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Various misunderstandings and conflicts associated with attempts to integrate Indigenous Knowledges (IK) into development and conservation agendas have been analyzed from both political economy and political ecology frameworks. With their own particular inflections, and in addition to their focus on issues of power, both frameworks tend to see what occurs in these settings as involving different epistemologies, meaning that misunderstandings and conflicts occur between different and complexly interested perspectives on, or ways of knowing, the world. Analyzing the conflicts surrounding the creation of a hunting program that enrolled the participation of the Yshiro people of Paraguay, in this article I develop a different kind of analysis, one inspired by an emerging framework that I tentatively call “political ontology.” I argue that, from this perspective, these kinds of conflicts emerge as being about the continuous enactment, stabilization, and protection of different and asymmetrically connected ontologies. [Keywords: political ontology, multinaturalism, multiculturalism, Paraguay, Indigenous peoples] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the hypothesis of "Showing Off" with Ache Hunters of Paraguay, proposed by anthropologist Kristen Hawkes. Hawkes hypothesized that Ache hunters hunt to show off in an order to receive social attention and increased mating opportunities. However, the authors proved that the group formation among the Ache hunters depended on the hunting capacities of the members. Ache men were tried to identify their prospective hunting partners during their foraging trip. To procure mates, young unmarried men and older men whose spouses cannot produce children, act as show-offs during the hunting trips. However they resorted to ensure food for their families on acquiring a mate.