Ethnography of the storytelling practices through which the indigenous Yshiro of Paraguay struggle to produce an alternative reality/world to the so-far dominant type of globalization that is 'modernity writ large'

For more than fifteen years, Mario Blaser has been involved with the Yshiro people of the Paraguayan Chaco as they have sought to maintain their world in the face of conservation and development programs promoted by the state and various nongovernmental organizations. In this ethnography of the encounter between modernizing visions of development, the place-based “life projects” of the Yshiro, and the agendas of scholars and activists, Blaser argues for an understanding of the political mobilization of the Yshiro and other indigenous peoples as part of a struggle to make the global age hospitable to a “pluriverse” containing multiple worlds or realities. As he explains, most knowledge about the Yshiro produced by non-indigenous “experts” has been based on modern Cartesian dualisms separating subject and object, mind and body, and nature and culture. Such thinking differs profoundly from the relational ontology enacted by the Yshiro and other indigenous peoples. Attentive to people’s unique experiences of place and self, the Yshiro reject universal knowledge claims, unlike Western modernity, which assumes the existence of a universal reality and refuses the existence of other ontologies or realities. In Storytelling Globalization from the Chaco and Beyond, Blaser engages in storytelling as a knowledge practice grounded in a relational ontology and attuned to the ongoing struggle for a pluriversal globality.

"“Storytelling Globalization: From the Chaco and Beyond is a creative—and to some lengths courageous—attempt to demonstrate a different kind of ethnography. . . . Blaser is attempting to tell stories of globalization from and with the Yshiro, and the result will prove an important model for practitioners interested in producing knowledge that in a nonreductive register.”" - American Anthropologist

"“A timely contribution to the ethnographic record of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, this book … about the Yshiro, also known as Chamacoco, of the Alto Paraguay Chaco constitutes an innovative anti-totalizing text inspired by border theory and postwestern thought... The book strengthens studies on Native American Societies, specifically the stunning resilience of South American Indians, complementing an experience of survival with other socionatures around the world.”" - Canadian Journal of Native Studies

"“This is an important contribution to anthropological efforts to go beyond critical analysis of development towards a deeper understanding of such projects.”" - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"“With a sensitivity to the political nature of the politics of representation, the author passionately argues for a dialogue of knowledge in order to make visible the “anomalies” experienced by Yshiro-Ebitoso communities in Paraguay since 1986, and the political consequences from development interventions beyond the Chaco.”" - The Americas