Michael L Cepek
Biographic Data
| ID | 468630 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael L Cepek |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael L |
| FAMILY NAME | Cepek |
| SIGNATURE | CEPEK M L |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at San Antonio |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8635-8561 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 204 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Engaging, Standing, and Stepping: Evaluating Anthropological Activism on an Amazonian Petro-Frontier
Anthropologists and activists portray the lives and lands of Ecuador’s Indigenous Cofán people as a case study of the damage caused by petroleum extraction. Yet during my fieldwork on the issue, I began to question the nature of the Cofán-oil encounter when the community in which I worked decided to allow oil companies onto their land. In this article, I examine my own involvements with Cofán oil politics in dialogue with Stuart Kirsch’s concept …
Feeding and Owning in Amazonia
Valueless value: The question of production in Cofán shamanism
In this essay, I analyze the production of value in the shamanic complex of the indigenous Cofán people of eastern Ecuador. While acknowledging the ethical nature of human existence and the generative power of human action, I describe the shaman as a paradoxical figure with regard to the efforts that produce him and the criteria that orient his actions. The shaman occupies a central social position, but he profits from little Cofán labor and rece…
Theory, ethnography, and ethics in an indigenous phenomenology of oil
Violence from beyond
Comment on Turner, Terence. 2017. "Beauty and the beast: The fearful symmetry of the jaguar and other natural beings in Kayapo ritual and myth." Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (2): 51-70
There might be blood: Oil, humility, and the cosmopolitics of a Cofán petro-being
A central directive of recent writings on cosmopolitics and ontology is that critically minded anthropologists should "humble" themselves and view their subjects' statements as propositions that disclose multiple real worlds. An exploration of Cofán people's uncertainty regarding the idea that oil is the blood of a sacred mythological being-a position that romanticizing Westerners repeatedly attribute to them-calls into question the implications …
Ungrateful predators: Capture and the creation of Cofán violence
In this article, I explore the history, logic, and practice of capture among the Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador. Rather than acting as the subjects of capture, Cofán people have primarily been its objects. Centuries of pre-Conquest, colonial, and postcolonial violence have exposed Cofán communities to repeated seizures by indigenous and non-indigenous aggressors. Although capture by enemy others is a feared prospect that typically brings disas…
Strange powers: Conservation, science, and transparency in an indigenous political project (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)
The Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador are important players within global movements for indigenous rights and biodiversity conservation. Scholars, non‐governmental organizations, and donor agencies laud their efforts to protect more than 430,000 hectares of forestland from an expanding colonization front, the transnational petroleum industry, and the spillover of violence from the Colombian civil war and drug trade. In this article, I examine how…
The Loss of Oil: Constituting Disaster in Amazonian Ecuador
Existen pocos objetos que provocan tanta discusión de finales radicales que el petróleo, la materia prima industrial más importante del mundo. En este artículo, examino la pérdida asociada con el petróleo a través de una exploración de la medida en la que su extracción llega a ser "desastrosa" para las vidas y las tierras de los pueblos que habitan las regiones productoras de petróleo. En Ecuador, país miembro de la OPEP, el símbolo más visible d…
Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life - by Santos-Granero, Fernando
Foucault in the forest: Questioning environmentality in Amazonia
In this article, I analyze the encounter between the Field Museum of Natural History and Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to question the concept of "environmentality": the idea that environmentalist programs and movements operate as forms of governmentality in Michel Foucault's sense. I argue that, although the Field Museum's community conservation projects constitute a regulatory rationale and technique, they do not transform Cofán subjectivity…
Can nature be governed
Luis A. Vivanco, Green encounters: Shaping and contesting environmentalism in rural Costa Rica. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007, pp. 240, ISBN 1845455045.James G. Carrier and Paige West, eds., Virtualism, governance and practice: Vision and execution in environmental conservation. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009, pp. 196, ISBN 184545619X
A New Journal for Contemporary Environmental Challenges
Social scientists have been writing about the relationships between people and their surroundings for as long as there has been social scientific inquiry.Fields such as anthropology, economics, history, human geography, law, political science, psychology, and sociology all have long and rich histories of contributing to and pioneering socio-environmental analysis.However, the past 20 years have seen a proliferation of scholarship in the social sc…
The Myth of the Gringo Chief: Amazonian Messiahs and the Power of Immediacy
In this article, I investigate the sociocultural grounding and sociopolitical position of Randy Borman, the "gringo chief" of the indigenous Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador. Born to North American missionary-linguists, Borman grew up in Cofán communities, attended school in urban Ecuador and the United States, and developed into the most important Cofán activist on the global stage. I consider him alongside other ethnically ambiguous leaders of…
Essential Commitments: Identity and the Politics of Cofán Conservation
En este artículo, exploro las implicaciones de los discursos ambientalistas indígenas a partir de una investigaciòn sobre el papel del ambientalismo en la vida cotidiana y proyectos políticos del pueblo Cofán de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana. En mi análisis de los discursos y prácticas Cofánes, me pregunto sobre el valor de una perspectiva "anti-esencialista", en la retórica ambientalista de los pueblos indígenas como producto instrumental de la políti…
Bold jaguars and unsuspecting monkeys: The value of fearlessness in Cofán politics
In their encounters with a globalizing political landscape, indigenous peoples enact and transform long-standing social relations. This article explores the struggle of Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to relate their socio-existential values to the challenges of political mobilization. I argue that distinct conceptions of 'fearlessness' structure the complex relationship between the majority of Cofán people and those morally ambivalent individua…
I Foresee My Life: The Ritual Performance of Autobiography in an Amazonian Community. Suzanne Oakdale
Foucault in the forest: Questioning environmentality in Amazonia
In this article, I analyze the encounter between the Field Museum of Natural History and Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to question the concept of "environmentality": the idea that environmentalist programs and movements operate as forms of governmentality in Michel Foucault's sense. I argue that, although the Field Museum's community conservation projects constitute a regulatory rationale and technique, they do not transform Cofán subjectivity…
There might be blood: Oil, humility, and the cosmopolitics of a Cofán petro-being
A central directive of recent writings on cosmopolitics and ontology is that critically minded anthropologists should "humble" themselves and view their subjects' statements as propositions that disclose multiple real worlds. An exploration of Cofán people's uncertainty regarding the idea that oil is the blood of a sacred mythological being-a position that romanticizing Westerners repeatedly attribute to them-calls into question the implications …
Essential Commitments: Identity and the Politics of Cofán Conservation
En este artículo, exploro las implicaciones de los discursos ambientalistas indígenas a partir de una investigaciòn sobre el papel del ambientalismo en la vida cotidiana y proyectos políticos del pueblo Cofán de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana. En mi análisis de los discursos y prácticas Cofánes, me pregunto sobre el valor de una perspectiva "anti-esencialista", en la retórica ambientalista de los pueblos indígenas como producto instrumental de la políti…
The Loss of Oil: Constituting Disaster in Amazonian Ecuador
Existen pocos objetos que provocan tanta discusión de finales radicales que el petróleo, la materia prima industrial más importante del mundo. En este artículo, examino la pérdida asociada con el petróleo a través de una exploración de la medida en la que su extracción llega a ser "desastrosa" para las vidas y las tierras de los pueblos que habitan las regiones productoras de petróleo. En Ecuador, país miembro de la OPEP, el símbolo más visible d…
Bold jaguars and unsuspecting monkeys: The value of fearlessness in Cofán politics
In their encounters with a globalizing political landscape, indigenous peoples enact and transform long-standing social relations. This article explores the struggle of Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to relate their socio-existential values to the challenges of political mobilization. I argue that distinct conceptions of 'fearlessness' structure the complex relationship between the majority of Cofán people and those morally ambivalent individua…
Ungrateful predators: Capture and the creation of Cofán violence
In this article, I explore the history, logic, and practice of capture among the Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador. Rather than acting as the subjects of capture, Cofán people have primarily been its objects. Centuries of pre-Conquest, colonial, and postcolonial violence have exposed Cofán communities to repeated seizures by indigenous and non-indigenous aggressors. Although capture by enemy others is a feared prospect that typically brings disas…
Engaging, Standing, and Stepping: Evaluating Anthropological Activism on an Amazonian Petro-Frontier
Anthropologists and activists portray the lives and lands of Ecuador’s Indigenous Cofán people as a case study of the damage caused by petroleum extraction. Yet during my fieldwork on the issue, I began to question the nature of the Cofán-oil encounter when the community in which I worked decided to allow oil companies onto their land. In this article, I examine my own involvements with Cofán oil politics in dialogue with Stuart Kirsch’s concept …
Can nature be governed
Luis A. Vivanco, Green encounters: Shaping and contesting environmentalism in rural Costa Rica. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007, pp. 240, ISBN 1845455045.James G. Carrier and Paige West, eds., Virtualism, governance and practice: Vision and execution in environmental conservation. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009, pp. 196, ISBN 184545619X
Valueless value: The question of production in Cofán shamanism
In this essay, I analyze the production of value in the shamanic complex of the indigenous Cofán people of eastern Ecuador. While acknowledging the ethical nature of human existence and the generative power of human action, I describe the shaman as a paradoxical figure with regard to the efforts that produce him and the criteria that orient his actions. The shaman occupies a central social position, but he profits from little Cofán labor and rece…
Essential Commitments: Identity and the Politics of Cofán Conservation
En este artículo, exploro las implicaciones de los discursos ambientalistas indígenas a partir de una investigaciòn sobre el papel del ambientalismo en la vida cotidiana y proyectos políticos del pueblo Cofán de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana. En mi análisis de los discursos y prácticas Cofánes, me pregunto sobre el valor de una perspectiva "anti-esencialista", en la retórica ambientalista de los pueblos indígenas como producto instrumental de la políti…
Bold jaguars and unsuspecting monkeys: The value of fearlessness in Cofán politics
