Spirits in the Wood: A Relational Socio-Ecology of the Brazilian “Wilds”

Abstract

This article proposes theoretical, methodological and empirical innovations which can better express the richness of non-secular worldviews and their relationship to global environmental issues. A relational approach to the Brazilian “wilds” is used to dialogue with animist and spiritually bifurcated worldviews and perhaps even with non-human beings in a way that promotes socially-inclusive environmental conservation. This is of the utmost importance at a time when the naïve naturalism of biocentric conservation of the so-called (re)wilds is not mitigating global carbon emissions and climate change in any significant way. In the search for a more spiritual kind of conservation, two of Latour’s fourteen modes of existence in a reformed scientific worldview — religion [REL] and metamorphosis [MET] — are related to environmental conservation. Four ideal types of worldview are presented and shown to be hybridized in three different biomes of Brazil. Hybridized animist-spiritually bifurcated worldviews are shown to predominate in preserved wooded regions of the country and are constructively engaged by relational socio-ecological conservation rather than ignored by urban-biased biocentric national park mentalities.