This paper explores how animistic rituals—specifically the ovoo offering in Inner Mongolia—can serve as embodied engagements with what Roy Bhaskar (1975) calls the “real”: a deeper layer of reality shaped by unseen causal and spiritual forces. By acknowledging the ’inhabitants’ of this deeper layer, we contribute to the broader post-humanist, or more-than-human, turn in the social sciences and humanities. Using a sensory collaborative autoethnographic approach, we take the ovoo encounter as a point of departure to examine our own ontoepistemic assumptions and to build a conceptual bridge for Western-trained audiences to loosen the grip of empirical-positivist habits of thought. We show how these practices enact a relational ontology that disrupts capitalist modernity’s extractivist, anthropocentric, and dualistic assumptions. We argue that, for those embedded in Western knowledge systems, openness to such place-based spiritual practices can foster the unlearning of dominant colonial-capitalist ways of being. The paper’s contribution is twofold: first, it demonstrates how engaging with the ovoo offering nurtures reciprocal, embodied connections that unsettle anthropocentric and dualistic worldviews; and second, it highlights how animistic traditions can counter the mechanistic cosmologies underlying extractivism. Such encounters can help reawaken suppressed spiritual lineages within Western thought, expanding the ethical and affective horizons of sustainability. At the same time, we remain attentive to the risks of co-optation through commodification, tourism, or detached New Age reinterpretations. We conclude by situating these reflections within wider debates on sustainability, ecological justice, and relational ethics. 

I am excited to announce that I  am working on amazing  documentary   featuring Mamie Van Doren, an icon of an era with incredible stories to tell. I'll be working out of LA  , enjoying  a familiar landscape of production and  palm trees.   Find out more about the doc here in  this article by Variety.  

Neoliberal free market agendas claim to champion individual freedom and economic empowerment, but these promises often mask deeper systemic flaws. By externalizing costs, redistributing responsibility, and fostering an illusion of consumer empowerment, this framework burdens individuals—both workers and consumers—while absolving businesses of accountability. This paper critiques the neoliberal free market paradigm, arguing that it undermines true freedom by prioritizing profit over collective well-being.

Great Podcast highlighting how US intervention is directly responsible for migration in the Americas. 

Post-growth cities are urban areas that have shifted their focus from traditional economic growth models, which emphasize continuous increases in gross domestic product (GDP) and physical expansion, to more sustainable, resilient, and quality-of-life-oriented goals. This concept challenges the conventional wisdom that cities must constantly grow in size and wealth to be considered successful. Instead, post-growth cities prioritize:

The imperial mode of living, entrenched in the infrastructure of global powers like the United States and other Global North nations, thrives on an exploitative dynamic. This approach necessitates an "elsewhere" – regions designated for exploitation and bearing the aftermath of disasters (Brand and Wissen, 2021). Cloaked in the language of growth and progress, this inherently imbalanced mode is underpinned by a colonial power matrix, emerging from a superiority complex and enforced through centralized power structures (Mignolo, 2011). This epistemology, neglecting a critical examination of objectivity, inadvertently limits inter-epistemic dialogues, endorsing a singular, imperial truth. 

Border Management Solutions

Creating a roadmap for transitioning to degrowth economies in the Global North and fostering decolonial cultures in Latin America requires a nuanced approach that addresses historical inequalities and promotes equitable resource distribution. The following outline suggests steps to achieve these goals, emphasizing the redistribution of wealth and resources to the Global South and the empowerment of local communities to develop decolonial practices.

ISDS stands for Investor-State Dispute Settlement. It is a mechanism often included in international investment agreements, like bilateral investment treaties (BITs) or free trade agreements (FTAs), that allows foreign investors to bring claims directly against the host country before an arbitral tribunal if they believe their rights under the agreement have been violated.

The Global Fragility Act (GFA) is a piece of legislation aimed at improving the capacity of the U.S. government to identify and address the root causes of violent conflict in countries around the world. The act seeks to streamline efforts, ensure coordination among various U.S. agencies, and prioritize preventive measures over reactive ones. In some ways this can be seen as a mechanism of US imperialism continued. In that way it is  similar to the Monroe doctrine, yet this has more global application versus hemispheric. Using wording  steeped in  modernity's classic tropes of paternal benevolence, development and peace it allows for the defence  of the US agenda in unstable countries. 

Walter Mignolo, a prominent scholar in the field of decolonial studies, defines “decolonial thinking” as a form of epistemic resistance and critique against the underlying assumptions and logics of coloniality, which continue to pervade various aspects of global societies even after the formal end of colonialism.

The term “liquid modernity,” introduced by Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, paints a picture of our contemporary world where traditional structures and norms are constantly in flux. Here’s a breakdown: