This is a part of the article series Decolonial Praxis: Going Beyond Empty Words, edited by Fernando David Márquez Duarte, Dulce Alarcón Payán and Javier Daniel Alarcón Mares. Editorial and Translation Assistant: Lorenia Gutiérrez Moreto Cruz
Indigenous people represent about 6.2%—more than 476 million—of the world population, in both Latin America and the Caribbean, 5.8% of the inhabitants belong to one of the 522 indigenous peoples (France 24 2022, United Nations nd). In Peru, the Peruvian State recognizes the existence of 55 indigenous peoples in its territory, of which almost 4 million speak 47 languages (Ministry of Culture 2022). The majority of these human groups inhabit the Amazon region of this country. The relevance that indigenous people have had in recent years as part of global, regional and local political and social strategies is correlated with the increase in the visibility of the various types of literature that these groups have been positioning in the world. public space. In that sense, for the work in progress it is important to focus on these other materialities (oral stories, stories, myths, songs, dreams, among others), which refer to other worlds and which are told from other places of interpretation, thought and feeling.
The aforementioned must be understood from a first criticism of the way in which we perceive and approach the world. There is no doubt that the models we use to read, think and generate knowledge, that is, the epistemologies and paradigms that make up our intellectual baggage, also exert a profound influence on the production of knowledge, as well as on the construction of criteria of truth about the reality (Chávez 2014). These currents of thought shape the research questions that scientific communities formulate when constructing their objects of study, as Bourdieu (2000) points out. In this sense, it is imperative to rethink the various studies and historiographic balances that have addressed indigenous knowledge, both in their content and in their own places of enunciation. In response to this, ,seek to think about theoretical perspectives that are closer to the concepts, thoughts and feelings of those who are the object of study and who, in turn, produce their own interpretations for their diverse knowledge.
If the scientific knowledge generated from Western epistemologies can be questioned, this challenge can arise from the diverse epistemologies located in the south (Meneses 2008). As Meneses and Bidaseca (2018) have pointed out, it is necessary to recognize the ideological value and validity of indigenous knowledge and not perpetuate the status quo of a conception of knowledge—universal and valid for all diversities—that has been historically dominant.
Why a decolonial approach?
The decolonial inflection is an intellectual current defined around a series of problems derived from colonialism and modernity, which is based on the intellectual and political experiences and trajectories of Latin America. This group postulates that modernity arises in the company of coloniality, so that both are part of an indivisible process in which the latter represents the shadow aspect of the former (Mignolo 2003).
The pioneer in postulating reflections on the coloniality of power and being was Aníbal Quijano, a Peruvian researcher with an important impact on the academic and political discussion on decoloniality in Latin America. Quijano (1992) explains that the paradigm of rationality-modernity, which accompanies coloniality, established the universal bases of knowledge and relations between a global north and the rest of the world; so that this north concentrates ‘all forms of control of subjectivity, and especially of knowledge, of the production of knowledge’ (Quijano 2000, 29).
Restrepo and Martínez (2010, 37–38) define decolonial inflection as:
[…] the set of critical thoughts on the dark side of modernity produced by the ‘wretched of the earth ‘ (Fanon 1963) that seek to transform not only the content but the terms-conditions in which Eurocentrism and coloniality have been reproduced in the world system, inferiorizing human beings (coloniality of being), marginalizing and making systems of knowledge invisible (coloniality of knowledge). and hierarchizing human groups and places in a pattern of global power for their exploitation for the sake of expanded capital accumulation (coloniality of power).
For this study, the primary focus is on addressing lies in the coloniality of knowledge, understood as the epistemic dimension of coloniality of power. While the second, in the vision of Quijano (2000a), is understood as a global power pattern of relations of domination/exploitation/confrontation around work, nature, sex, subjectivity and authority. The coloniality of knowledge constitutes the basis for the subalternization, folklorization and invisibilization of a multiplicity of knowledge and knowledge that does not follow Eurocentric forms of knowledge production. As Walsh (2007, 104) indicates, the coloniality of knowledge ‘not only established Eurocentrism as a unique perspective of knowledge, but, at the same time, completely discarded indigenous and Afro intellectual production as ‘knowledge ‘ and, consequently, its intellectual capacity”
Restrepo and Martínez (2010) maintain that the coloniality of knowledge builds an evident epistemic superiority, which is manifested in the claim of universality of a specific category of knowledge: scientific knowledge. Added to the above is the characterization of objectivity and neutrality of this knowledge, characteristics that imply that, when acquiring knowledge, the knowing subject can distance from the object of study. This would demonstrate that said agent has the capacity to de-subjectivize itself, that is, to transcend the subjective. Only in this way can knowledge be built that is free of interests and valid to have a universal character.
