Azmapu: A Mapuche Philosophy of Care (Women and Indigenous Studies) - Softcover

Elisa Loncon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0774873744 ISBN 13: 9780774873741

Publisher: University of British Columbia Press, 2026

Synopsis

In 2021, Mapuche scholar and activist Elisa Loncon led Chile's historic effort to revise its constitution. Her attempts to formally recognize Indigenous and environmental rights challenged entrenched ideas about power and reverberated internationally.

In this intimate book, Loncon shares the Indigenous knowledge system that shapes her work and introduces readers to Mapuche philosophy, which is rooted in Mapuzugun (the "language of the Earth"). She explains how küme mogen, "good living," results from people being in balance with nature, and explores Mapuche understandings of language, governance, ceremony, and gender and sexuality, while also highlighting the vital role of Indigenous in knowledge transmission and resisting colonialism. Rejecting Western ideas about human dominance, Azmapu elevates a world view in which all beings are interconnected and offers an alternative vision for how humans might live with the Earth.

About this title

About the Authors

Elisa Loncon is an internationally renowned Indigenous and environmental rights activist and an associate professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Santiago, Chile. She holds a PhD in Humanities from the University of Leiden (2017) and doctoral degree in Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In 2021, she was elected to represent the Mapuche people in the Chilean Constitutional Convention and then served as the Convention's first president. That same year, she was awarded the René Cassin Human Rights Award from the Basque Government in recognition of her substantial contributions to the defence of human rights. TIME magazine named her one of the world's "100 Most Influential People" and she was also recognized by the Financial Times as one of the "25 Most Influential Women of 2021."

Juan Francisco Salazar is a professor of communication and media and the director of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, Australia. He was born in Santiago, Chile, and migrated to Sydney in 1998, where he has since become an interdisciplinary researcher, author, and documentary filmmaker whose work explores social-ecological change. He has developed pioneering Indigenous media projects and has worked with communities and organizations in Australia, Chile, Colombia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Mexico, and Antarctica. His creative work has been shown at prestigious venues and festivals including the Venice Biennale, Serpentine Galleries in London, and Biennale of Sydney. He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Public Humanities, The Polar Journal, Media Environment and Cultural Anthropology.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0774873744
• ISBN 13: 9780774873741
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144