In their encounters with a globalizing political landscape, indigenous peoples enact and transform long-standing social relations. This article explores the struggle of Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to relate their socio-existential values to the challenges of political mobilization. I argue that distinct conceptions of 'fearlessness' structure the complex relationship between the majority of Cofán people and those morally ambivalent individua…
I Foresee My Life: The Ritual Performance of Autobiography in an Amazonian Community. Suzanne Oakdale
The Myth of the Gringo Chief: Amazonian Messiahs and the Power of Immediacy
In this article, I investigate the sociocultural grounding and sociopolitical position of Randy Borman, the "gringo chief" of the indigenous Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador. Born to North American missionary-linguists, Borman grew up in Cofán communities, attended school in urban Ecuador and the United States, and developed into the most important Cofán activist on the global stage. I consider him alongside other ethnically ambiguous leaders of…
Can nature be governed
Luis A. Vivanco, Green encounters: Shaping and contesting environmentalism in rural Costa Rica. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007, pp. 240, ISBN 1845455045.James G. Carrier and Paige West, eds., Virtualism, governance and practice: Vision and execution in environmental conservation. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009, pp. 196, ISBN 184545619X
A New Journal for Contemporary Environmental Challenges
Social scientists have been writing about the relationships between people and their surroundings for as long as there has been social scientific inquiry.Fields such as anthropology, economics, history, human geography, law, political science, psychology, and sociology all have long and rich histories of contributing to and pioneering socio-environmental analysis.However, the past 20 years have seen a proliferation of scholarship in the social sc…
Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life - by Santos-Granero, Fernando
Foucault in the forest: Questioning environmentality in Amazonia
In this article, I analyze the encounter between the Field Museum of Natural History and Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to question the concept of "environmentality": the idea that environmentalist programs and movements operate as forms of governmentality in Michel Foucault's sense. I argue that, although the Field Museum's community conservation projects constitute a regulatory rationale and technique, they do not transform Cofán subjectivity…
Strange powers: Conservation, science, and transparency in an indigenous political project (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)
The Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador are important players within global movements for indigenous rights and biodiversity conservation. Scholars, non‐governmental organizations, and donor agencies laud their efforts to protect more than 430,000 hectares of forestland from an expanding colonization front, the transnational petroleum industry, and the spillover of violence from the Colombian civil war and drug trade. In this article, I examine how…
The Loss of Oil: Constituting Disaster in Amazonian Ecuador
Existen pocos objetos que provocan tanta discusión de finales radicales que el petróleo, la materia prima industrial más importante del mundo. En este artículo, examino la pérdida asociada con el petróleo a través de una exploración de la medida en la que su extracción llega a ser "desastrosa" para las vidas y las tierras de los pueblos que habitan las regiones productoras de petróleo. En Ecuador, país miembro de la OPEP, el símbolo más visible d…
Ungrateful predators: Capture and the creation of Cofán violence
In this article, I explore the history, logic, and practice of capture among the Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador. Rather than acting as the subjects of capture, Cofán people have primarily been its objects. Centuries of pre-Conquest, colonial, and postcolonial violence have exposed Cofán communities to repeated seizures by indigenous and non-indigenous aggressors. Although capture by enemy others is a feared prospect that typically brings disas…
There might be blood: Oil, humility, and the cosmopolitics of a Cofán petro-being
A central directive of recent writings on cosmopolitics and ontology is that critically minded anthropologists should "humble" themselves and view their subjects' statements as propositions that disclose multiple real worlds. An exploration of Cofán people's uncertainty regarding the idea that oil is the blood of a sacred mythological being-a position that romanticizing Westerners repeatedly attribute to them-calls into question the implications …
Violence from beyond
Comment on Turner, Terence. 2017. "Beauty and the beast: The fearful symmetry of the jaguar and other natural beings in Kayapo ritual and myth." Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (2): 51-70
Valueless value: The question of production in Cofán shamanism
In this essay, I analyze the production of value in the shamanic complex of the indigenous Cofán people of eastern Ecuador. While acknowledging the ethical nature of human existence and the generative power of human action, I describe the shaman as a paradoxical figure with regard to the efforts that produce him and the criteria that orient his actions. The shaman occupies a central social position, but he profits from little Cofán labor and rece…
Theory, ethnography, and ethics in an indigenous phenomenology of oil
Engaging, Standing, and Stepping: Evaluating Anthropological Activism on an Amazonian Petro-Frontier
Anthropologists and activists portray the lives and lands of Ecuador’s Indigenous Cofán people as a case study of the damage caused by petroleum extraction. Yet during my fieldwork on the issue, I began to question the nature of the Cofán-oil encounter when the community in which I worked decided to allow oil companies onto their land. In this article, I examine my own involvements with Cofán oil politics in dialogue with Stuart Kirsch’s concept …
Feeding and Owning in Amazonia
Sociology (10 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (9 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Indigenous (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Amazon rainforest (5 works) · Anthropology (5 works)