In contrast to a non-place in the production of knowledge, to this ‘zero hubris’ from which these are produced (Castro-Gómez 2007); Grosfoguel (2006) suggests thinking in terms of a corpo-politics of knowledge, that is, understanding that all knowledge is situated according to the power relations inscribed in the body of the subject. By subverting Descartes ‘ well-known ‘I think therefore I am, ‘the decolonial inflection argues in favor of the principle of ‘I am where I think’ (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 193).
An important point here is to highlight the reflection of Castro-Gómez (2007, 90) regarding understanding that the decolonial inflection does not propose an epistemic obscurantism or a total rejection of scientific knowledge in favor of a ‘Latin American autochthonism, ethnocentric culturalisms and nationalisms. ‘populists’; On the contrary, it seeks to expand the field of visibility, which means, the granting of conceptual validity to various domains such as ’emotions, intimacy, common sense, ancestral knowledge and corporality’; In this way, we are committed to ‘integrative thinking.’
Along these lines, this research follows the path of decolonial inflection as it recognizes other knowledge—produced by the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people—not only as thoughts that can be added to a large matrix of universal reasoning; but in the sense of ‘a plural thought/knowledge from the colonial difference(s), connected by the common experience of colonialism and marked by the colonial horizon of modernity’ (Walsh 2007, 110).
Based on what was mentioned above, it is also necessary to situate this research in a place of intellectual production from the south. Thus, I consider it essential to share three characteristics that situate this text: the geographical space where this knowledge is being written, the place of enunciation of the author of this text, as well as the bodies/territories to which I refer with this research. Regarding the first point, this text is being written in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, thanks to the support of a doctoral scholarship; Regarding the place of enunciation, the writer is a Peruvian researcher self-identified as a Chi ‘ixi mestizo—following the idea of Rivera (1993) who explains that the Ch ‘ixi mestizo identity alludes to a hybridity, a sum of contradictions that does not seek a synthesis of these and that assume the white and indigenous part stained in both cases by the other; so I declare myself as such due to the mixture of the distant Quechua tradition of my maternal family born in Huarochiri (Lima) with a non-indigenous Lima tradition from my paternal family; and finally I address the knowledge and wisdom of the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people who inhabit the Latin American Amazonian and that are shared publicly on different digital channels, as well as in their own territories.
Cosmologies and ontologies in a decolonial key
In this text I decided to take the conceptualization of cosmologies derived from indigenous studies that address the ways of thinking of indigenous groups in the Amazon. In that sense, this concept follows a critical and decolonial approach from the ontological turn, based on ‘the idea that multiple worlds exist and that alterity is a function of the existence of these worlds’ (Tola 2016, 132). Dos Santos (2019) states that Amerindian cosmologies explain both the composition of the natural and social world, as well as its functioning, seen from Amerindian societies. In that sense, for Descola (2014, 441), a cosmology would be defined as ‘simply the form of distribution in space of the components of an ontology and the kind of relations that conjoin them’; so that Amazonian cosmologies would be rooted in the deep interconnection between these so-called ‘ontologies’, that is, humans and non-humans (animals, plants, nature, spirits, etc.).
If cosmologies refer to ‘the set of legal and regulatory texts that govern the life in common ‘ (Descola 2014, 441), ontologies would be related to ‘the type of constitution that specifies in each of these regimes the balance of power, the nature of the assemblies, the forms of representation ‘ (Descola 2014, 441). Thus, ontologies would be theoretical versions of the ways in which certain groups of people schematize their experience of approach and knowledge about the world (Descola 2014).
How does decolonial theory relate to the analytical concepts of cosmologies and ontologies? If, from decolonial theory, Western classification systems are questioned as the only ways of situating oneself in the world, it follows that the dichotomy of nature and culture can be understood as a hegemonic way of perceiving the world. In that sense, as Descola (2014, 436) states, the ontological turn—the opening towards debates on cosmologies and ontologies of the Amazonian indigenous peoples—would be a political commitment to put an end to ‘those Eurocentric categories and with the colonial project.’ Therefore, the recognition of other knowledge and knowledge produced by indigenous American peoples that go beyond this central split becomes relevant as part of the decolonial inflection, being key to forge and build new concepts from the places that were colonized and that serve to explain those historical phenomena, ‘without being subservient to the ways these processes have been conceptualized in anthropocentric accounts of Western history’ (Descola 2014, 436).
