Rodolfo Kusch

Rodolfo Kusch was an Argentine philosopher and anthropologist who sought a philosophy rooted in the Indigenous and popular cultures of the Americas. Born in Buenos Aires to German immigrant parents, he did fieldwork among Quechua and Aymara communities in northern Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. He contrasted the modern European urge to 'be someone' with a more grounded 'being here' (estar) that he found in Andean life. His books, including América profunda (1962) and Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América (1970), influenced the Argentine philosophy of liberation and later decolonial thinkers.

Key ideas

• Western modernity rests on 'being someone' (ser alguien): a subject who masters a world of objects.
• Andean and popular thought rests on 'mere being' (estar): living exposed to, and sheltered within, a particular place.
• Popular thinking is seed-like rather than causal: it seeks growth and survival in a threatening world rather than the solving of problems.
• Urban intellectuals, including the left, often misread Indigenous and popular thought by forcing it into European categories.

Major works

• América profunda (1962)
• Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América (1970)
• La seducción de la barbarie (1953)
• Geocultura del hombre americano (1976)
• Esbozo de una antropología filosófica americana (1978)

In the Book corner

• Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América 1970 · Advanced
  A work by the Argentine philosopher, published in 1970 and translated into English in 2010 by María Lugones and Joshua M. Price.…

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