El regreso de la barbarie. Una crítica etnográfica a las ontologías “premodernas”

Abstract

During the last years, many Latin American professionals have directed their anthropological work towards the recent French academic tradition represented by Philippe Descola, which has resulted in a hasty extrapolation of perspectives developed in the Amazon region and imported to the Mesoamerican area. However, and although in my opinion they don’t seem very valid to the Amazon, the fundamental question that underlies these theoretical propositions is the existence of an “Indian” or “Amerindian thought» differentiated from an assumed and homogeneous Cartesian “western thinking”, historical duality with which I can’t agree. This kind of asseveration will be classified inside of another unacceptable implicit linear evolutionary proposal that underlies, and which involves a sequence of ways of thinking ranging from the most «archaic» ones to the present.