Amazonian cosmologies and the decoloniality of knowledge converge in their criticism of the way in which knowledge and power have been historically constructed. Both seek to overcome the hegemony of the Western worldview and recognize the ontological and epistemic diversity of indigenous cultures. Therefore, embracing these concepts implies, therefore, situating ourselves to recognize a position that is both geographical (the ways of imagining the world of diverse Amazonian indigenous peoples) and political (the valorization of this knowledge, knowledge and imaginaries).
An approach to the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people
To understand what the terms Kukama Kukamiria or Cocama Cocamilla represent, there are two possible interpretations. According to Espinosa (1935, p. 13–14), the term Kokama or Kukama can have two closely related meanings. On the one hand, it could refer to “strong people”, alluding to their physical strength. On the other hand, it could mean “people from there”, denoting that they come from distant regions, like the Kukama who arrived from the lands of Brazil. As for Kokamilla or Kukamiria, it would be translated as Kokama of heart, indicating a legitimate affiliation to the Kokama/Cocama lineage.
From the perspective of the Ministry of Culture (2022), an interesting interpretation of the term Kukama is proposed. According to this source, “ku” would be related to “chacra”, while “kama” to “breast, tit, breasts”, thus suggesting a meaning of “chacra-seno” or “sucks from the chakra” for the name. On the other hand, it is argued that “kukamiria” is derived from “miri” and “ia”, which translate as “thin, small, boy” and “heart, center”, respectively. Consequently, “Kukama Kukamiria” could be interpreted as a “nurtured small farm.”
As for the exact figure of the Kukama Kukamiria population, sources differ in their estimates. Reig (2012) points out that there are approximately 85,000 people, while Grández (2014) refers to the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) to affirm that there are 20,000 people. For its part, the Ministry of Culture of Peru (2022) registers a total of 21,658 people belonging to this community in its database. Despite their important presence in the Amazon, this indigenous people is in an active process of recovering the indigenous Kukama Kukamiria language (of the Tupi-Guaraní family). The last Peruvian census identifies a total of 1,304 people whose mother tongue is this (INEI 2017). Currently, as observed by Vallejos-Yopán (2023), the majority of this group settles in the lower altitude areas along the Huallaga, Marañón, Ucayali and Amazonas rivers, occupying territories that extend across several provinces in the regions. from Loreto and Ucayali, Peru. These localities include areas of Loreto, Requena, Ramón Castilla, Maynas, and Alto Amazonas in the Loreto region, as well as some additional communities in the Ucayali region.
Scientific literature has approached the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people from different perspectives: from linguistics, a grammar was built that can be useful for teaching and revitalizing the language (Vallejo 2015, 2016, 2018); From the theories of critical geography, the indigenous territory has been debated based on its own cosmologies, the effects on landscapes (oil spills) and in different spaces (Ruiz 2022, Reig 2018, Grados and Pacheco 2016, Moreira and Ramírez 2019, Angulo-Giraldo 2022, Huamán 2022, Farias 2023); while anthropology addressed its cultural practices (Ruiz 2003, 2022, Álvarez 2014, Berjón and Cadenas 2009, 2014), as well as theories of communication and culture investigated the communicative processes from Radio Ucamara and the work carried out with its reports ( Angulo-Giraldo and Guanipa 2022, Cabel 2022, Calderón 2020, Angulo-Giraldo 2022); Finally, recent studies addressed health problems and the effects of the pandemic (Ulfe and Vergara 2021, Reyes 2022, Vergara 2021, Fernandes 2022, Campanera 2022).
Various investigations show the importance that rivers have in the life of the Kukama Kukamiria (Latharp 1970, Meggers 1976). This group is distinguished from other groups in the Amazon by its roots in the river environment. This particularity is of fundamental importance, since it provides a unique perspective to understand the adaptive socialization process in relation to its river environment (Ruiz 2022). This is evidenced by noting that, in these environments, their main source of subsistence is based on fishing, due to two fundamental reasons: obtaining proteins from fish and the generation of economic activity that arises from artisanal fishing (Ruiz 2000). Additionally, the symbolic element also marks the relationship between these and the rivers, both to survive relationships with their missing people, relatives and other non-humans (Angulo-Giraldo 2023), and through aquatic shamanism (Ruiz 2023).
