«Scientific avatars» or doing anthropology of (and against) our modern discontent

«Avatares científicos» o hacer antropología de (y contra) nuestro descontento contemporáneo

Starting with an analysis of Avatar, the movie, and its various repercussions, I examine in this paper the feeling and cosmopolitical views this blockbuster seems to have arisen, and I identify the perspectives on indigenous alterity that seem to be implied and displayed by what I call a Metropolitan Alternativism and an Alter-native Cosmopolitism. After exploring several parallel anthropological debates dividing scholarship when it comes to ponder the collateral effects of the current recognition and politization politics of cultural difference, I reflect on the effects the various policies of translation and critical thought imply, at least from the perspective of those among us who are located, and making anthropology at and for the south of the Global South.

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