Meteorology, knowledge, and ethics. On modernist and animist perspectives

Introduction

The climate is a complex phenomenon shaped by many factors and since it is presently rapidly changing on a global scale much attention is paid to what happens in the atmosphere. Although climate issues today receive considerable public attention, it is not climatic conditions but weather phenomena that we experience. This inability to acquire an immediate knowledge of the climate obviously follows from its abstract nature, being the mean meteorological conditions over a period of several years. In spite of the general familiarity with weather, it took until the late-16th century before a deeper understanding of atmospheric phenomena began to develop with the elaboration of instruments to measure different variables, and it was during the 19th century that an understanding gradually emerged that local weather was part of a global system that could be affected by human activities. Eventually, this insight was expanded to inform geophysical notions and, thus, the concept of the Anthropocene was conceived in which humanity as an undifferentiated actor is given a prominent role. In climate change discourse, the view of humanity as homogenous not only fails to justly distribute of responsibility regarding causation, but it also substantiates the colonialization of reality implicit in the Anthropocene narrative.

Despite the development and refinement of instruments which have resulted in improved models and better ability to predict future events in the atmosphere, there are still various distinct narratives that influence how climatic conditions are understood. Thus, notwithstanding the importance of comprehending the causes and processes of climate change, understandings of meteorological conditions are in themselves also an interesting phenomena and in this paper I examine narratives about weather and climate and their epistemological and ontological foundations. This approach to the problem should not be seen as a failure to acknowledge the importance of mitigating the effects of the process of global warming but as an attempt to address an aspect of the process that has received little attention but which therefore is of no less importance. I address questions of how current processes in the atmosphere are understood and how various understandings relate to each other.

Although the process of changing weather regimes is experienced by most people around the world, not all describe what happens in terms of climate change, a notion that refers to the abstraction combining the mean meteorological conditions over a period of several years based on conventions established within a socially circumscribed forum. The terminology is, thus, of significance since it implies a particular understanding of the world and its functioning, an understanding that often requires an acceptance that goes against what Arturo Escobar (2007) calls “knowledge otherwise,” that is, knowledge based on distinct ontological premises that commonly has emerged locally from people’s engagement with the environment and that therefore has proven its validity.

Despite a wide variety of knowledges, a quick glance at the general literature shows that attention is generally paid only to two kinds of narratives on how weather and climate are produced and how they relate to the world and to people: one is religious and the other scientific. The dominance of these two narratives in the general climate discussion results in the ignorance of alternative perspectives. Thus, despite that organizations like, for instance, the World Meteorological Organization talk about the importance of cultural sensitivity and respect for others (World Meteorological Organization, 2026), this is rarely (if ever) an issue in scientific texts since the physical nature of weather and climate is not only taken for granted, it constitutes the ontological foundation upon which science rests (see e.g., Mignolo, 1997; Taddei, 2022).

In the following, I examine an instance where agency and influence are not limited to physical laws or to divinities but equally shared by all beings, including spirits, animals, plants, and objects. In many such cases the autonomy of individual beings is a central precondition to the extent that the freedom to act challenges all social hierarchies and thwarts any attempt at establishing rules to circumscribe personal independence, irrespective of whether the source is conceived as divine or part of nature’s constitution. The absence of such forces does not signify a lack of social orderliness and rationality; it rather indicates that such people adhere to an ontological rationality with alternative views on, for instance, other-regarding moral values in relation to who or what produces meteorological phenomena.¹ As demonstrated below, a social logic of this kind can be associated with notions that go against occidental ideals and expectations of propriety that may be difficult to accept for someone who does not share the same ontological precepts.

In evaluating alternative understandings, adherents of the dominant perspectives tend to assess them not only as foreign but as naïve and irrational views that need not be taken seriously. Still, far from being naïve and irrational, such alternative perspectives are as a rule characterized by an impeccable logic as long as the fundamental premises of these views are accepted. For obvious reasons, this is not always easy for an external observer to see, since principles and factors relevant according to one perspective may not even have a place in other worldviews which is demonstrated below regarding the different interpretations of American ornithologists and Matsigenka elders concerning the causes for the increased temperatures that both groups recognize. Various sets of understandings within animism and modernism thus disagree on important issues; crucially, the distinction between nature and culture has not been given the same central ontological status among other-than-modernist people as it has within modernist perceptions of the world.

It should be made clear that when I talk about ‘modernist’ rather than ‘modern’ views I refer to perspectives that emerged as a result of the social and intellectual changes that Europe underwent starting during the latter half of the 18th century. To avoid the multiple meanings evoked by the word ‘modern’ (e.g., Latour, 1993) I rather use ‘contemporary’. To me the distinction is important since the opposite of ‘modern’ is commonly taken to be ‘traditional’, that is, something outdated that belongs to history, which often refers to non-modernist conceptions that still are of importance to people today. The result of this usage is that ideas that do not conform to modernist ideas are implicitly rendered outdated and invalid. I also talk about ‘animism’, a concept that fell in disrepute and was abandon for being racist and prejudiced and colonialist. The term was revived approximately 30 years ago, as a concept was needed to describe the understandings of the world as animated and formed by environmental relations according to a relationist ontology, and, thus, it should not be understood in the deprecating sense given to it by early evolutionists (Harvey, 2005; Praet, 2015).