Despite the existence of a wide range of research on the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous community, both from external and internal theoretical approaches, the contribution of this text lies in its focus on indigenous cosmology, approaching it from a cosmopolitical and decolonial perspective. From this perspective, I seek to understand how this group relates to reality by identifying the presence of various ontological agents or simply “people” that interact, influence each other and establish relationships.
The term ‘people ‘ is used in this work to refer to the various ontologies/beings that include both humans and non-humans that appear in the stories of the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people. This term is proposed by Tello (2016a, 2016b) and its use is common in various materials from the indigenous radio station Kukama Kukamiria (Radio Ucamara 2015, 2016). The term is used in the plural and in quotation marks, since I want to differentiate it from the term people (in the singular), which only refers to human persons. It is worth remembering that Leonardo Tello, director of Radio Ucamara, and who self-identifies as belonging to this group (ONGCEBU 2018), reflects on these relationships with the river and the ‘people ‘ by indicating that:
[…]the Kukama people have immersed their stories in the river, not to hide them but so that we know that the river has life. The river has within it the life of the Kukama and their stories. This ‘having ‘ is not understood as ‘taking over life ‘ but rather as an intimately intertwined relationship between all the ‘people ‘ who inhabit it. In this way, if a person has fallen into the river and their body has not been found, we say that they now live inside the river. (Tello 2016b,116).
The above is evident from the analysis of cosmological narratives, which refer to mythical narratives, understood as ‘ancient stories, dreams, songs, lived experiences, reappropriated biblical stories and biographical stories that update mythical motifs that tell of the changes of worlds that the ancients lived and that resonate with those that current indigenous people live in ‘ (Tola et al. 2020, 818). In that sense, it is through these textualities—oral or written—that reality from the point of view of the Kukama Kukamiria is presented and can be studied.
As Tello (2016b, 115) states:
[…] thinking about the myth calmly and intelligently, as the Kukama and other peoples do, must first lead us to discover the indigenous peoples, their historical processes, to admire their culture and respect them since they keep very valuable information to think about everyone’s life.
Through this article I seek not only to demonstrate the knowledge and knowledge of the Kukama Kukamiria, but also to propose political and cosmopolitical solutions to the contemporary crisis that directly impacts the lives of humans and non-humans. In that sense, as Tola et al. (2020), indigenous experiences are not taken to reduce them to being better places of anecdote, folklorizing their experiences, but rather the emphasis is on proposing solutions from a dialogue with and from Amerindian practices and modes of knowledge. To do this, a “transformation of our practices and forms of relationship with the environment and with those who inhabit it” is required (Tola et al. 2020, 826), considering that “it is possible to change course, even if that means changing a lot of what many would consider as the very essence of our civilization ‘ (Viveiros 2011, 08).
Methodological approach
For this research, the approach to the cosmological narratives of the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people of Peru follows the decolonial methodology. To approximate the polyphony of indigenous voices (Morales 2019), this study engages directly with the reflections of Kukama indigenous intellectual Leonardo Tello, as presented in his introduction to the book Karuara, la gente del río (Radio Ucamara 2016). This book collects testimonies from various elders belonging to the Kukama Kukamiria people, which were collected in the indigenous language by the members of the radio, and has drawings made by childrens from this group.
As previously noted, Tello also serves as the director of Radio Ucamara, Radio Ucamara, a communication medium belonging to the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people, adopts a strategy that transcends mere representation, aiming instead to present each voice that inhabits the collective territory (Cabel 2022). Through diverse audiovisual materials, it highlights the multiple agencies within Kukama cosmology and their influence on the daily lives of this indigenous group. This indigenous radio station expresses its identification and position by declaring: ‘We are an indigenous radio station, located on the banks of the Marañón River, in the Peruvian Amazon located on the banks of the Marañón River, in the Peruvian Amazon ‘ that fights ‘for the defense of our river and territory, from our memory and wisdom ‘ (Radio Ucamara 2022).
