From house of spirits to carbon sink: Ontological conflicts around REDD+ in the Colombian Amazon

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic approach, this article analyzes the ontological conflicts of projects that aim at the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) in indigenous territories in the Amazon. The analysis is based on a case study in the Selva de Matavén Indigenous reserve in the Colombian Amazon, with a particular focus on the Piaroa people, one of the six groups with ancestral rights to the area. We argue that socio-environmental struggles associated with REDD+ emerge from divergent ontological definitions of what forests and carbon are, their value, and the most appropriate way to protect them. We contribute to critical studies on REDD+ from a political ontology perspective by analyzing how this policy is embedded in particular ways as it enters into friction with place-based processes of carbon entrepreneurship and with people living in forests.