Cultural Anthropology

Question

Are there more than one world-making projects? is the distinction between human and more-than-human universal? Write 3-4 sentences. Reference the articles "Marisol de la Cadena. “Uncommoning Nature.” Available at: http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/texts/uncommoning-nature/" and "Astrid B. Stensrud “Climate Change, Water Practices, and Relational Worlds in the Andes.” Ethnos 81, no. 1: 75–98." Use both articles to help you with this question.

Answer 1

In cultural anthropology, the concept of "world-making" reveals that there are indeed multiple, heterogeneous projects coexisting and often clashing. Marisol de la Cadena describes the "Anthropo-not-seen" as a history of "war" waged against world-making practices that do not adhere to the modern separation of nature and culture, in which entities like mountains are enacted as powerful "earth-beings" rather than merely passive resources. Similarly, Astrid Stensrud illustrates how water practices in the Andes involve "relational worlds" where water is both a physical substance managed by engineers and a life-giving force nurtured through reciprocal relationships with more-than-human entities. This multiplicity of worlds suggests that the distinction between "human" and "more-than-human" is not universal, but rather a specific "partition of the sensible" typical of modern, Euro-Western ontologies. Both authors argue that for many Indigenous communities, these categories are inextricably entangled, meaning that what modern politics labels as "nature" is actually an "other-than-human" participant in a shared, social landscape.