Praxis Arqueológica

Old and Novel Roads in a New Era: Archaeology of the Anthropocene in the South

Mariana Mondini — 2023-07-27

In this essay we seek to contribute to current debates on the Anthropocene, setting our reflections in a dialogue with the approaches proposed by the three papers selected by the Editorial Committee. We review these articles taking into account how they are related to the demarcation perspective, predominant in geology, and from which archeology cannot be absent. We then focus on the temporal and spatial scales involved, the theoretical and epistemological approaches proposed, and the role that archeology may play in the definition of a concept that is intended to be transdisciplinary. Finally, we consider that it is necessary to build more robust and fluid bridges between the different approaches that study the Anthropocene, including the social and historical sciences, in a transdisciplinary way. Likewise, it is necessary to build bridges between scientific perspectives and critical philosophical and political positions elaborated from and situated in the Global South. Archaeology, laying at the intersection of social, natural and historical sciences, should have a central role in this process.

Anthropocene: The Deconstruction of the Concept

Luis Cornejo B. — 2023-04-18

We present a critical essay on some current positions on the scope of the Anthropocene concept developed two decades ago. Two recent articles are discussed that coincide in ignoring the original definition, admitting that it is possible to syndicate different agents at different times as part of the Anthropocene, opening the possibility that any human evidence can be part of this process. According to our argument, this makes irrelevant the idea of the existence of an Anthropocene in the environmental history of the earth and its implications for the present and the future.

Animitas as Material Manifestation of Popular Religiosity: Study of Cenotaphs in Santiago

Richard Armijo — 2023-11-24

This work consists of the study of animitas, which are built in the urban spaces of the city of Santiago, as a material manifestation of Latin American popular religiosity. For this purpose, two cases that shocked public opinion will be taken: the animitas of the victims Marina Silva and Hans Pozo. The study of this construction aims to know and to describe a material shape of popular religion that is experienced daily in urban spaces of Santiago, emphasizing its materiality and its ritual practices. Through the ethnoarchaeology, it is analyzed a spiritual experience outside the normative and institutionalized cult and its mixture with secular and modern elements, understanding that popular religiosity is a space that is based on the syncretism of religious beliefs and experiences that give world’s meaning to individual. The animita is a cenotaph that is born of human agency by a death in public space, but also would have the capacity to act in the world, because it has a powerful symbolic effectiveness, being a mediator between the invisible and the visible, it would transform the reality of those who pray.