Adherents of each of the various narratives are, of course, convinced of the veracity of their respective perspectives, for which they find support through their everyday experiences. The nature of experience is complex though, and not only in a neurophysiological way, but also with regard to the knowledge and practice through which everyday experiences convert into a meaningful awareness of our environment. According to Husserl (1970 [1936]) the individual perceptions of the world constitute the lifeworlds (Lebenswelt) of people where the individual singularity of experience follows, for instance, from personal background, and intentions for the near and distant future. To enable meaningful communication, differences are overcome by social engagement. The world is, accordingly, constituted intersubjectively and even if understandings are not completely identical, they are sufficiently compatible to allow for a functioning social life. Husserl’s (1970 [1936]) assumption about the pre-epistemic nature of experience was, however, questioned by his student (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]) who argued that experience is not epistemologically neutral but formed in the world in which the subject is part from the start and where the significance of phenomena are given. Difference in perception is, consequently, not only epistemological and individual but also ontological. This condition Heidegger referred to as Dasein, which commonly is translated into English as ‘being-in-the-world.’ Accordingly, when a modernist person, for instance, see leaves flutter and tree branches sway, he or she needs not rely on his or her own interpretation of the experience but can assume that a wind is blowing, which, following Heidegger, results from the ontologically defined world in which people live, where the physical phenomena of winds is a familiar occurrence, and therefore does not require further inquiry. However, as shown below, in another ontological reality the answer may not be equally obvious since, in contrast to modernism’s naturalism, the world might not be, primarily, a detached object but could be constituted of relationships. In the case I will present below, the relationship with the environment is, in accordance, seen in terms of a subject-subject relation rather than as a subject-object relation (see, e.g., Bird-David, 1999; Descola, 1996; Harvey, 2005; Praet, 2015).

The divergence of ontologies challenges the supremacy of modernist science as founded on studies of “real reality” while alternative understandings are considered faulty, being naïve and lacking in rigor (see, e.g., Blaser, 2013; de la Cadena, 2010; de Santos, 2014). Considering modernist science’s foundation, it is, arguably, necessary to question whether there is just one world and if differences are only cultural, or epistemic, or if they could be more profound. Should the existence of multiple worlds be accepted (and here I do, of course, talk about ontologically distinct worlds and not the multiple worlds of string theory), it follows that the nature of truth becomes relative and dependent upon the world in which we live, which means a radical break with universalistic ambitions of science exploring “real reality.” In a globalized world, the question of how to relate to other worlds becomes moreover politicized since the differences serve as markers of hegemonic relations based on the power to enforce one’s own truth (e.g., Agrawal, 2002; Tsing, 2005).

This essay is, accordingly, about varieties of understandings of meteorological phenomena and associated conceptions of the environment, their foundation, and their local applicability. The essay takes its empirical starting point in the cosmovision of Matsigenka people of the Amazon rainforest and their perception of ‘weather’ phenomena. Subsequently I compare Matsigenka relationist conceptions of the world with modernist meteorology and its foundations, not to demonstrate the superiority of the one or the other but to shed light on the coloniality of reality and how the lack of attention to the differences between the two ontological worlds raises questions of cognitive, or epistemic, justice (de Santos, 2014).

The study is based on engaging with Matsigenka people since the late 1970s and I have since then intermittently returned for longer and short periods of time when I have lived and shared my life with people in the communities. The result of my studies is based on conventional ethnographic methods, that is, informal and open-ended interviews carried out with a large number of men and women of all ages and social standings and from different communities in the region. Moreover, participant observation and engagement with people in their daily activities constitute important sources of information. In 2010 I began to dedicate special attention to Matsigenka people’s understandings of meteorological phenomena and the wider connection to social and cultural conditions, which means that the main focus has been on cosmovisions and subsistence practices.

What is ‘weather’?

Since language in some respects can be seen as a mirror that reflects how the world is perceived and understood the comparison results in problems of translation since a lexical correspondence cannot be taken for granted, I will therefore first begin by examining semiotic differences between English and Matsigenka related to meteorological phenomena.

Although weather to the science of meteorology is part of global systems, processes in the everyday are experienced as local and our understanding and appreciation is even individual. Thus, let us start by briefly considering what we mean when we talk about ‘weather’. It may seem an odd suggestion in a publication dedicated to the study of climate, which is all about weather, and indeed who does not know what is meant by ‘weather’ in the sense of something in which we are constantly immersed? But, considering Berland’s (1993, p. 211) observation that “weather is … a site of continuous colonization of representational and technological practice, which is to say that weather has been the product of various cultural and disciplinary practices from the beginning,” we may need to ask ourselves whether the answer to this question is as obvious as easily can be imagined.

Actually, when we talk about ‘weather’ in English, we talk about wind, sunshine, rain, etc., all very distinct phenomena, which means that the notion of ‘weather’ is an abstraction without any material substance. Still, we have an idea of what we are talking about, and in, for instance, Germanic languages the meaning is clear and unequivocal as the term is in everyday use to collectively denote the various phenomena that we include in this category.

Etymologically, the English term ‘weather’ goes back to the proto-Indo-European ‘wét-’,² that allegedly means ‘year’ (another cultural construction) (Kroonen, 2013), that, arguably, in some sense has to do with seasonality.³ In Roman languages the connection to temporal aspects is obvious as the corresponding concepts, that is, tiempo, tempo, temp, etc., also refer to the notion of time. Apparently, a conceptual link was made by German and Roman speaking people between the passage of time and agricultural practices linked to the shifting of the meteorological seasons. The practical aspects were later lost, though the association related to the expected regularity in the recurrence of certain atmospheric event remains, which suggests that their occurrences were perceived as automatic and predictable.

Considering that we today tend to take for granted these associations and connections raises the question of how atmospheric phenomena are understood among people in whose languages there are no concepts that correspond to the English ‘weather’. Still, of course, such speakers experience seasonal variations, as well as wind, sunshine, rain, etc.; they are aware of these different kinds of phenomena and have names for them. However, in contrast, they do not necessarily subsume these phenomena within a common conceptual category and they remain, accordingly, as distinct from one another as, for instance, apples are from tables. Thus, although our experiences of the world are similar––we all get wet in the rain, we get warm when the sun shines, and we see and hear thunder and lightning––our understandings of these phenomena differ. What then is ‘weather’ to people who do not have this general and abstract concept? Obviously, there is great variation, but to many people atmospheric phenomena are not, or not only, natural phenomena. Thus, if we uncritically employ words such as ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ we run an obvious risk of committing what the anthropologist Viveiros de Castro (2004) calls ‘equivocation’, that is, assuming that there is an equivalence between concepts that from our point of view refer to the same or, at least, similar objects or conditions while they actually refer to distinct realities.

