Alterhumanism: Becoming Human on a Conservation Frontier

What does it mean to be human in the Anthropocene? Set against the backdrop of southern Chile’s conservation frontier, Piergiorgio Di Giminiani’s Alterhumanism invites us to recognize the centrality of the human condition in the face of an increasingly uncertain world and imagine future forms of coexistence.

Reflecting on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork with smallholding settlers, Indigenous Mapuche farmers, environmental activists, entrepreneurs, and conservation scientists, Di Giminiani brings to light how these diverse groups navigate the enduring impacts of settler-caused environmental depletion and their aspirations for new ethics of care. Di Giminiani challenges traditional Western humanism, proposing a more relational and open-ended understanding of humanity shaped by interactions with nonhuman others.

Rather than seeking fixed answers, the book explores the fluid and multifaceted nature of becoming human through the lens of conservation politics. By highlighting the entangled, multispecies worlds of southern Chile, Di Giminiani offers a novel approach to understanding the political project of becoming human in the Anthropocene. Alterhumanism is a rich, ethnographically grounded perspective on humanity’s evolving relationship with the natural world.

Piergiorgio Di Giminiani is an associate professor in anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is the author of Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile.