Amazonia and the Ontological Turn: A Dialogue

In July 2017, I visited Manaus to work on a new collaboration with researchers in the Sociology Department at the Federal University of Amazonas State (UFAM) and I also had the opportunity to give a talk based on my book Amazonia and the Anthropocene. Following that visit, I developed a lengthy email exchange over the better part of a year with Bruno Caporrino (a PhD student in the Dept. of Anthropology at UFAM) and Túlio Zille (a PhD student in Political Science at Johns Hopkins). Now, we are happy to share our dialogue (in Portuguese) in the new online magazine, Amazônia Latitude. The essay, titled “A virada ontológica e a Amazônia: um dialógo”, offers a summary of some of the key points of debate that have attracted our attention in the ontological turn in anthropology, particularly in relation to the ethnographic study of the Amazon region. A slightly edited version of our original email exchange (also in Portuguese) can be found here.