Two Proposals

Abstract

Proposal 1: Anthropology Beyond the Human Eduardo Kohn Ethnographic attention to human-animal relations in Amazonia reveals the constitutively semiotic nature of all life.This helps us appreciate more broadly the ways in which semiotic logics that are not necessarily human or language-like underlie the modes by which thoughts and lives form associations. This changes our understanding of relationality, arguably anthropology’s central concern. Proposal 2: Humans as Niche Constructors, as Primates and with Primates: Synergies for Anthropology in the Anthropocene Agustín Fuentes Humans are primates and consummate niche constructors. If we hope to be both relevant and successful investigators in the multispecies word of the Anthropocene, we need an anthropological practice that places humans and other organisms in integrated and shared ecological and social spaces. Ethnoprimatology and a constructivist evolutionary theory help us move towards a place where the biological and social are folded into an integrative anthropology, in which a myriad of entangled agents and theoretical perspectives are central in investigating the processes of becoming human.