Effortless Efficacy 153
- 6 The Living Future (and the Imponderable Weight of the Dead) 191.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780520276109
- 0520276108
- 9780520276116
- 0520276116
- OCLC:
- 827528818
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