Water, weather-world, and vital knots: a glance at the model of anthropology of life in the study of the interaction humans-environment in the Checua River Valley (Colombian Andes)

• In Event: Socio-environmental conflicts

Abstract

This paper examines the model of anthropology of life, which was created in order to approach — from an interdisciplinary perspective — the paleoecological, archaeological and social memories and registers interwoven in the historical ecology and landscape transformation of the Checua River Valley. Inhabited by human beings since at least 7,000 BP, this valley is nowadays part of a complex strategy of delimitation and management of the Bogotá River Basin, which provides water for a network of municipalities that include Colombia´s Capital District, Bogotá. The paper examines the dialogue between postconstructivist political ecology, ecology of life, landscape and weather-world phenomenology, following the pathway of the Checua River “ontohistory,” a methodological and conceptual process that is part of the ongoing research program Antropochecua. Rooted in the political urgency of placing environmental matters into the public debate, this paper also seeks to contribute in a novel way to approaching the knots of human and non-human histories

Authors

• Mónica L Espinosa Arango, Universidad de los Andes

• Sonia Archila Montañez, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia