Through her work on the consciousness and transformational politics of more-than-humans (sentient landscapes, spirits, shamans, the undead), Professor Bacigalupo rethinks previously theorized epistemologies, politics, and forms of power to produce decolonial knowledge. She shows how more-than-human places challenge traditional ideas of personhood and drive collective ethics and social and environmental justice. Drawing from critical race and feminist theory, queer theory, new materialism and studies of indigeneity in the Colonial Anthropocene, Professor Bacigalupo analyzes the social, political, and cultural implications of more-than-human consciousness and queer shamanic politics, which challenge state histories, contemporary understandings of time, writing, and social and historical memory.
Professor Bacigalupo shows how shamanic discourses and practices (as they interact with more-than-humans) can be superb tools for transforming colonial and neocolonial structures of power—and for producing new logics and decolonizing epistemologies, methodologies, and theories in academia—because they challenge Western assumptions about the nature and organization of the world in myriad ways. Shamanic practice troubles the distinction between life and non-life; past, present, and future; human and more-than-human; nature and culture; history and myth; matter and spirit; and man and woman, as well as capitalist divisions of species, landscapes, and peoples that discredit Indigenous practices which collapse these categories. Professor Bacigalupo argues that because shamans mediate within and between worlds and temporalities, they offer a particularly productive place from which to question power and envision new realities and futures. She traces the many forms of social critique wielded by Indigenous shamans—from gender and landscape constructions to history, memory, and politics. Professor Bacigalupo also studies their roles as public intellectuals who offer alternative visions that inform Indigenous political mobilization and shape the larger politics of knowledge throughout Chile, Peru, and the world.
Professor Bacigalupo is the author of Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Patagonia (ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Texas Press, 2016); Shamans of the Foye Tree: Gender, Power and Healing Among the Chilean Mapuche (ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Texas Press, 2007); The Voice of the Drum in Modernity: Tradition and Change in the Practice of Seven Mapuche Shamans (Universidad Católica de Chile press, 2001); Hybridity in Mapuche “Traditional” Healing Methods: The Practice of Contemporary Mapuche Shamans (PAESMI 1996). She also co-authored Modernization and Wisdom in Mapuche Land (San Pablo Press, 1995). Bacigalupo has also published over sixty peer reviewed articles and book chapters.
Professor Bacigalupo’s research has been supported by numerous external grants and fellowships from a prestigious Foundations including the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Max Planck Institute, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Rockefeller Foundation, the School of Advanced Research, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the Stanford Humanities Center, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the American Association of ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Women, Harvard Divinity School and the Center for World Religions at Harvard ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½.
At the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Professor Bacigalupo received the Humanities Institute Faculty Research Fellowship, the Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the UB 2020 award for Excellence in Cultural, Historical and Literary/Textual Studies, the Milton Plesur Teaching Award, the Meyerson Award for Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring, the Civic Engagement Fellowship; the Community for Global Health Equity grant; the Research Grant from the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy; the Faculty Internationalization Research Grant, the Gender Institute Faculty Research Award, and the OVPRED/HI Seed Money in the Arts and Humanities grant.
Professor Bacigalupo served as chair of the section of Religion and Spirituality of the Latin American Studies Association and Program Councilor for the Society for Latin American and the Caribbean Anthropology. She serves on the Board of the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological Association and on the board of the Indigenous Religions section of the American Academy of Religion among others. Bacigalupo is also the Anthropology Coordinator for the National Institute of Health, Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training Grant in Peru through San Diego State ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½. She collaborates with Douglas Sharon (San Diego State ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½), Gail Willsky and Linda Kahn (UB School of Medicine), Rainer Bussman (Missouri Botanical gardens) and others on this project.
Books
- 2016
- 2007 Shamans of the Foye Tree: Gender, Power, and Healing among the Chilean Mapuche. Austin: ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Texas Press. 321 pp.
- 2001 La voz del kultrun en la modernidad: Tradición y cambio en la terapéutica de siete machi Mapuche [The voice of the drum in modernity: Tradition and change in the healing therapies of seven Mapuche shamans]. Santiago: Editorial Universidad Católica de Chile. 271 pp.
- 1996 Adaptación de los métodos de curación “tradicionales” Mapuche: La práctica de la machi contemporánea en Chile [Hybridity in Mapuche “traditional” healing methods: The practice of contemporary Mapuche shamans]. Santiago: PAESMI. 66 pp.
- 1995 Modernización o sabiduría en tierra Mapuche? [Modernization or traditional wisdom in Mapuche land?]. Co-authored with Armando Marileo, Ricardo Salas, Ramón Curivil, Cristián Parker, and Alejandro Saavedra. Santiago: San Pablo. 198 pp.
Edited Special Journal Issues
- 2024 Subversive Religion and More-than-human Materialities in Latin America with Carlos Manrique and Carlota McAlister. American Religion 5(2). ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Indiana Press. (11 chapters)
Articles and Book Chapters (in English)
- 2025 “Climate Crises and Postapocalyptic Futures: Visionary Landscapes in Northern Peru.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 20(1).
- 2024 “Pan-indigenous Moral Cosmopolitics: Subversive Mountains and Climate Justice in Northern Coastal Peru.” American Religion 5(2):19-43.
- 2024 (with Fabien Le Bonniec) “Queering the Spirit of the Law: Mapuche Shamanic Justice in Judge Karen Atala’s LGBT child custody case against the Chilean state.” Journal of Anthropological Research 80(2): 143-176.
- 2024 “Cannibalistic Exchanges with Ancestor Mountains: Moral Economies of Gold Mining in Northern Peru.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 29 (4):1-10.