To take but one example of how easy it may be to make such a category mistake with regard to English language use, let us consider how, for instance, Matsigenka people of the Peruvian Amazon, talk about what in English would be referred to as ‘rain’. Although there is no word that translates as the English ‘weather’ in the Matsigenka language, there is an extensive vocabulary encompassing the phenomena that a modernist would consider to refer to the various kinds of weather. However, they also make distinctions and associations that a modernist would not make, which means that the differences are not only about the translation of concepts from one language to another, but fundamentally about distinct systems of knowledge and, ultimately, of ontologies. Thus, for instance, to a modernist ‘rain’, even if it can vary in intensity, is liquid water in the form of drops that has condensed from atmospheric vapour and then falls to the ground. In contrast, Matsigenka people distinguish between three kinds of phenomena that in English would all be referred to as ‘rain’ since to anyone espousing a modernist perspective the difference between them is at the most only superficial. To Matsigenka people, however, there is ínkani, which from a modernist point of view would be “ordinary” rain, then there is parienkatagantsi, which Matsigenka distinguish from ínkani because at the same time as it occurs a rainbow can be seen in the sky, and, finally, there is itsini impókiri, or what in English would correspond to ‘drizzle’. Importantly, to Matsigenka people these three kinds of precipitation differ with regard to their origin. The first kind, ínkani, is principally associated with either the spirits known as inkanipiriegi, ‘rain-spirits’, or the “demons” called inkanierite, ‘those who make rain’.⁴ When produced by the spirits this rain may seem largely unremarkable in its ordinariness, and, generally, it is considered to be benign since it is necessary for the well-being of both people and plants, though in excessive or inadequate quantities ínkani may cause immediate material problems. Since “ordinary” rain is also associated with “demons” however it can also be seen as a portent of danger approaching that makes people reluctant to leave their houses when it rains. The kind of precipitation known as parienkatagantsi also translates as ‘epidemic’. For the native English speaker ‘rain’ and ‘epidemic’ are two distinct phenomena and, arguably, for native English speakers these references probably suggest a case of homonymy. To Matsigenka people this is, however, not the case since this kind of rain is produced by a “demon” called Ináenka who employs it to spread disease when she hunts. The drops of water she sends produce blisters that can be fatal, especially for small children. In contrast, itsini impókiri, which translates as ‘urine of the stars’, may be a nuisance, but it is neither benign nor malign. It is produced when the spirits inhabiting the upper worlds of the cosmic structure leave their houses to relieve themselves, and as their urine falls through the cosmic void it reaches Earth as a soft drizzle. Since the other-than-human agents who are essential for the occurrence of most atmospheric phenomena do not constitute a common category, the meteorological phenomena they produce are different and, consequently, the notion of ‘weather’ is as strange to Matsigenka people as notions of spirits and demons are to modernist scientists and rational materialists.

The Matsigenka lived-in-world

Given the social nature of the environment, it is necessary to explore the world in which Matsigenka people live. First and foremost, who are the Matsigenka? To this seemingly straightforward question there are two distinct answers that depend on the context and perspective of the responder. From an indigenous Matsigenka perspective, the ‘Matsigenka’ is the class of beings that were created by the demiurge Tasorintsi, which besides humans includes spirits, some animals, and some plants. The beings not created by Tasorintsi were created by the god Kentivákori and includes “demons,” White and Andean people, some animals, and some plants. All the various beings are intentional agents who, interacting, form a more-than-human community. Christian missionaries have interpreted the difference between the two creators in moral terms and in the Matsigenka language the name of Tasorintsi is used for the Christian God while the name of Kentivákori is used for the Devil. To Matsigenka people the difference between the two demiurges is however not a moral one, but focuses on different degrees of skillfulness where Tasorintsi is the more proficient. Thus, when the various beings inhabiting the Universe were created, the intention of Kentivákori was to copy Tasorintsi but he failed and produced only imperfect beings. Presently the two demiurges play no role on Earth as they both have withdrawn to other parts of the cosmos.

To people who adhere to a relationist perspective, life in a more-than-human community impedes them from detaching themselves from the environment as if it was a mere object of knowledge. To Matsigenka and other people, to know is to engage the world (see, e.g., Golinski, 2003; Orlove, 2003). Their understanding of what takes place in the environment is, accordingly, often a matter of how to handle the everyday within the limits of specific social and historical contexts. In the engagement with the environment, mind and matter are inextricably combined in practice. As social beings, humans interact and share their experiences and understandings of the world in which they live, and it is precisely in the shared relations with the environment that common perspectives are formed that allow for meaningful communication. ‘Weather’ is, accordingly, produced dialogically in that it emerges from peoples’ interaction with the environment of which they are part rather than being independent and found in either their minds or in the physical world (Ingold, 2007, 2010; Meløe, 1988). However, since people do not live in isolated bubbles, they also maintain relations with other societies that, accordingly, are included in the environment.

The alternative answer to the question of who the Matsigenka are is foreign to the indigenous perspective, and departs from an ethno-political view that has its origin in colonial times. According to this kind of classification, which is based on cultural and linguistic criteria, the Matsigenka constitute a group of swidden cultivators numbering approximately 19.000 people, who speak a language distinct from those of neighbouring peoples, living mainly along the Urubamba and Upper Madre de Dios Rivers and their tributaries in southeastern Peru, in the eastern foothills of the Andes. Formerly, they used to live in scattered settlements of four to five households often located 10 to 15 min walking distance apart, while many today live in nucleated villages.

