Jacob W. Dearing
Dec. 16th, 2015
Critical Abstract #20
Article author: Vilaça Aparecida
Article title: Chronically Unstable Bodies
All discussable subject matter involving culture, economics, the environment, ethics and any other field can all be linked back to our perspectives. Perspectives grow and change, shrink and isolate, seek difference and familiarity but mostly guide the experiences of each individual and shape the course of our societies. It is important to acknowledge and accept the differences of these perspectives because the world is now connected in such a way that these differences must encounter one another. Vilaça Aparecida offers the case of the Wari and how they perceive reality just as every other culture operates on their own distinct version of reality. The elements that we use to define our realities can often be associated with the characteristic of stability. Stability gives a reference or a point of familiarity in which we can make determinate comparisons of the world in order to measure and understand it. We categorize and separate differences so that it is simple to know what context a situation exists in, yet this not the pattern of stability used by the Wari. The Wari have rationalized their world in a context that is unstable, the lines that western culture has drawn between culture and nature do not exist as humans, animals, and abiotic factors from the environment are all in a state of flux at some point or another. Such an existence is important to consider when we talk about environmental problems and solutions as the context and language of the discussion may have a different meaning for such people.