Cosmo-Logics in Contemporary Lowland South America

Abstract

This work is an attempt to introduce a comparison of the deep logics articulating cosmovisions and cosmologies among indigenous groups in the Lowlands of South America. We are particularly interested in describing the current state and recent past of these knowledge systems, but also connecting them to the distant past. We seek to leave aside an anecdotic comparative approach focused on isolated elements, and it is not our intention to build conjectural narratives of the links among these ways of conceiving the world. Instead, we wish to focus on analysing the common underlying logics that account for the organising principles of these cosmovisions and cosmologies, related to their relational and political nature. International works very often identify the South American Lowlands with Amazonia and here we would like to correct this and include examples from Patagonia on an equal footing with those from Chaco.