Their society has been described as a “family level society” (Johnson, 2003), which means that close social bonds constitute the principal elements of a basically egalitarian social organization that lacks formal hierarchies and where personal autonomy is a principle of fundamental value. According to Matsigenka people, this is not limited to human sociality but characterizes the life of all beings within the common community. Thus, although the family is of crucial importance for social organization, children start to grow increasingly independent when they reach 7 or 8 years of age and, although their parents keep a vigilant eye upon them, they start to explore the world on their own or together with their age mates. This does not mean that there are no notions of social propriety that influence social interaction; these norms are however tacit and become clear only in the engagement with others. The freedom that results from the personal autonomy is, consequently, not unconditional but comes with responsibility and even if people cannot be ordered around, they learn from early on that to have a good and comfortable life, all have to do their share and co-operate to further a smooth conviviality. This kind of social ideal forms an ‘aesthetics of conviviality’ where understandings of sociality substitute rules laid down by a higher authority (Overing and Passes, 2000). In contrast to modernist individualism, the individualism encountered in many parts of the Amazon means that the responsibility for one’s own actions should be seen against the background of the shared responsibility for maintaining convivial conditions. This convivial individualism results in the need to downplay one’s own importance as it otherwise would imply that one saw oneself as superior in relation to others. Although all persons are autonomous, they are part of an intersubjectivity according to which they should strive for a smooth sharing of the social space to maintain a harmonious and comfortable life. The ideal of the aesthetics of conviviality means that if need arises people should be prepared to assist their close fellows, but also that they should respect others, which for a hunting people will create problems in the end, as seen below. In light of the stress on personal autonomy, this other-regarding perspective may seem paradoxical, but if all are alike then the personal autonomy requires that no-one impress their will on others. Generally, the strong sense of personal autonomy signifies not only that structures of authority are weak, if not non-existent, but that all kinds of authority, political as well as intellectual, are based on trust which can be withdrawn at any time.

The lack of permanent structural hierarchies characterizes the entire more-than-human community, and there is in this respect no difference between humans and other-than-humans. Moreover, the condition that humans are surrounded by other conscious, intentional, and equal beings is socially relevant and clearly manifested in the materiality of the world. Thus, for instance, the various meteorological phenomena that are experienced are indices of the presence of beings who usually are invisible to humans.

As most of the different meteorological phenomena belong to the everyday, a day without any atmospheric event is hard to imagine; either it rains or it does not rain, the sky may be clear or overcast, and even if no wind blows it is still a form of meteorological event. The experience of meteorological phenomena is, consequently, a part of existence for both indigenous Matsigenka and modernist Westerners alike. However, as observed in relation to rain the understanding of the phenomena as perceived by Western and Matsigenka people differ and in this sense they move in different worlds. Since atmospheric events are commonly social manifestations, it means that people need to relate to them in an entirely different manner than if these events are seen as phenomena obeying universal physical laws unrelated to the actions of any social agents. That atmospheric phenomena are produced by various actors does not mean that they all are intentional; at times they are unintentional as, for instance, when a rainbow is seen is the sky which is merely the hem of the tunic worn by the “demon” Yogye on his way to visit friends in the world above Earth (which from here is seen as the sky). Moreover, in the socially flat and egalitarian universe of Matsigenka people, the motives behind the meteorological events vary, and are not necessarily targeted at humans.

The kind of rain that Matsigenka people describe as parienkatagantsi and that is produced by the “demon” Ináenka, is, as noted above, not seen to be mere drops of water falling from the sky as the drops are also vehicles carrying disease. It should, thus, not come as a surprise that people fear the “demon.” However, and in contrast to many understandings within transcendental religions, this kind of precipitation is not seen as caused by a conflict with humans. When I first heard that the illness and death sent by Ináenka was something that had to be accepted, I took it as an expression of a defeatist attitude towards life and death. When I inquired further into the attitude it was, however, explained that the “demon” is a responsible person and, since all beings live the same kind of life, she only made sure that her family was fed. This understanding of parienkatagantsi is related to the understanding common among Indigenous Amazonians that all classes of beings perceive themselves as humans while other classes of beings are seen in other physical forms.⁵ From the perspective of Ináenka, humans are tapirs, that is, game animals, the meat of which is needed to nurture her family. Since the life and social expectations of “demons” do not differ from those of humans, the wellbeing of an intimate circle of family and friends is to be considered the responsibility of every member of the group in accordance with the importance given to other-regarding values. Thus, when the kind of precipitation defined as parienkatagantsi falls it means that Ináenka hunts to feed her family and in this she does what is expected from any responsible family member. Albeit the consequences for people are negative, the acting of the “demon” is morally commendable. This ambivalence follows from notions of other-regarding values that place a person’s intimate social sphere––consisting of close family and friends, both human and other-than-human––in his or her centre, with a gradually waning degree of responsibility beyond this circle of intimates.

Accordingly, irrespective of the consequences they bring (which may be horrendous), meteorological phenomena are not necessarily considered punishments for human failure to act properly. Evaluation of the morality of acts falls back on the agents’ intentions. This is clearly demonstrated with regard to the conception of winds. In contrast to ‘rain’, irrespective of causes and other differences, all winds, or air streams, are lexically identified as tampía. However, again we must ask ourselves what constitutes wind/air stream. In the Matsigenka understandings of the movement of air, an important distinction is made between movements that are produced intentionally and those that are unintentional. Most ‘winds’ are unintentional and produced when someone sets the air in motion without thinking about it when they, for instance, move and breathe in ways that are of no concern to anyone but themselves. Most of the time the movement of air is, accordingly, considered a simple and pedestrian phenomena even though a breeze may be produced by (invisible) spirits and “demons” passing by in the neighbourhood. The source of strong winds is, by contrast, associated with intentional acts to achieve some specific purpose, and the stronger the winds the stronger the powers harboured. Strong winds can be means employed by both spirits and “demons” who live on mountain tops to prevent visits from unwelcome company, comparable to protective fences since they are not directed against anyone in particular. Frequently, however, intentionally produced winds are directed deliberately towards specific targets with the aim to affect these subjects in some way.

