Thesis Supervisor: Hypatia Vourloumis

Thesis: Lifting the Sky: Practices in Contemporary Brazil to Sustain Worlds Otherwise

July 2020

Abstract

How do we become sky lifters? According to the indigenous Yanomami cosmology, two worlds before this world have ended with the falling of the sky. I argue that this world, on the brink of environmental devastation, needs to learn from practices and practitioners that have long dealt with nature in a form that “The Understanding” continuously tries to destroy, to move towards what the Zapatistas defend as “a world of many worlds”. In conversation with decolonial theorists from the Global South and the practices of artists from Brazil, the chapters “Worlding Possibilities” and “Queer Practices as Sky Lifting”, reveal practices beyond the binaries of human and nature and paint the picture of an “ecology of practices.” The end of the one-world world is needed, but the opening towards pluriverse worlds is needed more.

Author: Raphael Daibert