The ‘people’ category for the Kukama Kukamiria
Who do the Kukama refer to when they talk about people? How are relationships established between people and these people? What continuities and what differences are marked between people? To answer these questions, I will begin by reflecting on the explanation of the myths given by Leonardo Tello in Karuara, the people of the river (Radio Ucamara 2016). The people or the people is a central category in Tello’s (2016b) explanation of myths. The first definition of this highlights that they are ‘beings of this world [Kukama Kukamiria world] that in other cultures are not seen as “people” but as animals, fish, birds and plants’ (115). This first approach introduces us to a differentiation between, at least, two ways of understanding the beings that exist in the world: a first in which only human beings are people, whose differential characteristic compared to other species would be speech; while the second way of seeing this diversity of agents would lie in considering them as beings capable of speaking and, therefore, members of a common collective called ‘people’.
If people can speak, therefore, their ability to listen is also permitted: the Kukama Kukamiria would converse with these beings not only because they can tell them things, but mainly because they can understand them, in the same way that they express themselves in a common language. to be heard by the Kukama Kukamiria. These relationships between people become vital for the Kukama Kukamiria cosmology, because they allow us to notice that everyday life is perceived as a constant interrelation between humans and non-humans. In consideration of the above, it becomes relevant to look for a way to maintain a balance in these relationships, that is, an organization under minimal common senses that allows the subsistence of the various worlds, therefore, the very subsistence of people. As Tello (2016a, 8) explains: ‘“You have to be people,” say the Kukama when they refer to the need for a dignified life, full of abundance and respect among the various categories of being “people”’.
In this way, the discovery of the various ontologies that cohabit the territories of this indigenous people and their effects allows us to notice ‘the intrinsic relationship that exists between the ‘spirits-people’: ‘animals-people’, ‘plants-people’, ‘fish-people’ and ‘birds-people’ (Tello 2016a, 8); Therefore, mapping the relationships between people would allow us to reconstruct the connections that humans and non-humans maintain in the daily lives of the Kukama Kukamiria.
For example, as Tello (2016a, 8) explains, the various mythical stories address these affectations by explaining how ‘a boa can become “people”, a heron can become “people” and people, which are us, can also live in the spaces in which those other categories of “people” live’. Thus, the characteristic of people is shaped both by a story about being—the capacity to be included in speaking and listening in common codes with other people—and by a geographic space in which a group of people commonly lives—the various territories that are part of the Amazonian space in the case of this indigenous people.
The constant relationships between them will also show that people can exchange places, that is, they move between moments of being and moments of dwelling, so their existence is not only told as a living body, a story of the present in which are boas, herons or human-people; but, as they are, they always have open the possibility of being other types of people, of transfiguring their being.
As part of these other territories, Tello (2016b, 116) will focus on the intrinsic relationship between the Kukama Kukamiria and the rivers, which becomes vital for the subsistence of both:
The river has within it the life of the Kukama and their stories. This ‘having’ is not understood as ‘taking over life’ but rather as an intimately intertwined relationship.among all the ‘people’ that inhabit it’. In this way, if a person has fallen into the river and their body has not been found, we say that they now live inside the river.
Understanding the river as a territory inhabited by people who belong to the indigenous people opens us to a perpetual and constant dialogue that affects other geographical spaces. If at first, I highlighted the presence of other people who make up the common collective of the Kukama Kukamiria, now the focus extends the landscape to incorporate the river as a territory where people ‘inhabit’, that is, ‘live’.
But what does it mean to inhabit rivers or live within rivers as expressed by Tello (2016b)? At first, it means that it is a space in which life is possible, specifically, that, if the land allows the existence of human beings, the river can do the same. On a second point, given that in that space there are other lives and that, as previously established, in the Kukama Kukamiria cosmology there are other people who inhabit the territories of this collective; so the rivers are being inhabited by other people. Finally, as Tello (2016b) explains, it is not only non-humans who continue to live there, but the category of humans expands to include the missing, that is, those humans who fell into the rivers, whose body was not found. but they continue to exist within aquatic space.
