Anthropology Guest Lecturer Paride Bollettin: Latvians Have a Unique Connection To Their Environment

In 2019, Paride Bollettin was a guest lecturer in the Social Anthropology study programme at Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU). He has been to Latvia twice, once in 2017 and then again in 2019, both times teaching entirely new courses to social anthropology students. Although originally from Italy, Bollettin was in São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos in the state of Bahia in Brazil at the time of the interview where he has been working at the Federal University of Bahia for two years. In 2021, Bollettin is expected to come to RSU once again as part of the PostDoc Latvia programme.

How did your relationship with RSU start?

She explained that there’s a course dedicated to this topic within the master’s course in Anthropology. I was curious because I had not been to the Baltic region before and thought that this would be a great opportunity to get to know a new country and a new university. I had previously taught similar courses in Brazil and Italy, so we decided that I could offer this same course at RSU as well. The students were very enthusiastic, very interested and curious. They were not interested in the exotic aspect of Amerinidian populations, the stereotypic imagery that we have in the western world, and this impressed me. 

Because of this great start we decided to apply to the Teterev Foundation and when we were granted funding we organised two further courses: one about environmental anthropology, and one on the introduction to multispecies ethnography. This gave me the opportunity to return to RSU in 2019. I was once again met by enthusiasm both from the students, as well as my colleagues. We started to discuss different kinds of joint projects and common interests.

RSU has come as a great surprise in my academic trajectory.

What is multispecies ethnography?

It’s a branch of anthropology that focuses on the idea that humans are not the only species able to act within the reality we live in, that we are not the only ones who can produce an impact on the world that all species share.

It’s quite a new field, and it’s interesting because it has a strong interdisciplinary approach. Anthropologists should promote a dialogue with other academic specialisations like with biologists, zoologists, and even virologists.

It’s quite a difficult exercise to step out of our anthropocentric point of view. We negate everything by our own experience of the world because our experience is human-centered. We are forced to abstract ourselves and I think this is very useful for introducing what anthropology is about.

There are a lot of anthropologies. What is common to all, however, is the idea that we have to abstract from our own point of view and try to approach things with an open mind and take what others (both humans and other species) are saying to us seriously. 

Viruses too are proper agents that affect our environment, for example. Expanding on this, when looking at, or working with conservation policies and the implementation of nature reserves, or environmental management, we should include other actors than just humans in our work and try to produce an equilibrium between the different actors that share a space.

How is the coronavirus affecting your work?

I offered a course this semester on the anthropologies of science. When university activities were suspended, together with my students we decided to organise a working group focused on observing the science produced about the coronavirus. We have weekly meetings in which we discuss readings about the anthropology of science and we try to use these tools to observe what the scientific production about the coronavirus is and the consequences this has on public debate.

Every two weeks we also have a seminar on a virtual platform where every student in the program can discuss how they’re managing their fieldwork under the current circumstances where it’s impossible to conduct proper fieldwork in the usual anthropological format. We are trying to include the experience of the coronavirus into our ongoing discussions here at the university.

This includes people’s personal experience and a more theoretical point of view of what it means for us - transformations in humans’ social relations, and our relations with other kinds of beings. Spaces are being reappropriated by wild animals, fish and seahorses are coming back to the Venetian Lagoon - these are images that we have seen over the last few months. The virus has produced a different way for species to relate to one another.

It sounds like you’re studying the virus both as a living being in this world, as well as a phenomenon that impacts your work!

Yes, and a multispecies approach is very useful in this regard.

We don’t just observe the virus from an anthropocentric point of view, by which I mean focusing on the impact the virus has on humans, but we observe all the consequences from the presence of the virus.

Do you see these changes to nature and to animal behavior as permanent, or is this a blip in 2020 that will go away after the pandemic?

Well, I’m personally very optimistic. I hope that this experience will stimulate us to think about the possibilities of a different way of conducting social relations with obvious consequences for the impact we have on the environment - less emphasis on money, for example, and more emphasis on an equilibrium with the environment. The idea that the accumulation of riches and material goods is not important, but that we should rather focus on our place in the world - meaning both how we interact with other humans as well as with other agents - comes from Amerindian societies.

What I am observing in the news, however, is that the people are unfortunately trying to go back to what was before. Obviously this will not be possible. There are some experiences that we have had during this time, like remote working, which could potentially change our approach to our current way of life. There should be a reflection on a global scale, however, because it's not sufficient to change the habits of people in just one country if this is not part of a larger picture. If we think, for example, that the origins of this pandemic are related to the environment it’s not sufficient for us to change our approach just in Italy or in Brazil or in Latvia. The next pandemic could begin anywhere so it’s important to have a world-wide discussion about this.

You’ve worked in a lot of countries like the UK, Italy, Brazil and Latvia - what country do you feel has a better understanding of the environment politically? Are there any countries that are maybe more advanced in terms of how they regulate nature, or where they emphasise this equilibrium, or do all countries have the same capitalist priorities?

