A theory developed by Fernando Luiz Lara, Professor of Architecture at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, as an extension of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Amerindian Perspectivism. Lara introduced Relational Urbanism in his 2024 book Spatial Theories for the Americas: Counterweights to Five Centuries of Eurocentrism. This new theory critiqued Western Cartesianism by emphasizing the interconnectedness between Indigenous cultures and nature in Latin America, advocating for the importance of relational knowledge as well as respect between humans and nature in design and architecture. The theory is structured around three key categories: Humanized Nature (rejecting separation between humans and nature, instead implying a spectrum), Materiality (humanizing nature and materials…

A theory developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s in the 1990s as a critique of Western multiculturalism, suggesting multinaturalism instead. In multiculturalism, Western ontologies established differences in cultures and separated humanity from nature. De Castro argued that indigenous ideologies viewed all of humanity and nature as one culture, which is manifested in various different bodies and beings (multinaturalism). He also suggested that all beings see themselves as “human,” positioning everyone as a subject from their own perspective.