Introduction: Sentient Entanglements and Ruptures in the Americas: Human-Animal Relations in the Amazon, Andes and Arctic

Anthropological studies of the Amazon, Arctic and Andes regions of the Americas demonstrate the centrality of relations with animals to the lives of their indigenous peoples. Bringing scholarship on the three regions into conversation demonstrates synergies and documents the sentient entanglements that bind humans, animals together in environments. This introduction to the edited collection opens by considering recent trends in the social sciences seeking to decenter the human in social science analysis before looking to the three regions to focus upon commonalities and differences arising particularly from issues of human and non-human personhood and animal domestication. Focusing scholarly attention on ontological conjunctures of humans and animals other than those involving human domination over animals, or that posit animals as resources for human use, demonstrates many different possible trajectories for human-animal relations.