Among Amazonian people winds are a common cosmological element where they constitute important agents or vehicles for transformative processes (e.g., Hill and Chaumeil, 2011; Wilbert, 1996). The haptic experience of winds is at times associated with shamans’ and sorcerers’ blowing, a focused and concentrated modality of exhalation. Despite this similarity of the physical experience, the intentions behind the production of air streams differ and, thus, in Matsigenka a distinction is made between ‘to blow’ (used of winds), tampiatagantsi, and ‘to blow’ (with the mouth), tasonkagantsi.⁶ In this context it is revealing that in narratives that talk about streams of air directed at particular persons it is the intentional act of blowing with the mouth that commonly is used to describe when air is set in motion. This is, for instance, the case in a story about a woman who acquires a taste for male flesh and turns into a cannibal. When she flees from her enraged family, she crosses a mountain where a strong stream of air referred to as tasonkagantsi hits her and turns her into a “demon.” The use of ‘to blow with the mouth’ here should not be seen as a metaphor since mountains can also be intentional agents. The woman’s transformation is, obviously, not a punishment for the deeds that angered her family⁷ (and that still disgust those who today listen to the narrative) since she continues not only to eat the meat of males, but according to my interlocutors, she also continues to live a good and socially agreeably life although in a new social setting. If anyone suffer the consequences of the woman’s cannibalism it is, accordingly, her family who is saddened by the loss of a member.

In this manner, meteorological phenomena and their consequences play a significant role in many narratives where they serve as indexes that say something of importance to the conventional audience, which, however, is not necessarily evident to someone who does not share the same references. Since the knowledge implicit in the narratives has emerged during a long time from people’s engagement with the local environment, it does not respond to the recent developments in the region that has affected life in a radical way. In the 1960s migrants from the surrounding highlands started to settle in the area, and since then they have come in increasing numbers and today they constitute the majority of the district’s population. At approximately the same time as the first migrants arrived, large deposits of natural gas were found in the neighbourhood. Since the start of the exploitation of the Camisea gas field at the turn of the millennium, the area has been increasingly drawn into the influence of the nation state through the extension and improvement of roads, the establishment of new schools, the introduction of television and the internet, and the spread of the market economy.⁸ Consequently, Western modernism has made profound inroads in Matsigenka peoples’ lives and together with climate change it has affected local life in many ways. Prominent among the effects is the process of deforestation following upon different cultivation practices. While Matsigenka people practice swidden cultivation with short periods of use and long periods of fallow primarily to satisfy subsistence needs, the migrants’ cultivations are permanent and mainly directed at the market. In effect this means that Matsigenka cultivation practices have little impact on living conditions of the various beings constituting the forest, whereas the migrants with their permanent cultivation not only fail to show the forest any respect they also ignore its rights since it to them is a mere object.

Regarding the effects of the changing climate, what has influenced living conditions the most is the belated arrival of the rainy season that affects the cultivation cycle. On my last visit to the field in December 2025, it had not yet started to rain, while formerly the rainy season could be expected to start at the end of September or beginning of October. During the past 4 to 5 years, it has started to rain increasingly late and responding to my inquiry as to why this was so, most people observed that it was a consequence of the changing climate and to illustrate its cause some pointed to the increasing traffic on the nearby road in an allusion to the combustion of fossil fuels. Today, they remarked, there could be 20 if not 30 cars passing by every hour during daytime. When I subsequently mentioned the drought that hit Brazil earlier the same year most did not see the relation. When I tried to explain the global circulation system one elderly man shrugged his shoulders saying that they were nothing but simple and poor people who did not understand such things. Since “demons” are responsible for much raining in the Matsigenka relationist ontology I asked about their role, and the man explained that because of the “development” in the area many of them had been scared away and moved further into the forest. Also, most spirits have left, he added, because they were horrified and disgusted by the life led not only by people from the surrounding highlands who brought “development” to the area but also by many of the young Matsigenka who were attracted by the promises of this “development.” Thus, departing from the relationist epistemology the changed environmental relations associated with the spread of “development” were seen together with the diminishing number of rain producing agents to be a cause the belated raining. Despite that the local foreign agents (that is, representatives of the national and provincial governments, religious missionaries, and migrants from the surrounding highlands) are dominant in various respects in relation to to Matsigenka people, when Matsigenka talk about climate change the influence of foreigners is, thus, interpreted from an indigenous ontological perspective, resulting in what Strathern (1991) describes as “partial connections.” Hence, “demons” and spirits are not abandoned as factors influencing meteorological conditions, but car traffic and fossil fuel combustion adapted to Matsigenka ontological precepts are added to the explanation. Accordingly, since to Matsigenka people knowledge is produced in engagement with an environment that now also includes foreign agents, new information is introduced to understand the present. Although the combination of cars, spirits and “demons” as factors explaining changing weather conditions would seem paradoxical or even contradictory from a modernist point of view, the Matsigenka acceptance constitutes what de la Cadena (2010, p. 207f) describes as a “both-and” logic in contrast to modernism’s “either-or” logic.

Meteorology from the other side

Considering the importance of global warming and its effects on life on Earth, Matsigenka cosmological understandings may seem of little significance in relation to the perspective of modernist science. Since Matsigenka cosmological views apparently cannot be of any use from a modernist perspective, their ideas about the world and meteorological phenomena are most likely perceived as at best entertaining but nothing to take seriously. However, although veracity is a goal to strive for within the sciences, knowledge’s practical utility is increasingly promoted and upheld as a cardinal value as it enables the solution of central and pressing problems.

What constitutes central problems varies, however, from time to time and from place to place. After the decline of the early Christian church’s dominance over intellectual life and education, during which time crucial problems were principally of an esoteric nature, a distinct measure of utility emerged as thinkers such as Francis Bacon (1561–1626), and René Descartes (1596–1650) appeared on the scene. Both were dissatisfied with what they saw as shortcomings of the intellectual tradition at the time, arguing for a more stable ground than that provided by the scholastic studies of the Bible, the early church fathers’ interpretation thereof, and ancient Greek philosophers. The new methods to understand the world gave rise to an ambition of objectification as observations obtained in controlled experiments were turned into general statements about Nature, which in turn gave way to the mathematization of science (Shapin, 1996; Toulmin, 1990). Of particular importance for the development of a scientific method based on mathematics were Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and Isaac Newton (1643–1727) who also demonstrated the practical applicability of scientific findings. With the help of mathematics, models were constructed defining values of significance to variables considered to be of consequence, which enabled the prediction of results. The method turned out to be successful and was crucial for the development of modernism and the disenchantment of the world. The world lost its inscrutability and was increasingly portrayed as a machine following identifiable laws of mechanics. This development led to the intervention of sponsors whose interests promoted rationalism and naturalism laying the foundation for the Enlightenment and the development of modernist society.

