UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Inching towards the pluriverse: On ontological politics and epistemic justice in place-based conservation initiatives

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.2458/jpe.11972

Authors

Anna Ott · Liisa Varumo · Claudia Ituarte‐Lima

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.621104+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:14:00.886152+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Finnish Environment Institute · Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

Reported affiliation countries

FI · SE

Documentary abstract — original language

Political ontology research has highlighted how the dominance of the Euro-modern ontology over other ontologies renders other-than-scientific knowledges as subordinate or untrue. Despite the commitment to base conservation efforts on Indigenous and local ecological knowledge, epistemic injustice—understood as the marginalization of more-than-scientific knowledge holders and society's inability to make sense of more-than-scientific knowledges—has persisted. Through the analysis of two place-based conservation initiatives in Indigenous territories in Finland and Colombia—the Landscape Rewilding Program (LRP) and the Rights of River Ranchería (RRR) initiative—this article asks whether and, if so, how these two initiatives challenge the Euro-modern ontology and make space for Indigenous ways of being and knowing. The results show that these two initiatives use distinct strategies to challenge Euro-modern ontology and promote epistemic justice. The LRP builds on Skolt Sámi governance and knowledge traditions to reject the hegemony of science and institutions upholding the hegemony of the Euro-modern ontology while achieving ecological objectives crucial to the continuation of the Skolt Sámi world. The RRR initiative tackles ontologically violent and unjust legal and policy framings by fighting to declare the Ranchería River as having rights, and with Indigenous communities as its guardians. These findings provide insights into how to inch towards the pluriverse. They further contribute to bridging contemporary scholarly debates on political ontology, epistemic justice, and Indigenous and local ecological knowledge grounded in concrete place-based cases.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7202142181

DOI

10.2458/jpe.11972

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Natural entities mentioned

River · Landscape · Territory

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.11972
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7202142181

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.