Dr. Falk Parra-Witte
Long-Term Fellow
January – June 2026
Bio
Dr. Falk Parra-Witte’s work centers on understanding human ecology (relations to nature) within a cosmological context. He draws on the principles and traditions of indigenous people, like the Kogi People (Colombia), as alternative ontological and epistemological insights in this regard. Accordingly, Falk is developing a holistic and realist framework that (philosophically and practically) can help inspire socio-environmental stewardship, education and policy. He combines transdisciplinary research, public outreach and community engagement to foment culture-based dialogue and collaboration across academia, government, NGOs and civil society, in particular knowledge exchange between indigenous ecology, natural sciences and the humanities. Other interests are the Isthmo-Colombian Area, European folklore, consciousness, and the supernatural.
Falk Parra-Witte is a Colombian-German anthropologist who obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK. Previous involvements include the Tairona Heritage Trust; the Zhigoneshi Alliance and the land regeneration project Múnekaň Masha – Revitalizing Water; the UNESCO-BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition; the research program “Nature in Other Words” (Latin American Council of Social Sciences); and the UNESCO-Chair on Global Understanding for Sustainability (University of Jena, Germany). Next to being Research Fellow at the University of Hildesheim, Falk is currently Strategy Coordinator for the Scientific and Medical Network in Español and Adjunct Lecturer, University of Luxembourg.
For his project at the Centre for Advanced Studies “Philosophizing in a Globalized World”, Falk will consider the interrelation between thought, knowledge and speech according to indigenous cosmology and ecology. The study focuses on the Kogi’s equivalent concepts (or principles) aluna, shibalama and muldzigaba in their Chibcha language (kaugiañ). The intention is to hereby get closer to what it may mean to “philosophize” in these epistemological and ontological terms.
Research
Anthropology, Cosmology and Ecology, Indigenous People and Knowledge Systems, Ontology and Epistemology, Sustainability, Folklore, Consciousness
Regions
Latin America, Isthmo-Colombian Area / Chibcha Peoples, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Kogi People, Iceland
Languages
Spanish, German, English, French, Kaugiañ
books
Living the Law of Origin: The Cosmological, Ontological, Epistemological, and Ecological Framework of Kogi Environmental Politics, Doctoral Thesis, University of Cambridge, U.K., 2018.
Articles
“La ecología kogi en el devenir del mundo: equilibrio, deterioro y renovación sistémica,” Revista Española de Antropología Americana 55 (2), Cataclismos y transformaciones planetarias en las sociedades indígenas istmo-colombianas, 2025, pp. 231-243.
“Ñiuba: la función ecológica de las figuras de oro en la ontología kogi,” in: S. Beckerman & J.C. Niño Vargas (eds.), Universos Chibchas. Nuevas aproximaciones a la unidad y la diversidad del área istmo-colombiana, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 2024, pp. 307-337.
“The World Tree: Humans, trees and creation on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta,” in: L. Attala & L. Steel(eds.), Plant Matters: Materialities in Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Wales Press, 2023.
„Kann ein Brief von der Erde kommen?“, in: M. Gosch (Hg.), Liebe Erde: 33 Briefe, um unsere Welt zu schützen, Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2021.
“The structure that sustains life: nourishment and exchange among the Kogi,” Tabula Rasa 36, Offerings, exchanges and other modes of relations in contemporary indigenous socio-cosmologies of the Isthmo-Colombian Area, 2020, pp. 101-129.
“The Colombian Kogi: Ecology as Ontology,” The Downing College Magazine 30, 2019, pp. 14-15.
