“An Anthropology of Life” by Perig Pitrou

Next session of the Governance of Transitions seminar organized by Montpellier's I-Site Key Initiative on Public Transition Policies ( KIPPT), with Perig Pitrou, anthropologist and research director at the CNRS, the Maison Française d'Oxford, and the Laboratoire d'anthropologie sociale du Collège de France, Université PSL.

Presentation

How can we coexist with living organisms in increasingly degraded ecological environments? How can we create living conditions that reduce inequalities between human lives and promote a better quality of life? How can we make responsible use of biotechnologies? How can we reconcile the diversity of relationships with the world developed by human societies, taking into account their attachment to different living environments?

These four closely related questions are linked to a central question for our time: how should we live on planet Earth? At the intersection of the vital and the social, these issues do not only concern sciences such as ecology and biology. They are at the heart of reflection in a rapidly evolving field: the anthropology of life.

By presenting the main conclusions of the book "What Humans Do with Life," the presentation will offer a conceptual map of the research that informs thinking in this field. The second part will offer an anthropological interpretation of James Cameron's Avatar saga, showing how these films address issues similar to those dealt with by anthropologists.