In Territories of Difference, Arturo Escobar, author of the widely debated book Encountering Development, analyzes the politics of difference enacted by specific place-based ethnic and environmental movements in the context of neoliberal globalization. His analysis is based on his many years of engagement with a group of Afro-Colombian activists of Colombia’s Pacific rainforest region, the Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN). Escobar offers a detailed ethnographic account of PCN’s visions, strategies, and practices, and he chronicles and analyzes the movement’s struggles for autonomy, territory, justice, and cultural recognition. Yet he also does much more. Consistently emphasizing the value of local activist knowledge for both understanding and social action and drawing on multiple strands of critical scholarship, Escobar proposes new ways for scholars and activists to examine and apprehend the momentous, complex processes engulfing regions such as the Colombian Pacific today. Escobar illuminates many interrelated dynamics, including the Colombian government’s policies of development and pluralism that created conditions for the emergence of black and indigenous social movements and those movements’ efforts to steer the region in particular directions. He examines attempts by capitalists to appropriate the rainforest and extract resources, by developers to set the region on the path of modernist progress, and by biologists and others to defend this incredibly rich biodiversity “hot-spot” from the most predatory activities of capitalists and developers. He also looks at the attempts of academics, activists, and intellectuals to understand all of these complicated processes. Territories of Difference is Escobar’s effort to think with Afro-Colombian intellectual-activists who aim to move beyond the limits of Eurocentric paradigms as they confront the ravages of neoliberal globalization and seek to defend their place-based cultures and territories.
In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth. Noting that most design—from consumer goods and digital technologies to built environments—currently serves capitalist ends, Escobar argues for the development of an “autonomous design” that eschews commercial and modernizing aims in favor of more collaborative and placed-based approaches. Such design attends to questions of environment, experience, and politics while focusing on the production of human experience based on the radical interdependence of all beings. Mapping autonomous design’s principles to the history of decolonial efforts of indigenous and Afro-descended people in Latin America, Escobar shows how refiguring current design practices could lead to the creation of more just and sustainable social orders.
In Pluriversal Politics Arturo Escobar engages with the politics of the possible and how established notions of what is real and attainable preclude the emergence of radically alternative visions of the future. Reflecting on the experience, philosophy, and practice of indigenous and Afro-descendant activist-intellectuals and on current Latin American theoretical-political debates, Escobar chronicles the social movements mobilizing to defend their territories from large-scale extractive operations in the region. He shows how these movements engage in an ontological politics aimed at bringing about the pluriverse—a world consisting of many worlds, each with its own ontological and epistemic grounding. Such a politics, Escobar contends, is key to crafting myriad world-making stories telling of different possible futures that could bring about the profound social transformations that are needed to address planetary crises. Both a call to action and a theoretical provocation, Pluriversal Politics finds Escobar at his critically incisive best.
This important new book argues that at the root of the contemporary crisis of climate, energy, food, inequality, and meaning is a certain core presupposition that structures the ways in which we live, think, act and design: the assumption of dualism, or the fundamental separateness of things. The authors contend that the key to constructing livable worlds lies in the cultivation of ways of knowing and acting based on a profound awareness of the fundamental interdependence of everything that exists – what they refer to as relationality. This shift in paradigm is necessary for healing our bodies, ecosystems, cities, and the planet at large. The book follows two interwoven threads of argumentation: on the one hand, it explains and exemplifies the modes of operation and the dire consequences of non-relational living; on the other, it elucidates the nature of relationality and explores how it is embodied in transformative practices in multiple spheres of life. The authors provide an instructive account of the philosophical, scientific, social, and political sources of relational theory and action, with the aim of illuminating the transition from living within seemingly ineluctable 'toxic loops' of unrelational living (based on ontological dualism), to living within 'relational weaves' which we might co-create with multiple human and nonhuman others.
This book, paying attention to the axes of identity, strategy, and democracy, grew out of the authors' shared and growing interest in contemporary social movements and the vast theoretical literature on these movements produced during the 1980s, particularly in Latin America and Western Europe.
This book argues the relationship between culture and politics can be productively explored by delving into the nature of the cultural politics enacted by Latin American social movements and by examining the potential of this cultural politics for fostering social change.
