Philippe Descola's Par-delà nature et culture Reframes Anthropology

Philippe Descola's 2005 book "Par-delà nature et culture" (Beyond Nature and Culture), published by Gallimard in the Bibliothèque des sciences humaines series, challenges the Western dichotomy between nature and culture. Originally titled "L'Usage des choses," the work argues for an anthropology that includes non-humans—plants, animals, and objects—as social actors. Descola, who succeeded Claude Lévi-Strauss at the Collège de France in 2001, builds on his fieldwork with the Achuar and Jivaro peoples of Ecuador. He identifies four ontologies: totemism, animism, analogism, and naturalism, each defining different relationships between humans and non-humans. The book dialogues with thinkers like Bruno Latour, Françoise Héritier, and Serge Gruzinski. Descola's project aims to overcome anthropocentrism and reframe anthropology for the Anthropocene, with implications for contemporary art, land art, and environmental art. The review by Nikola Jankovic in artpress highlights the book's relevance to art and ecology.