With the development of quantum physics at the beginning of last century the shortcomings of the Newtonian mechanics’ description of the world were revealed. Subsequently Kurt Gödel in 1931 presented his incompleteness theorems, showing that within a consistent formal logical system there will always be propositions that are impossible to prove, which, for instance, undermined Bertrand Russell’s and Alfred North Whitehead’s ambition to build mathematics on a secure logical foundation. Accepting these impediments, Niels Bohr concluded that physics does not say anything about the world, it only says something about what we can say about the world. Although this would do away with scientific realism and naturalism, modernist science tends to continue to assume that there are universal and eternal laws of Nature the formulation of which are independent of humans. This signifies that the scientist’s position as an external observer is maintained, ignoring that he or she is part of this world and also the one who formulates the laws. Within much of the social sciences, naturalism and realism have been relegated to history, while they remain strong in most of the natural sciences, within which it is commonly assumed that only the material and causal effects are significant in understanding the physical forces that form the world. Thus, the fact that the formulation of problems takes place within social and cultural contexts is disregarded (see, e.g., Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Strathern, 2000) ignoring that mathematical models talk about likelihoods rather than certainties (Bold, 2019, p. 3).

To illustrate how the world still can be presented (without saying anything about the purpose of the formula itself), the modernist scientific approach means, for instance, that an abstract notion such as climate can be represented in the following manner:

y ( t 0 + kΔt ) = ∑ i = t 0 + kΔt − N + 1 t 0 + kΔt w ( i ) x ( i )

Formula to calculate climate normals (Arguez and Vose, 2011, p. 700).⁹

For someone like me who is not well versed in this kind of mathematical language the formula is largely incomprehensible. However, what to me is obstruse language that I do not comprehend I nonetheless recognize to be advocated by erudite institutions, and as the formula is elaborated by recognized experts, I cannot see why not to accept its validity. Language is commonly understood to mirror the world, that is, the meaning of a word is its reference to particular objects. For laypersons––and perhaps also for some scientists––the signs in a formula such as the one above may be interpreted in the same way, that is, as corresponding to actual phenomena whereby the formula becomes an image of an aspect of the world. Obviously, this is not the case; if we look at the meanings given the signs (see footnote 10), they are all arbitrary and, assumedly, chosen because they confirm how conditions are perceived. However, following Heidegger, what is perceived is subsequently conceived and described according to social conventions formed in accordance with ontological presumptions.

Although the ambition by those who develop technical formulas and models may be to disenchant the world, outside academic circles the end result tends to be a re-enchantment where laypersons’ acceptance depends on faith in the knowledge of the authors, not on their own understanding. However, the general public’s belief in science’s competence and physical conception of the world is facilitated not only by science’s claim to speak in the name of the real but also in the way this perceived reality organises people’s everyday practices (de Certau, 1984: 185). Knowledge is, consequently, a manifestation of how the world is conceived, and, thus, being more than understanding and practical skill it is, following Foucault (1980), a way to form the world. In large parts of the world people turn to weather reports for information in order to plan the day, and, to decide what to wear and whether or not to bring an umbrella. These reports are frequently reliable but locally they may also be grossly misleading. When meteorologists fail, people grumble but the next morning they will nonetheless listen to the weather forecast to inform themselves about what kind of weather to expect. As it is well known that prognostication can be hard since weather is capricious, there is no cause for laymen to distrust science, which still holds a central position within modernist ontology forming the world in which people live.

Despite the generally accepted image of the physical world strictly conforming to the laws of Nature, there are social and cultural differences between scientists that reflect on both approaches and results. Thus, it has been observed that even though the ambition of science is to study and describe “real reality,” the interpretation of data can be affected by, for instance, gender (Haraway, 1991), ethnicity (Smith, 1999), or cultural background (Tsing, 2005). The resulting perspectival differences may become contentious and, for instance, although the great majority of scientists accept climate change as a real process there are those who deny it (see, e.g., Happer, 2014), and who may come to be disproportionally influential as they are backed by political and economic interests outside of science. Lived-in-worlds are consequently of relevance in examining events in the environment as well as scientific explanations and contributions. This kind of reasoning takes us into the world of the social sciences and humanities where the mathematization has not been embraced with the same enthusiasm, and where it has been argued that such reliance has led to a process of disenchantment as it reduces the world to objects, resources, and utilities, and no longer is a lived whole (see, e.g., Heidegger, 1977 [1954] and Weber, 1930 [1920]).

Incommensurability and ethics

Although Indigenous people and modernist scientists can be said to live in distinct worlds, they are still concerned and affected by the same conditions and processes in the environment. Within the area inhabited by Matsigenka people there is, for instance, a region that for a long time has been little used since it is difficult terrain and off the main track. According to a group of ornithologists from the USA, no direct anthropogenic environmental effects can be discerned in this zone. To the ornithologists this has attracted their interest as they see this as an opportunity to study birdlife in a “state of nature,” and they have followed developments in the local birdlife during several decades (see Freeman et al., 2018). The changes these ornithologists note, they understand as caused by the process of global warming and they calculate the rise in the mean annual temperature during the last 30 years to amount to 0.42^o C. To Matsigenka people an increase in the mean temperature of less than half a centigrade over 30 years is not noted—and I believe that no-one can go back in their memory to remember the mean annual temperature that long ago. The ornithologists’ observation, thus, relies on the use of instruments and mathematical models, in this case thermometers and the notion of mean values, to document certain vectors considered crucial. The subsequent calculations produce a result that is interpreted according to a model of prognostication developed within a given ontological domain where meteorological phenomena are produced within a global system. There is, consequently, not much need of any practical experience of local conditions to come to this conclusion.