Here is a reading of the Colombian and South American reality, with its clashes over the application of methods and practices based on essentially materialist ideologies, which occurred in the 50s, 60s and 70s, with the author Pedro Arturo Arenas experiencing many of the social challenges, concepts and spirituality of that time. “Love in times of war” offers a panoramic photograph of the transformations that took place in Latin America, especially from the end of the 1950s onwards, a period of great social changes and full of illusions, many of which ended up dragging entire populations into especially youth, to embark on a quest for collective justice, but which in the end led to immense frustrations and tragic results in some countries. The unrestricted exercise of doctrines and dogmas, both on the left and on the right, finally produced an increase in social and economic disparities evident in many parts, stimulating and intensifying class struggles, such as the emergence of resistance movements. peasant and working class, urban guerrillas and other forms of violence, without achieving their goals. Without adequately responding to the aspirations of collective justice, such ideologies deepened the abyss between poverty and wealth, producing even more greater apathy, hopelessness and disillusionment in the hearts of the impoverished and anguished masses in countless parts of the planet. The search for a more just social order continued to lead Pedro Arenas through tortuous paths and intellectual clashes until, after a long and arduous journey, he found himself disenchanted with the political practice of members of supposed socialist organizations, realizing then the limitations of ethical and spiritual nature of the cited movements, especially in the daily interrelationships of the members of these organizations that, in turn, ignored or despised the evident religiosity of the Colombian peasants. With the new possibilities, a new world opened before his eyes, when he reunited with his old friend Gabriel Branco, through whom he learned about the Bahá'í teachings. Upon investigating the subject more deeply, he was led to conclude that such teachings constituted an incomparable social and spiritual project of a magnitude never before imagined. Leaving behind his past as a union and political activist, Pedro Arturo was now seeking new horizons of understanding, reaching the conclusion that social and political transformations are incomplete, unless they advance concomitantly with a deep spiritual transformation, and that the way to establish a new order in human affairs requires the use of new means and methods. From those new teachings emerged the understanding that conflict resolution can take place through methods of consultation and dialogue; that humanity cannot continue to be sacrificed for the maintenance of certain outdated postulates; that the sole purpose of legal norms as well as political and economic theories is the protection of the common interests of all peoples; that love for the homeland, although legitimate, needs to give way to a broader loyalty, that is, to love for humanity as a whole and, as a consequence, for the concept of world citizenship. That all kinds of prejudices need to be abandoned; that new institutions need to be erected; that the recognition of ethnic, climatic, historical, idiomatic and traditional diversity, thoughts and customs, can help to promote “a broader loyalty, a greater aspiration” that contemplates the uniqueness of humanity; that the maintenance of order can be sustained by a “single code of international law”, by an Executive and a Parliament and a World Supreme Court; that the Cause of Peace can be achieved through a binding treaty, with inviolable and clearly defined clauses, fruit of a broad global consensus. Inspired by these principles and a clear vision, Pedro Arenas rose to promote these teachings, traveling and supporting local Bahá'í activities and institutions in Colombia, where he learned about the exciting experience and fieldwork of the Rural University – FUNDAEC and the Ruhí Institute. Served as a Bahá'í pioneer in El Salvador, Central America, during a period of great uncertainty and conflict between the army and the FFLN; collaborated in activities to promote the Institute of Bahá'í training in indigenous areas on the borders of Brazil, Colombia and Peru, as well as dedicated a brief period of his life in the archipelago of Cape Verde, on the African coast, and later - now back to Brazil – in the region of Northeast, where he established himself as a Bahá'í pioneer – working as a professor linked to the Rio Grande do Norte State University. Finally, Pedro Arturo dedicates the last chapters and some accompanying texts to remembering relatives and friends, both from the oldest and most recent times, dedicating to them lines of recognition, affection and high esteem, all as a reflection and demonstration of his love and ample thanks to the Beloved of his heart, Bahá'u'lláh, for guiding him and enabling him to reach a height of achievement and joy. The whole story is told with the enthusiasm of one who was an active protagonist and is testimony to the personal transformations experienced by the author under the influence of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation. This young Colombian seeker, like many others of his age and generation, was galvanized by the overwhelming strength and foresight of the Bahá'í teachings and still continues untiring in his efforts in the challenging task of contributing – each in a humble way and according to his abilities – in the construction of that new order advocated by Bahá’u’lláh.
Captain Alatriste returns in a swashbuckling tale of intrigue, romance and regicide. Captain Alatriste's affair with the beautiful actress Maria de Castro is rankling not only his long-term mistress but also the King of Spain. With loyal companion Inigo distracted by the affections of Angelica, Alatriste becomes embroiled in a series of tussles outside his lover's house. Ambushed by arch-nemesis Malatesta, a skirmish ensues that leads to the death of Maria's other lover - the monarch himself. But behind this tale of sexual jealousy lurks a darker truth. As it becomes clear that both Alatriste and Inigo have been cunningly honey trapped - and that the dead man was an impostor. With a puppet king waiting dutifully in the wings, Alatriste must use all his cunning and swordsmanly guile to prevent the murder of the real king - and his implication in a crime for which he has been perfectly framed.
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