Of volcanoes, saints, trash, and frogs: Eschatological talks and plural ecologies in Arequipa, Peru

In Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city, people draw on various registers to understand and respond to changes they experience in weather, climate, the environment and society. Mining, contamination, less rain, sudden cold, and earthquakes are among the phenomena that have to be dealt with, at the same time as political elections and economic hardship. During one year of ethnographic fieldwork volcanoes, saints, trash and frogs were among the nonhuman entities referred to in conversations and engaged with when responding to the changes that trouble the world and everyday life of Arequipans. This paper gathers stories about the agencies of nonhuman entities, and asks what anthropology can do to carve out a space for these beings in Anthropocene scholarship. Rather than emphasising the magic dimension of these beings, the paper suggests a realist concept of plural ecology – one open to beings of different registers - when scholarly intervening in an Anthropocene present.