Abstract

Political ontology research has highlighted how the dominance of the Euro-modern ontology over other ontologies renders other-than-scientific knowledges as subordinate or untrue. Despite the commitment to base conservation efforts on Indigenous and local ecological knowledge, epistemic injustice—understood as the marginalization of more-than-scientific knowledge holders and society's inability to make sense of more-than-scientific knowledges—has persisted. Through the analysis of two place-based conservation initiatives in Indigenous territories in Finland and Colombia—the Landscape Rewilding Program (LRP) and the Rights of River Ranchería (RRR) initiative—this article asks whether and, if so, how these two initiatives challenge the Euro-modern ontology and make space for Indigenous ways of being and knowing. The results show that these two initiatives use distinct strategies to challenge Euro-modern ontology and promote epistemic justice. The LRP builds on Skolt Sámi governance and knowledge traditions to reject the hegemony of science and institutions upholding the hegemony of the Euro-modern ontology while achieving ecological objectives crucial to the continuation of the Skolt Sámi world. The RRR initiative tackles ontologically violent and unjust legal and policy framings by fighting to declare the Ranchería River as having rights, and with Indigenous communities as its guardians. These findings provide insights into how to inch towards the pluriverse. They further contribute to bridging contemporary scholarly debates on political ontology, epistemic justice, and Indigenous and local ecological knowledge grounded in concrete place-based cases.

Keywords: political ontology, biodiversity conservation, epistemic justice, Finland, Colombia, traditional ecological knowledge

How to Cite:

Ott, A. L., Varumo, L. & Ituarte-Lima, C., (2026) “Inching towards the pluriverse: On ontological politics and epistemic justice in place-based conservation initiatives”, Journal of Political Ecology 33(1): 11972. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.11972