One of the essential binaries of the “western onto-epistemic worldview” described by Escobar places: “man on the highest rung of the ladder” with everything else in the category of “nature” falling beneath (81.) This worldview has the effect of the “subordination of spirituality and the awareness of the unity of all that exists to the materialism of commodities, of being to possessing.” By separating “humans” from “nature,” societies holding this worldview subjugate nature in pursuit of commodities, and also subjugate other societies that hold different understandings of nature, justified by their “unproductive” relationships with nonhuman entities (De la Cadena, 344.) The enactment of this worldview can clearly be seen in the development of extractive industry, particularly the mining of precious metals, transforming a tangible piece of nature into the most basic form of commodity. Gold is no longer merely a metal found in a riverbed, instead becoming a symbol representative of an infinite number of other commodities that can be bought and sold in the market economy (Escobar, 81.) Mining directly reinforces the neoliberal imaginary which asserts “unfettered production of commodities” and “unlimited growth” to be necessary, establishing belief in the economy to be more real than the very visible harm it causes to the world around it (90.) Mining is hugely environmentally destructive, often polluting waterways and damaging forests (Beckham A, 45:40.) A tremendous amount of economic value is present in a mining tract, and to access this value, the tradeoffs fall significantly onto nature and humans who rely on strong relationships with nature.
Spice investigates the differences between “critical infrastructure” beneficial to the state, which includes extractive industry, energy infrastructure, as well as oil pipelines, and critical infrastructure for indigenous peoples who rely on their relations to the land more directly. The state holds the ability to define what is critical infrastructure and what is not, with infrastructure commonly serving as a physical representation of western enlightenment ideas of modernity and progress as well as vehicles of land theft and displacement, while subsuming other possible nonwestern relationships with nature (42.) Thus, infrastructure is not only environmentally destructive, it is ontologically destructive, literally making other ways of being impossible. To illustrate this destructive process, I have edited clips from Rhino War, Disappearing World: The Kayapo, The Kayapo – Out of The Forest, and First Contact in the style of montage to create an instance of Spice’s “invasive infrastructure” (a gold mine) coming into conflict with indigenous existence (the Kayapo). I have elected to render visible the ontological dualisms which literally elevate man above nature through the metaphor of aircraft, as well as highlight the relationships between Kayapo society and nature through selected narration and dialogue. This depiction can be found in the first video version.
While Spice addresses the existence of nonhuman kin, she does not directly address these actors independent of their relationships with humans. Kawagley states that “In the Yupiat thought world, everything of Mother Earth possesses a spirit. This spirit is consciousness, an awareness. So the wind, river, rabbit, amoeba, star, lily, and so forth possess a spirit” (3.) In the Yupiat ontology, nonliving entities are ascribed with “spirit,” which in the western tradition is reserved for humans alone. Furthermore, De La Cadena identifies non living nonhuman actors possessing political agency as “earth beings” or “tirakuna” which are “sentient entities… with individual physiognomies more or less known by individuals involved in interactions with them” within Andean ontology (342.) One of De La Cadena’s (human) interlocutors asserts: “the community, the ayllu, is not only a territory where a group of people live; it is more than that. It is a dynamic space where the whole community of beings that exist in the world lives; this includes humans, plants, animals, the mountains, the rivers, the rain, etc. All are related like a family” (354.) Within this ayllu, De La Cadena focuses on sacred Andean mountains, who are conscious earth-beings with specific preferences known by some attentive humans. These mountains may respond to unfavorable human actions in the form of landslides, plagues, or other natural disasters (339.)
Human interaction with these earth-beings, or “earth-practices” (337) are shaped by the economic possibilities presented by them. In De La Cadena’s work, this can be seen in the reserves of precious metal within the mountains. Extractive industry literally punctures “veins” of metal, withdrawing commodities at the expense of the bodies of earth-beings. Such extraction is possible due to the ontological dualism separating human from nonhuman, as the earth-being lacks spirit in the view of commodity-focused miners. Indeed, when the spirit of earth-beings is cited as a political right, it “disavows the separation between ‘Nature’ and ‘Humanity,’ on which the political theory our world abides by was historically founded” (341.) By visualizing these earth-beings as actors in their own right, and taking the existence of their spirit as fact, the narrative necessarily changes from an anthropocentric view of humans oppressing other humans via the erasure of relations with nonhuman beings, to a different view of the same events in which humans erase nonhuman beings, with impacts on related humans arising as a more secondary consequence. By shifting perspective in this manner, I hope to achieve a visual language that demonstrates “fundamental unity of being and world” (Escobar, 82) placing humans not on the highest rung of the ladder, but instead within an ayllu, a more comprehensive web of communal relations.
To visualize this shift in perspective, I have edited together a second montage, with a similar story as the first, of infrastructure projects and their impacts, but focusing this time on relations which may involve, but do not necessarily involve humans. Clips from the same selection of films as the prior montage are used, in addition to Llanthupi Munakuy (Loving Each Other in the Shadows.) Relations of particular interest to me were those of rivers which serve as a link between many different beings with spirit, from mountains, to fish, to humans, and more, but may be disrupted by pollution and damming between source and sea. Instead of using the audio from the films, I have elected to play a recording of a river, emphasizing continuity between the relations depicted visually, with hints of industrial activity in the background. This can be found in the second video version.
Sources Cited:
Anderson , Robin and Bob Connolly , directors. First Contact. https://videoreserves-prod.princeton.edu/hrc/vod/clip.php?file=ANT/First-Contact-H.mp4.
Beckham, Michael, director. Disappearing World: The Kayapo. https://videoreserves-prod.princeton.edu/hrc/vod/clip.php?file=ANT/Kayapo-Indians-Brazilian-Rain-Forest.mp4.
Beckham, Michael, director. The Kayapo: Out of the Forest. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Kx3ua6VcMbhTQHh9-0OMpY2fE4IA8gIt.
Cardenas, Marcelina, director. Llanthupi Munakuy (Loving Each Other in the Shadows.). https://videoreserves-prod.princeton.edu/hrc/vod/clip.php?file=ANT/Loving-Each-Other-In-the-Shadows.mp4.
De la CADENA, MARISOL. “Indigenous cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual reflections beyond ‘politics.’” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 25, no. 2, May 2010, pp. 334–370, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2010.01061.x.
Escobar, Arturo. “In the Background of Our Culture: Rationalism, Ontological Dualism, and Relationality.” Designs for the Pluriverse, Duke University Press.
Kawagley, Angayuqaq Oscar. “An Alliance Between Humans and Creatures Part 1.” Sharing Our Pathways, vol. 3, no. 5, 1998.
Klankbeeld, “industrial river 1216 PM 220802_0470” Creative Commons 4.0 https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/731341/
National Geographic, director. Rhino War. https://videoreserves-prod.princeton.edu/hrc/vod/clip.php?file=ANT/Rhino-War.mp4.
Spice, Anne. “Fighting Invasive Infrastructures.” Environment and Society, vol. 9, no. 1, 1 Sept. 2018, pp. 40–56, https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2018.090104.
