“Making family” in a relational world: Cosmopraxis among Aymara families in Bolivia and Chile by Koen De Munter (Alberto Hurtado University)

 

Koen de Munter (1960) studied Roman Philology (Ma) and Comparative Science of Cultures (Ma, PhD) at UGent. As an anthropologist he has  been working since the nineties in the Andean region, mostly in the Bolivian Altiplano, with Aymara families who commute between the indigenous city of El Alto and their home communities.  Academically he has been employed in different universities in Chile, since 2012 he holds an appointment at the Department of Anthropology at  Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Santiago de Chile).  From the study of intercultural and postcolonial dynamics in the Andean region he has evolved in recent years towards a much more ‘biosocial’ (socialecological) perspective, focusing the theoretical reflection on the relevance of Tim Ingold’s recent work about an anthropology of life  an  about an “education by attention”.  Koen de Munter has been conducting longstanding research projects,  amongst other things about “Vivir bien” praxis, politics and ideologies (2015-2019). He is currently the principal investigator of a  project about “Aymara cosmpraxis in a relational world: “making family” with the living, the dead and the wak’as” (Chilean government funded Fondecyt Regular 1190279,   2019-2022).