Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Alexandre Surrallés, Karen Shiratori and Gemma Orobitg

In this session, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro will speak about his work since the 1990s in developing one of the core conceptual syntheses in the contemporary anthropological debate, namely perspectivism or a philosophical approach to the relational nature of beings. This standpoint arises from meticulous scrutiny of ethnographic evidence on the relations between human and non-human entities in the discourse and practice of Indigenous peoples of the Amazon where humanity is considered to be the original and shared condition of all entities. Accordingly, situating the Amazon as a site of thought, perspectivism questions and critically reviews essential notions like nature, culture, humanity, person, body, relativism, universalism, and others. Its impact has been considerable not only in Amazonian anthropology and anthropological thought in general but it has also extended into other areas of the humanities, the social and political sciences, philosophy, environmental sciences, and architecture. Perspectivism continues to stimulate new insights to this very day while also prompting criticism and counterproposals which, in their own way, demonstrate its power and scope.

This interuniversity seminar is jointly organised by the CCCB, CINAF (UB – Study Group on Indigenous and Afro-American Cultures, University of Barcelona) and AHCISP (UAB - Anthropology and History of the Construction of Social and Political Identities, Autonomous University of Barcelona).