At this point, the category of people shows its elasticity to include other forms of existence: from what is properly human—in the sense of our Western-based cultures—to that categorized as non-human beings, among whom animals and floors; and then go on to also embrace the existence of the disappeared. If the act of existing implies, for Kukama Kukamiria cosmology, being people; in other words, being able to speak and listen in the same code with any other people-subjects; It remains to be resolved how this connection with the rivers occurs. To do this, I will now approach the immensity of worlds that open up when I refer to the cities under the rivers according to the Kukama Kukamiria cosmology. Leonardo Tello (cited by Giraldo 2019, 135) reflects on these cities and indicates the following:
For us Kukama, when someone falls into the river and we do not find their body it means that they have gone to live within the river cities. That is unquestionable, that is how it is. Communication is established from dreams or very distant encounters at certain points. Life can continue because communication through dreams and other forms will continue, the mother, father or siblings communicate and continue to have a family relationship, their families are within the river. That makes the river an intimate space for a family relationship. The river is no longer just water, fish and animals, but the river is like that glass where you can see your family member on the other side, but you can no longer touch him, but you see him, you feel him, you dialogue with him, then the river becomes in a prism to look at the other world. So that: looking at the river, seeing your family and seeing the river polluted, the oil is seeing that oil is falling on your family. You have to think carefully about that because it touches the most fragile fibers.
If communicative relationships were possible between people, emotional bonds are also possible; That is, family relationships are maintained between the people-people and the missing people-people. This does not mean maintaining the memory of these connections through prayers or memories of the past, but rather refers to the perpetuation of the bond, which continues to be updated in the present time, in everyday life. In this way, people who changed their territory (estar) and, therefore, their body (ser), continue to affect and be affected by the ties they maintained before moving. Connections were not eliminated, because people did not disappear, they just changed.
What are those places that people live under the rivers like? An inhabitant of the indigenous town explains that those who reside in these territories ‘have their homes, just like here, they have good houses’ (Radio Ucamara 2015); while another reminds us that these people “are not dead, they are alive, alive inside the lake”; and finally another member of this group indicates the following: ‘The veryunas are the gateway to the cities that are inside the lake. From there, from the cities, are the roads that go to other cities’ (Radio Ucamara 2015). A correlation is then established: the cities under the rivers follow the model of the cities on the rivers, those on the land, so that, just as there are streets, houses, markets and roads; This also occurs in the multiple spaces under water. Thus, life beneath the rivers cannot be reduced, in the Kukama Kukamiria cosmology, to a being that does not relate, but rather, to a being that, because it is and exists, is affected and is affected by other people, by the other landscapes. In this way, the continuity of life can occur both in the territory above the rivers and in the worlds themselves that are submerged in water.
Conclusions
The critique of the decolonial inflection, especially that reflected in the coloniality of knowledge, allows us to recover the views present in the knowledge and knowledge produced by a wide diversity of groups that shape the complex and historical Latin American territories. In line with this, the authors of the ontological turn try to provide new ways to build theoretical bases based on approaches to the epistemologies, cosmologies and ontologies that constitute the other ways of seeing, understanding and feeling the worlds of the indigenous peoples in the Amazonian territories.
By immersing ourselves in the mythical narratives of the Kukama Kukamiria from a perspective of respect and recognition towards their inhabited world, I find alternative approaches that invite us to rethink the life and existence of other sentient beings (people). For these indigenous people, not all entities (ontologies) live exclusively on earth, but there are other worlds inhabited by different ‘people’. Therefore, interactions between human and non-human beings develop through various spaces of cosmological communication, places where moments (times) intertwine and open the possibility that ‘people’ can travel between the three worlds: the sky, the earth and the underwater worlds (Angulo-Giraldo 2022; Angulo-Giraldo and Guanipa-Ramírez 2022; Giraldo 2019).
In Kukama Kukamiria cosmology, the category of people would not only imply a material and a priori existence, but mainly a relationship: the affectation between people is the central point to consider the possibility that they interact, therefore , to give value to their own existence. Paraphrasing a traditional phrase from Western knowledge, ‘I think, therefore I am’ in which the subject sees himself as an individual only inhabited by his thoughts and his reasons; I would move on to ‘I relate, therefore I exist’, by placing the effects and interactions with humans and non-humans at the center of our reflections as a central element to understand people’s lives.
Finally, what is relevant would not only be the material existences, these other ontologies categorized as people, but above all their relationships. So, if people are people, therefore, they are in a place, they inhabit and experience a space in which they not only breathe, but are involved in various emotional, friendly, work and subsistence connections. Therefore, the passage from one place to another, territorial transit, accompanied by a bodily transformation (from human to non-human), does not mean the end of life, but simply one more step in existence itself.
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