Introduction: Animism and invisible worlds: The place of non-humans in indigenous ontologies

The nature/culture dichotomy is part of the legacy of Western philosophy out of which modern social anthropology has grown, but the very emergence of the anthropology of nature, and its practice, have been dedicated precisely to deconstructing and discrediting the dyad with which they are concerned. This volume is dedicated to the cross-cultural study of relations between humans and nonhumans, and focusing on personhood allows us to avoid the trap of criticising the conventional nature/culture dyad without ever being able to escape its terms. Data on personhood in animistic societies have always raised questions about the supposed universal validity of the concept of nature, because they invariably demonstrate that nonhuman entities may be regarded as social persons.