The Amazon is the largest contingent of tropical forests in the world, with bio and ethno-cultural diversity that fulfills vital functions in global climate regulation. This presentation elaborates on Stenger’s and Latour’s studies on the emerging movement towards post-natural politics that moves beyond the human-nature dichotomy to re-imagine political regimes outside capitalism and neoliberalism.
It builds on the concept of cosmopolitics to provide insights on the phenomenological path towards thinking of ‘the self’ as earthed and embedded with, not in, its environments (i.e. “earthbound people”). It asks how this provocative movement might inform understandings of both the opportunities for capitalism created by the contemporary ecological crisis and the possibilities for a critical political reframing and response.
It argues that to move toward long-term solutions for the complex challenges that reducing deforestation in the Amazon entails we need to step outside of the imperative thinking for precise categorization and calculative value frame of natural diversities. Conclusions point out some ideas on how to overcome the historical failure of policymakers to engage with indigenous values, practices, and cosmo-visions that may help us to move beyond the current political narratives and better integrate our choices with the different ways in which we can be useful to our natural environment.
This presentation was given as part of the XXXVI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association in Barcelona (Spain) in 2018. The chapter on which this presentation is based is part of the book “Frontiers of Development in the Amazon”.