- 2024 “The Flesh of Justice in Latin America: Marxist Materiality, Subversive Cosmopolitics and Theopolitics” with Carlos Manrique and Carlota McAllister. American Religion 5(2)1-18.
- 2023 "The Mapuche Man Who Became a Woman Shaman: Selfhood, Gender Transgression, and Competing Cultural Norms" American Ethnologist Special Virtual Issue “Transitions: Fifty years of writing on gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ+ identities. November 7. .
- 2022 “Subversive Cosmopolitics in the Anthropocene: On Sentient Landscapes and the Ethical Imperative in Northern Peru.” Pp. 176-205. In Climate Politics and the Power of Religion. Evan Berry (Ed). Indiana ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Press.
- 2022 “Embodying, Reshaping, and Combining the Past and the Future: A Mapuche Shaman’s Historical Agency in Chile.” In Spirit-based Traditions of the Americas, edited by Benjamin Hebblethwaite, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Nebraska Press.
- 2021 “Subversive Cosmopolitics in the Anthropocene: On Sentient Landscapes and the Ethical Imperative in Northern Peru.” In Climate Politics and the Power of Religion edited by Evan Berry. Indiana ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Press.
- 2018 “The Mapuche Undead Never Forget: Traumatic Memory and Cosmopolitics in Post-Pinochet Chile:” Anthropology and Humanism 43 (2):1-21.
- 2018 “Shamanic Rebirth and the Paradox of Disremembering the Dead Among Mapuche in Chile” In A Companion to the Anthropology of Death, First Edition. Edited by Antonius C. G. M. Robben, 279-291. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- 2017 “The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Mapuche Shaman: Remembering, Disremembering, and the Willful Transformation of Memory “ In Death, Mourning and Burial: A Cross-Cultural Reader, Second Edition edited by Antonius C.G.M. Robben, 276-292. Wiley-Blackwell.
- 2016 “The Paradox of Disremembering the Dead: Ritual, Memory, and Embodied Historicity in Mapuche Shamanic Personhood.” Anthropology and Humanism 41.
- Forthcoming 2016 “Indigenous Bibles as Subjectivized Animated Objects: Mapuche Shamanic Literacy and Rebirth.” In Materialities of the Occult, edited by Jonathan Hill and Giovanni Da Col. Champaign: ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Illinois Press.
- 2014 “The Potency of Indigenous Bibles and Biography: Mapuche Shamanic Literacy and Historical Consciousness.” American Ethnologist 41 (4): 648–663.
- 2013 “Mapuche Struggles to Obliterate Dominant History: Mythohistory, Spiritual Agency, and Shamanic Historical Consciousness in Southern Chile.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 20 (1): 77–95.
- 2010 “The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Mapuche Shaman: Remembering, Forgetting and the Willful Transformation of Memory.” Journal of Anthropological Research 66 (1): 97–119.
- 2008 “The Re-invention of Mapuche Male Shamans as Catholic Priests: Legitimizing Indigenous Co-gender Identities in Modern Chile.” In Native Christians: Modes and Effects of Christianity among Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, edited by Robin Wright and Aparecida Vilaca, 89–108. Aldershot: Ashgate Press.
- 2005 “The Creation of a Mapuche Sorcerer: Sexual Ambivalence, the Commodification of Knowledge, and the Coveting of Wealth.” Journal of Anthropological Research 61 (3): 317–336.
- 2005 “Gendered Rituals for Cosmic Order: Mapuche Shamanic Struggles for Healing and Fertility.” Journal of Ritual Studies 19 (2): 53–69.
- 2004 “The Mapuche Man Who Became a Woman Shaman: Selfhood, Gender Transgression, and Competing Cultural Norms.” American Ethnologist 31 (3): 440–457.
- 2004 “Ritual Gendered Relationships: Kinship, Marriage, Mastery, and Machi Modes of Personhood.” Journal of Anthropological Research 60 (2): 203–229. Repr.,2010, Women and Indigenous Religions, edited by Sylvia Marcos, 2010, 145–176. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO/Praeger Press.
- 2004 “Shamans’ Pragmatic Gendered Negotiations with Mapuche Resistance Movements and Chilean Political Authorities.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 11 (4): 501–541.
- 2004 “The Struggle for Machi Masculinities: Colonial Politics of Gender, Sexuality and Power in Chile.” Ethnohistory 51 (3): 489–533.
- 2004 “Local Shamanic Knowledges: A Response to Guillaume Boccara.” L’Homme 169: 219–224.
- 2003 “Rethinking Identity and Feminism: Contributions of Mapuche Women and Machi from Southern Chile.” Hypatia 18 (2): 32–57.
- 2001 “The Rise of the Mapuche Moon Priestess in Southern Chile.” Annual Review of Women in World Religions 6: 208–259.
- 2000 “Shamanism as Reflexive Discourse: Gender, Sexuality and Power in the Mapuche Religious Experience.” In Gender, Bodies, Religions, edited by Sylvia Marcos, 275–295. Cuernavaca: ALER.
- 1999 “Studying Mapuche Shaman/Healers from an Experiential Perspective: Ethical and Methodological Problems.” Anthropology of Consciousness 10 (2–3): 35–40.
- 1998 “The Exorcising Sounds of Warfare: Shamanic Healing and the Struggle to Remain Mapuche.” Anthropology of Consciousness 9 (5): 1–16.
- 1996 “Mapuche Women’s Empowerment as Shaman/Healers.” Annual Review of Women in World Religions 4: 57–129.
- 1995 “Renouncing Shamanistic Practice: The Conflict of Individual and Culture Experienced by a Mapuche Machi.” Anthropology of Consciousness 6 (3): 1–16.
Articulos y Capitulos en Castellano y Frances