This book takes the provocative view that Indigenous people have been fundamental to how contemporary state sovereignty was imagined, theorized, and practiced. By tracing indigeneity from European philosophers conceptualizing sovereignty during the Enlightenment to Indigenous President Evo Morales in Bolivia, this volume offers new analytical tools to explore indigeneity in contemporary world politics.

Innovative poetry, philosophy, theology and new sciences converge in the project of rewriting the word “God”

Through storytelling, ethnography, and interviews, this volume examines how Indigenous Maya and Garifuna Belizeans—both in Belize and in the United States—navigate macro-level processes such as economic development, climate change, political shifts, and global health crises in the context of changes in their own lives. Employing an embodied ecological heritage (EEH) framework, this work explores the links between health and heritage. It offers insights into how heritage practices become embodied as ways to maintain and support happy, healthy lives.

This interdisciplinary volume argues for the importance of everyday sensuous conservation and its ability to grow diverse, livable worlds where human embodiment is understood as part of—not separate from—plant life. Contributors argue that the majority of biodiversity conservation worldwide is carried out not by large-scale conservation projects but by ordinary people engaging in sensory-motivated, caretaking relationships with specific plants.