Decolonizing ecological knowledge: transdisciplinary ecology, place making and cognitive justice in the Andes

Boillat, Sébastien-Pierre (2020). Decolonizing ecological knowledge: transdisciplinary ecology, place making and cognitive justice in the Andes In: Sarmiento, Fausto O.; Frolich, Larry M. (eds.) The Elgar Companion to Geography, Transdisciplinarity and Sustainability (pp. 307-319). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing 10.4337/9781786430106.00028

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This chapter explores the concept of place interpreted from ecological knowledge and religious practices of rural indigenous people found from southern Peru to Bolivia and northern Chile and Argentina. Based on literature from this area as well as on field observations from Bolivia, I highlight the evidence of a culturally specific, widely shared and persistent concept of place. Such concept simultaneously considers the place as a living, social being with agency and as the target of ritual offerings, and as a spatial container of ecological knowledge, and individual and collective memory. This apparently dual conceptualization and practical use challenges the division of the profane and the sacred, the common and the proper and the living and the non-living and has profound implications for thinking and building sustainability from a transdisciplinary perspective. It nevertheless also represents an opportunity to re-think ecosystems from a physically and ontically open perspective. To enable this new perspective, ontological options underpinning different forms of ecological knowledge have to be made explicit and correctly interpreted.

Item Type:	Book Section (Book Chapter)
Division/Institute:	School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL
Name:	Boillat, Sébastien-Pierre0000-0002-8035-6335; Sarmiento, Fausto O. and Frolich, Larry M.
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography
ISBN:	9781786430090
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
Language:	English
Submitter:	Sébastien-Pierre Boillat
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2024 15:04
Last Modified:	13 Mar 2024 10:47
Publisher DOI:	10.4337/9781786430106.00028
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.20889
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/20889