Regrounding ethnography: Andean rituality and ecology as part of a moral economy

Abstract

This essay examines Andean ritual practices in the early colonial period as long-term survival strategies through changing social conditions. These human behavioral patterns are contextualised within a wider moral economy, where ethical obligations, and customary law, are but subsets of a regional ecology. By relocating local laws and behavioral practices, and the ontological relations between beings, within a specific bioregion, the essay explores an anthropology concerned with environmental challenges.