A Decade of Eduardo Kohn's 'How Forests Think': In Translation in Latin America
Speakers: Eduardo Kohn (McGill University), Mónica Cuéllar Gempeler (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) and Jamille Pinheiro Dias (University of London)
In this activity of the GERMINATIONS series, which this year centres on 'Forest Thinking/Thinking Forests', Eduardo Kohn (McGill), Mónica Cuéllar Gempeler (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) and Jamille Pinheiro Dias (CLACS/ILCS) will discuss aspects of the translation, circulation and reception of Kohn's seminal book How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, with a focus on Latin America. How Forests Think calls into question the very underpinnings of anthropology by challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human and, by extension, what it means to be distinct from other forms of life. Based on four years of fieldwork in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the book examines how the Runa (Kichwa) people interact with the numerous species that coexist in one of the world's most complex and biodiverse ecosystems. Arguing that selfhood does not solely belong to humans, Kohn proposes that any entity that communicates through the use of signs can be considered a self, leading to a complex ecology of selves of which humans and nonhumans are both part. How Forests Think has been translated into multiple languages, including Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Danish, and Russian, in addition to translations into Portuguese and German, soon to be published.
Event date: 8 June 2023