In contrast, when talking to some elderly Matsigenka men about this case it was clear that to them that the numbers and values of importance to the ornithologists were of little interest for understanding local changes. While the ornithologists only focused on temperature changes, my interlocutors associated the changes not only with increased temperatures but also with the drought that presently is experienced in the area (see above). To these men cause and effect were complex and included, for instance, the limited presence of humans in the area following from its inaccessibility and the associated distance from settled areas. The local lack of people means that fewer “demons” bringing rain bother to go there, which, in turn, results in the immediately observable local conditions for both vegetation and wildlife. The notion of a “state of nature” that excludes human presence is radically opposed to the non-dualistic world view of Matsigenka people who do not ascribe an exclusive position to humanity in relation to the environment. To the contrary, the decisive factor is the interrelationship that constitutes the environment and absence is also a form of relation. Theirs is an inclusive perspective that signifies that the observer cannot be external to the phenomena examined. The changes currently experienced (that is, increased temperatures, and less and belated rains) are, consequently, not ascribed to global processes produced according to physical laws but as events caused by the interaction of various local actors in which the absence of humans is an anthropogenic factor from their relationist perspective. Although Matsigenka people today are aware of and take seriously reports concerning the processes of global warming, in their daily practices this information has less impact than more immediate requirements of existence. Rather than increasing temperatures, people worry about the increasing deforestation, not because it is an important carbon sink contributing to the process of global warming, but because of its effect on the beings constituting the forest, that is, vegetation and wildlife. To calculate the causes no abstract mathematical models are needed as the effects obviously result from social interactions where agents are identifiable and made accountable.

To many Matsigenka, the climate change discourse is confusing, not only because the language can be hard to penetrate, but also because of its association with modernism and developmentalism. In the discourse that reaches them, modernist science stands out as a reliable and trustworthy source meaning that the warnings should be taken seriously. At the same time, they realize that the consumerism and exploitation of natural resources promoted by modernist developmentalism cause the effects that produce the changes. In the case described above, where the increased number of cars passing through the community was identified as a factor behind the changes in weather, the contradiction was glaring, making the alleged modernist superiority hard to comprehend. To local people, the contradiction between the two positions was made no less confusing by the fact that it was obvious and logical to them that the departure of the spirits and “demons” followed the increased traffic caused by the exploitation of natural resources and leading to the process of deforestation.¹⁰

Since conditions change, an open attitude towards the world is required to socially relational perspectives, which means that the conceptualization of the world is not fixed and, as life develops, the meanings that a person gives to ideas and notions as well as to material objects are likely to vary and change over time. Primarily through the schools and social media, the modernist version is presently creating an impact on young people within the Matsigenka community. In lifeworlds dominated by modernism, animist understandings of events and conditions in the environment go against taken-for-granted truths and young people are, thus, told that the knowledge of elders is of no utility. However, since elderly people’s understandings emerge from their engagement with the local environment, young people still rely on such practical knowledge and skills taught to them by their parents, which, contrary to what they learn at school and in media, turns out to be of great value. Among young people nurturing an ambition of being modern, confusion is apparent since they learn that what apparently serve to produce a livelihood is wrong and founded upon superstition (Rosengren, 2022).

Two distinct ontological systems confront one another here, one in which dynamic social relations are the dominant force, and the other based on the assumption that mechanical and universal laws govern the world. Regarding both climate change discourse and science, the modernist system is obviously dominant. Based on decontextualization from local conditions and relations, modernists’ disregard for non-modernist understandings allow them with uncanny ease to reduce diversity of understandings not only to a difference of epistemology but also to simplistic cultural constructions, and unfounded assumptions resulting from lack of proper knowledge (e.g., Blaser, 2013; Burman, 2022; de Santos, 2014). Despite the fact that most scientists are humble and readily accept that there may be alternative approaches to their perceptions of the world’s constitution, a line is drawn between what is considered ‘proper knowledge’ based on facts, and knowledge based on beliefs, magic, and opinions. From the hegemonic position of the epistemological foundations of science in relation to “knowledge otherwise” follows a colonialization of reality that reinforces and legitimizes the ontological position of modernism (Burman, 2017; Quijano, 2007; Rosengren, 2018). Thus, notwithstanding the global aspirations of modernist science, Walter Mignolo (1997) underscores the local origin of modernism in Western Europe that subsequently spread throughout large parts of the world through various colonial relations. Consequently, mainstream science tends to silence and disarticulate Indigenous knowledge although it is to the disadvantage of environmental management (Taddei, 2022).

Even if the ontological asymmetry produced by colonial dominance does not hinder the realization that Indigenous people’s knowledge of local resources and conditions may contain valuable insights that can contribute to knowledge of the “real” world, it is molded to fit modernist requirements.¹¹ Accordingly, Agrawal (2002) demonstrates how snippets of Indigenous knowledge are transformed in an epistemic process he calls “scientisation” whereby local knowledge is stripped of its original character first by being separated from its intellectual context, then validated within the context of modernist science, finally to take its place within the scientific toolbox of general (modernist) knowledge.

When discussing ethics and science, stress is commonly laid on duty to society and general usefulness. In relation to the interlocutors, the focus is on the necessity of informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, and the avoidance of discrimination and exploitation, and in relation to the scientists concerned importance is given to their integrity and competence, and the importance of avoiding conflict (Christen et al., 2014). All of this is, of course, relevant, but it only refers to relations internal to the socio-scientific context, which logically follows from the conviction of the assumed superiority of one’s own perspective. The dominance of modernism has resulted in politically asymmetrical inter-ontological relations that allows for considering adherents of other perspectives as ignorant and misguided. This uncritical self-assertion of modernism is seen within ever-widening circles of relationships where power and dominance provide a self-imposed interpretive privilege (Gieryn, 1999; Glass, 1965; Hacking, 2002; Nader, 1996). In this context, it can be observed that modernism’s influence on other-than-modernist people may lead to the dissolution of moral standards that reinforce processes of climate change.

