In For Emplacement, Mario Blaser proposes a new lens for contending with the momentous challenges facing the world, from anthropogenic climate change to rampant socioeconomic inequalities to the rise of neofascism. Blaser shows that the prevalent solutions to these problems-which often depend on intensifying globalization, technological development, and extractivism-only deepen these crises. Effectively addressing these issues, he suggests, might require grounding our ways of being in the specificities of place. Drawing on decades of ethnographic experience in South America and the Canadian subarctic, and engaging with material semiotics, Blaser recasts the fundamental political question of how to live together well as a cosmopolitical one: how to become emplaced with others, in divergence. Ultimately, he presents a political ontology where visions of the good life oriented to the specificities of place guide us through the promises and challenges that a journey toward emplacement holds.
Mario Blaser is Professor of Anthropology, Archaeology, and Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland, author of Storytelling Globalization from the Chaco and Beyond, and coeditor of A World of Many Worlds, both also published by Duke University Press.
Preface ix Introduction. Political Ontology and the Problem of Displacement/Emplacement 1 Prelude. Small Stories 33 Act I. Uncommoning the Territory of the Common Good (on Being Faithful to the Pluriverse) 59 Interlude. Big Stories 96 Act II. Being Careful with Atiku, Killing Caribou (the Science Question in Cosmopolitics) 124 Postlude. Viably Small Stories for the Displaced 158 Acknowledgments 185 Notes 187 Bibliography 211 Index
"Mario Blaser offers a new and vibrant conceptual and political vocabulary to approach the problems of our times in relation to indigeneity, environment, and knowledge. Drawing on anthropology, science and technology studies, and political theory, this book helps us escape colonizing forms of thought and keeps space open for alternative forms of being and living. For Emplacement is a bold invitation built on careful thinking, meticulous consideration of ethnographic worlds, and potent writing." - Andrea Ballestero, author of (A Future History of Water) "In this impressive and important book, Mario Blaser sharpens the conceptual and political stakes of political ontology. He makes a compelling argument for a political orientation toward the 'small' in the face of a politics of the global, universal, and transcendent. This 'small' politics would help build a pluriverse consisting of a set of emergent and connected yet divergent collectives. Complex, thoughtful, and provocative, For Emplacement will find a wide readership in anthropology, geography, Latin American studies, development studies, and Indigenous studies." - Bruce Braun, Professor of Geography, University of Minnesota
