Dialogare con mondi sfuggenti Antiessenzialismo ontologico, incertezza e contegno

The long established anthropological literature on the relations between society and environment, on the one hand, and the more recent focus on humans and nonhumans in the context of the socalled ontological turn, on the other hand, highlight how several cultures do not conceive the surrounding environment as something but rather as somebody, or better as an ensemble of persons. This implies that humans do not dominate their surroundings, but get in dialogue with them. This essay explores some further implications of this dialogue, with special attention to its moral dimension and the role of uncertainty. [Publisher's text]