Even if naming this era ‘the Anthropocene’ indicates that humans wield a decisive influence upon the atmospheric processes experienced at the present, physical conditions still get most attention despite the warnings about the disastrous effects that will affect the world within the near future. Reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and developing alternative technologies to increase energy production helps, but this is treating symptoms rather than addressing the underlying causes. With the development of quantum physics, it became evident within science itself that truth is provisional, and many have pointed out that it is necessary to acknowledge other ontologies, or “knowledge otherwise” (Escobar, 2007, see also, e.g., Blaser, 2013; Burman, 2022; de la Cadena, 2010). The question is whether there is something that modernist scientists can learn about climate change from animism, that is, socially relationist ontologies. Here is not the place to develop this issue, others have been able to develop this in a more satisfactory way than can be done here (see, e.g., Agrawal, 2002; Killick, 2015; Taddei, 2017, 2022). However, a general lesson is that climate change cannot be reduced to physical problems. The process of changing climate conditions is, accordingly, no problem unless there is someone who experiences it as such. Yet, although most people perceive the changes as undeniable, not everyone shares the opinion and there are those who say that talk of a changed climate is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” (Donald Trump in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in 2025). Consequently, when it is uncritically taken for granted that modernist science deals with “real reality,” it is possible to ignore logical gaps and contradictions such as, for instance, the incompleteness and, thus, limited provability of formal logics upon which much of today’s digital computation is based (see, e.g., Casti and DePauli, 2000; Hofstadter, 1980; see also Latour, 1993), that would be glaring if other ontological perspectives were considered. Climate change is, thus, not only a physical issue but perhaps above all a social and ontological one, and, thus, it is also an ethical problem.

This does not mean that all explanations are equally valid. If modernist knowledge of the world is not absolute, not even cumulative, but a “cultural system” (Gieryn, 1999), we can engage with the philosopher Goodman (1978, p. 18) who says that an idea cannot be disregarded as false as long as it does not offend any unyielding beliefs and its own precepts and, he concludes, “[t]ruth, far from being a solemn and severe master, is a docile and obedient servant.” Thus, it should be imperative to disallow the notions of ‘truth’ and ‘the correct’ to become coercive and serve as means to promote and legitimise positions colonizing other people’s worlds by demoting other understandings.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Rosalyn Bold, University College London, United Kingdom

Reviewed by: Roberto Greco, State University of Campinas, Brazil

Antonio Girón, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Footnotes

To avoid imposing foreign meanings on local notions I use ‘meteorological phenomena’ rather than ‘weather’ because it is in conformance with the etymologically origin which derives from the Greek ‘knowledge of things that happen in the air’. When I use ‘weather’ between single quotation marks it is to be understood as seen from a modernist English usage.

The same root is found in, for instance, the German ‘Wetter,’ the Swedish ‘väder,’ the Norwegian ‘vær,’ the Icelandic ‘veður,’ etc.

The calendrical year in its various appearances was, arguably, developed as there was a need for measuring longer periods of time. In contrast, the observance of seasonal variations is more practical than chronological time measuring, and, commonly, it is not primarily used as a measure of time’s passing, but as a marker of what takes place in the environment: for instance, ‘spring’ and ‘fall’ refer to ‘the spring of leaves’ and ‘fall of leaves’. Accordingly, any assumptions of cyclicity as part of local non-modernist terms corresponding to seasons may be misleading, as concerning determinate points in time, rather than practical schedules in which the appropriate conditions for certain practices are indicated.

I am not happy with the designation ‘demon’ for this category of beings since it brings to mind inherently evil agents belonging to forces of darkness that fight against the good, a Manichean notion that has influenced the Western and Christian tradition. However, for lack of a better alternative I write “demon” (within quotation marks) in the following.

This understanding of being and identity is called ‘perspectivism,’ a term coined by the Viveiros de Castro (1998). Since all beings have the same “soul” they see themselves in the same way, that is, as humans. What distinguishes the beings is their bodies, that is, their physical shape, the perception of which depends on the point of view of the seeing subject. Thus, for instance, to Matsigenka people the eagles that they see soaring in the sky see themselves as humans while they see the humans as tapirs, and when they go hunting, they bring their dogs, which to humans appear as bees, etc. The Amazonian perspectivism, thus, dissolves the nature/culture dichotomy central to modernist ontology replacing it with a world where there are no absolute boundaries between what is natural and what is cultural, which gives a somewhat different meaning to Protagoras’ statement that man is the measure of all things.

This should not be confused with ‘to breathe’ which is nienkatagantsi.

Given the emphasis on personal autonomy and egality, only a parent can allow her- or himself to openly criticize a person, which, however, is a sign of the abhorrence for such heinous deeds that endanger the social set up.

The Camisea gas field is one of the largest in South America, it is located in the Lower Urubamba Valley and much of the gas extraction operations take place within a Reserve for Indigenous peoples many of whom live in voluntary isolation.

Following the authors, y stands for the climate normal, t₀ is a reference year, k is an integer, ∆t is the update frequency, N is the number of years averaged, w is a weighing function, and x is the observed annual time series. For the standard WMO climate normal, N = 30, w is set to a constant value of 1/30, ∆t is a multiple of 10 years (Arguez and Vose, 2011, p. 700).

I once asked why people did not bother about spirits and “demons” when they were in town and I was told that just as jaguars and monkeys live in the forest, so too do spirits and demons.

Commercial companies have benefited from Indigenous knowledge to the extent that within the framework of the UN it has been affirmed that Indigenous peoples have “the right to maintain, control, protect, and develop their intellectual property” (UNDRIP, 2007, Art. 31).