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basis. These Western philosophical and scientifi c worldviews offer a conceptual
framework to understand the implications of Amerindian concepts such as
Pachamama (see Mamani-Bernabé 2015 in this volume [Chap. 6 ] ) not as folk curi-
osities, but as worldviews consistent with cutting-edge scientifi c knowledge. Like
the Aymara worldview contained in the concept of Pachamama , Western philosoph-
ical and scientifi c worldviews enable us to consider the community of living beings
as a community of active subjects with their own interests. Comparative analyses of
Amerindian, philosophical, and scientifi c forms of ecological knowledge generate a
congruent and complementary understanding that invites us to revise the dualism
between human-subjects and ecosystem-objects established by a utilitarian ethics
that prevails in the logic of ecosystem services. Modifi cation of this dualism could
extend the concepts and practices of Earth Stewardship towards forms of intercul-
tural dialogue and interspecifi c co-inhabitation. This biocultural modifi cation would
enlarge the human community of stewards participating in Earth stewardship prac-
tices, as well as broaden the community of human and other-than-human co-inhab-
itants considered in the analyses of life well-being.
9.5
Concluding Remarks
In an era of rapid socio-environmental change, it is technically misleading and ethi-
cally unjust to ascribe responsibility to humanity in general. The biocultural ethic's
conceptual framework contributes to an Earth stewardship initiative by more precisely
identifying the diversity of Earth stewards as well as the specifi c agents that are
mostly responsible for current socio-environmental problems and by demonstrating
the need to question, clarify, and change language, governance regimes, and life
habits in order to effect cultural transformations. Framed in the tradition of liberation
philosophy (see Chap.
8 in this volume), the biocultural ethic involves two methodologi-
cal steps: (a) to liberate diverse forms of thinking from being encapsulated by colonizing
global conceptual frameworks; (b) to reaffi rm languages, forms of thought, ethics,
and cultures that are marginalized from global discourses and media.
Regarding the fi rst methodological step of the biocultural ethic, it is critical to
transform the state of indifference toward the diversity of life and cultures that
prevails in global discourses today. Governed by a plutocratic regime, global
discourses are centered on a free market culture. In this chapter I have highlighted
the distinctions between democracy and plutocracy, stewardship and plutonomy to
better understand the current state of absorption in a consumerist culture not as a
trend that is inherent to “human nature” (as it is often portrayed), but as a particular
and recent cultural trend in human history. To achieve Earth stewardship, this trend
needs to be overcome because it alienates global society from complex, multifac-
eted, dimensions of human culture and other-than-human life.
Regarding the second methodological step, the biocultural ethic provides a con-
ceptual and methodological framework to discover the richness of ecological values
and forms of knowledge grounded in the worldviews of Amerindian cultures,
Western philosophical and scientifi c traditions of thought, as well as everyday practices
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