Staff profile

• Broadly speaking I am interested in the question of modernity and in the workings of modern forms of thought and of the modern sciences in particular. This may seem like an impossibly diffuse subject at first glance. For good reasons, many scholars prefer to speak of "multiple modernities" these days, emphasising modernity's protean character and its global spread beyond the confines of its supposed (European) region of birth. But what fascinates me personally more is that modern forms of thought are also astonishingly uniform the world over. We, moderns, all believe in outer space, for example, but none of us believes in outer time. And that belief colours how we understand, among other things, history and biology. The Hellenic world is typically framed as an ancient civilisation, not as an alien civilisation. In a similar vein, dinosaurs are conventionally viewed as ancient lifeforms, not as alien lifeforms. My anthropological research with astrobiologists and planetary scientists shows that such deeply ingrained views are much less self-evident than we assume and are in fact rooted in metaphysical conventions that go themselves back to the roots of modernity itself.
• Examining the conceptual underpinnings of modern forms of thought – including scientific research, political ecology and environmentalism – is crucial in my view because they eminently shape how contemporary world affairs are imagined. Many of our perplexities regarding the rise of neofascism, the proliferation of conspiracy theories and mirror worlds, the advent of climate sceptics and all sorts of merchants of doubt, the apparently widespread loss of trust in science, or the worldwide absence of truly decisive climate action may well dissipate if anthropologists manage to frame those questions in other-than-modern terms. My working hypothesis, in other words, is that we, new arrivals in the Anthropocene, have reached a point where modernity stunts our political, ecological and scientific imaginations. What if the uneasy sense of “disorientation” that many ecologically-minded observers admit to these days is as much self-imposed, i.e. by our inability to extract ourselves from our modern ways of looking, as it is caused by the actual state of the world?

Authored book

• Animism and the Question of Life
  
  Praet, I. (2013). Animism and the Question of Life. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315890203

Chapter in book

• Introduction: Otherwhere Ethnography, a Means to Reimagine Contemporary Space Exploration
  
  Praet, I. (2025). Introduction: Otherwhere Ethnography, a Means to Reimagine Contemporary Space Exploration. In P. Pitrou & I. Praet (Eds.), Otherwhere Ethnography. An Introduction to Outer Space Studies (pp. 1-14). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197790885.003.0001
• Styles of Contemporary Space Exploration: Columbian and Vespuccian Modes of Researching Alien Worlds
  
  Praet, I. (2025). Styles of Contemporary Space Exploration: Columbian and Vespuccian Modes of Researching Alien Worlds. In I. Praet & P. Pitrou (Eds.), Otherwhere Ethnography. An Introduction to Outer Space Studies (pp. 44-64). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197790885.003.0004
• Humanity and the Modern Oecumene. Anthropological and Historical Perspectives
  
  Praet, I. (2023). Humanity and the Modern Oecumene. Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. In M. Kesting & S. Witzgall (Eds.), Human After Man (pp. 33-54). Diaphanes.
• Anthropology and Contemporary Space Exploration, with a Note on Hopi Ladders
  
  Praet, I. (2023). Anthropology and Contemporary Space Exploration, with a Note on Hopi Ladders. In J. F. Salazar & A. Gorman (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003280507-6
• Whirlpools, Glitter, and Ferocious Intruders: The Palpability of Death in Chachi Animism
  
  Praet, I. (2018). Whirlpools, Glitter, and Ferocious Intruders: The Palpability of Death in Chachi Animism. In A. C. G. M. Robben (Ed.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Death (pp. 265-278). Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119222422.ch19
• The Chachi and Their Uneasy Relationship with Archaeology
  
  Praet, I. (2011). The Chachi and Their Uneasy Relationship with Archaeology. In P. Fortis & I. Praet (Eds.), The Archaeological Encounter: Anthropological Perspectives.

Edited book

• The Off-Earth Atlas: A Social Science Guidebook to the Extra-Terrestrial
  
  Praet, I. (Ed.). (in press). The Off-Earth Atlas: A Social Science Guidebook to the Extra-Terrestrial. Intellect Books.
• Otherwhere Ethnography: An Introduction to Outer Space Studies
  
  Praet, I., & Pitrou, P. (Eds.). (2025). Otherwhere Ethnography: An Introduction to Outer Space Studies. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197790885.001.0001
• The Archaeological Encounter. Anthropological Perspectives
  
  Fortis, P., & Praet, I. (Eds.). (2011). The Archaeological Encounter. Anthropological Perspectives. Centre for Amerindian, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of St Andrews.

Journal Article

• Good, quarrelsome, bad: animal agency and human-elephant interactions in the Western Ghats, India
  
  Bhat Dundi, D., Praet, I., & Marvin, G. (2023). Good, quarrelsome, bad: animal agency and human-elephant interactions in the Western Ghats, India. Frontiers in Conservation Science, 4, Article 1142333. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2023.1142333
• The Global Biosphere and Its Metaphysical Underpinnings. Ecumenical Alternatives in Animism and Astrobiology
  
  Praet, I. (2021). The Global Biosphere and Its Metaphysical Underpinnings. Ecumenical Alternatives in Animism and Astrobiology. Sociologus. Journal for Social Anthropology, 71(1), 55-72.
• Convergence en astrobiologie. Expérimentation contrefactuelle dans les sciences et les arts Convergence in Astrobiology and Artistic Research
  
  Praet, I. (2019). Convergence en astrobiologie. Expérimentation contrefactuelle dans les sciences et les arts Convergence in Astrobiology and Artistic Research. Gradhiva. Revue D’anthropologie et D’histoire Des Arts, 29, 84-115. https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.4046
• Astrobiology and the Ultraviolet World
  
  Praet, I. (2017). Astrobiology and the Ultraviolet World. Environmental Humanities, 9(2), 378-397. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-4215352
• Familiarizing the Extraterrestrial / Making Our Planet Alien
  
  Praet, I., & Salazar, J. F. (2017). Familiarizing the Extraterrestrial / Making Our Planet Alien. Environmental Humanities, 9(2), 309-324. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-4215315
• La lune de Saturne et le « nous » œcuménique. Entre astrobiologie et anthropologie An Icy Moon of Saturn and the Ecumenical ’We’. Between Astrobiology and Anthropology
  
  Praet, I. (2015). La lune de Saturne et le « nous » œcuménique. Entre astrobiologie et anthropologie An Icy Moon of Saturn and the Ecumenical ’We’. Between Astrobiology and Anthropology. Gradhiva, 22, 136-167. https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.3061
• The positional quality of life and death: A theory of human-animal relations in animism
  
  Praet, I. (2013). The positional quality of life and death: A theory of human-animal relations in animism. Anthrozoos, 26(3), 341-355. https://doi.org/10.2752/175303713X13697429463510
• Catastrophes and Weddings. Chachi Ritual as Metamorphosis
  
  Praet, I. (2009). Catastrophes and Weddings. Chachi Ritual as Metamorphosis. Journal de la Société Des Américanistes, 95(2), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.4000/jsa.12840
• Shamanism and ritual in South America: An inquiry into Amerindian shape-shifting
  
  Praet, I. (2009). Shamanism and ritual in South America: An inquiry into Amerindian shape-shifting. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15(4), 737-754. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2009.01582.x

Other (Print)

• Review of "The Composition of Worlds" by Philippe Descola and Pierre Charbonnier
  
  Praet, I. (2025). Review of "The Composition of Worlds" by Philippe Descola and Pierre Charbonnier. History of Anthropology Review.