It’s a very difficult question. It’s not possible to put them in an order, because the differences between Europe and South America are enormous. Think of the impact that human activities have had on Europe, how they have been moderated by different epidemics or massive wars. These have produced an equilibrium because of the demographic oscillation of the population; the growth of the population has impacted the environment, as have decreases, which have allowed for the environment to return to a former state, to transform. The environment has been quite mediated in Europe.

Here in Brazil we are facing a different situation. What has happened here since the 1980s is a massive appropriation of the environment without the possibility of the environment to produce this equilibrium and adjust because it happened so quickly.

What are some other ideological differences between Europe, specifically Latvia, and South America, specifically Brazil?

If we look at Europe, we can observe different examples of abandoned places that are not used for agricultural purposes or other economic activities anymore and see that this land is used as a resource for wildlife to reappropriate. In Brazil, on the other hand, there is a frontier-like mentality where industries go ahead and appropriate as much land as possible in order to produce more and more. The core focus of economic activity is the production of commodities like soy and grains to sell to the rest of the world. 

The environmental situation in Latvia really caught my attention. I didn’t know this before, but I feel that Latvia has a really interesting approach to the environment. One example I found fascinating was the webcams that have been set up on eagles’ nests! This points to the fact that Latvians have a very close relationship with their own environment. They are proud of it.

I got really fascinating feedback from students during the course on Environmental Anthropology from which I understood that the local environment produces Latvians’ sense of identity. And this is an idea that is shared on all levels: in people’s daily life, in public debate and public policy. This marks a very different approach compared to Brazil. 

Here in Brazil there is a lot of conflict between the local population and the way that local communities approach the environment and public policies that are oriented towards big development. So for example, the implementation of big industries here in Baía de Todos os Santos, the bay here where Salvador is located, causes a lot of conflicts with the local population. There are more conflicts here compared to Latvia.

I had a strong impression that Latvians have been able to bring their strong connection with the local environment into their public policies. In this sense Latvia is an example in the global panorama when compared for example with Italy, Brazil or the UK.

Did you have the opportunity to get out into the countryside yourself?

Yes, I had the opportunity to go to the countryside with some colleagues and it was really amazing. We went to the seaside, we went to hills and some reserves and it was really interesting to have the opportunity to see how close these places were to the city. This makes a big difference, because proximity to the environment is something that stimulates our connection to it.

There is another thing that makes a difference in Latvia and this is the imaginary, the symbolism of the environment.

This is much stronger in Latvia compared to other places. I don’t know if it is related to the fact that it is a geographically small country which means that the ecosystem is quite similar all over. This can therefore produce a unity in the imagery contrary to Italy, for example, where the North and the South are completely different. You can’t compare the Alps with Sicily! In a country like this it’s more difficult to create a cohesive national environmental image, something that would produce a more united Italian legislature.

What are some common misunderstandings, or misconceptions about your field?

There aren’t really any big misunderstandings. Something that is important every time we present the fact that we work with Amerindian peoples or on multispecies ethnography, is to try to deconstruct exotisation. One of the most common questions I have to answer everywhere, not only in Europe, but also with urban populations in Brazil, is: “But why do indigenous people live in the forest? How do they live in the forest?” This comes from an idea that they have frozen in time, that they live in the stone age. But we have students at the university who are from these indigenous communities, so they are absolutely a part of modern-day life!

During social isolation, I have actually been chatting with friends in villages in the Amazon using Whatsapp, so they are absolutely involved in modern life.

At the same time, it is important to highlight what indigenous people can tell us about the future of humanity. For example, here in Brazil there are some recent examples of indigenous people writing books for the university and for the wider public. There is one in which the writer, Ailton Krenak, reflects on the hegemonic ideas we are trying to impose all over the world forcing people to live like westerners and the dangers this can bring. It’s not only dangerous because of the environmental impact this causes, but because it brings with it an idea of hierarchies within humanity, the idea that people who don’t want to live inside the capitalistic model are not properly human and can in consequence be marginalised. 

You’ve mentioned a lot of topics that are very heavy: the coronavirus pandemic, the exploitation of the environment, stealing indigenous lands etc. What makes you able to continue in this field and where do you find the positivity in what you study?

As I told you before I am an optimist. There are two aspects that make me optimistic about my field: the first is that when I can see the increase in the power of the voice of indigenous people, of local communities, their increasing ability to speak for themselves, then I start believing that real change is possible. When these social groups will be able to connect among themselves, they will be able to really propose an alternative to the hegemonic way of thinking about what humanity is, what the relationship between humans and the environment should be.

Another aspect is that when we do exercises to abstract from the anthropocentric point of view regarding climate change you can start to see that other species will evolve and adapt to these conditions better than us and maybe reappropriate the new world we will be facing. If you look back at history, every time that there is a great pandemic, for example in the 14th century in Europe, the situation in the following centuries was very good, from an environmental point of view. There was low demographic pressure from humans, so the environment was able to revive.

Obviously at the same time I’m very worried about the impact that global warming and climate change is having on every living being in this world, but I think that we still have time, because we can change our way of life, we can do it, and it’s just about wanting to do this and realising we don’t need everything that we have.