Copernicus in the Amazon: Ontological Turnings From the Perspective of Amerindian Ethnologies

Lagrou, Els

doi:10.1590/2238-38752017v815

Cited by 17 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…As I have shown elsewhere (Lagrou, 2018), the initiation in singing implies a process of other-becoming. Because the powerful singer has become Yube, the ancestor and spirit owner of the anacondas, his sweat is dangerous for his own kin, especially for his wife and children who could become ill if he touched them without taking a bath after the ritual.…”

Section: Ritual Song Txana Mudu and The Revival Of Shamanism On The mentioning

confidence: 78%

“…2 Because of lack of space it will be impossible to display all the materials that sustain the argument. I recommend readers to read also Lagrou (2013bLagrou ( , 2018. A version of this article has been presented at the Centre of Ethnomusicology of the University of Columbia, New York, on the 28th of April 2016.…”

Section: Pano and Huni Kuin Shamanism From Invisibility To Super-visimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The song makes the hunter see what the doubles, the yuxin of the animals ingested, are doing with his eye soul, causing his body to feel headaches, fatigue or worse. These are clear cases of predator/prey reversal (see Lagrou, 2013bLagrou, , 2018.…”

Section: Ritual Song Txana Mudu and The Revival Of Shamanism On The mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the translation of the songs it appears as if the body soul is responsible for the vocalization, interpretation and reorientation of the eye soul's perceptions and experiences in the world of soul doubles. It is as if the song comes to rescue the eye soul when involved in dangerous aesthetic battles whereby the soul doubles of game throw their clothes, their bodies and their ornaments (that is their body soul) onto the eye soul of the hunter who becomes thus trapped in a new form, a new body in becoming (see Lagrou, 2018). If this process is not counteracted with the right song, the hunter will run off into the forest and slowly, through his new bodily aff ections and perspective, become transformed in the animal who/which trapped his eye soul with his weapons/ornaments.…”

Section: Comment By Sebiruamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The "songs to see" take seriously the risk of becoming what one eats, by the process of being eaten, sexually, by what one has ingested. That is, peccarybecoming, spider-monkey-becoming, these are virtual destinies due to the possibility of inversion of the predatory relation, if revenge is not averted (see Lagrou, 2018). Jaguar-becoming and boa-becoming, on the other hand, are becomings actively sought after by initiating shamans.…”

Section: Comment By Sebiruamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Anaconda-becoming: Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics

Lagrou

2018

Horiz. antropol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

After depicting the contemporary scene of Huni Kuin ayahuasca shamanism and artistic agency, I analyze a selection of image-songs from this ritual. The songs unveil the workings of embodied perception and synesthesia, that is, the transductions of bodily sensations and perceptions in vision, rhythm, song and sound. The experience entails a process of other-becoming where to know means to see through the eyes of Other; to be covered with the skin/ornaments of those beings one has consumed and to sing through their voice. This other-becoming is a becoming in a deleuzian sense, which means that the lived experience is situated in-between the space of self and other. In this context the expression “you are what you eat” has specific implications for one’s health and for the acquisition of agentive and perceptive capabilities of other beings. The ritual technique of almost becoming consists of alternatingly producing and undoing temporary transformations through song.

show abstract

Section: Ritual Song Txana Mudu and The Revival Of Shamanism On The mentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Pano and Huni Kuin Shamanism From Invisibility To Super-visimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ritual Song Txana Mudu and The Revival Of Shamanism On The mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comment By Sebiruamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comment By Sebiruamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Anaconda-becoming: Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics

Lagrou

2018

Horiz. antropol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Indigenous Knowledge and Ontological Difference? Ontological Pluralism, Secular Public Reason, and Knowledge between Indigenous Amazonia and the West

Tym

2024

Comp Stud Soc Hist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Real knowledge emerges from “impossible” worldviews. Or, put differently, it is possible to accept knowledge that is produced by people whose ontological presuppositions–their baseline assumptions about the nature of reality–one entirely rejects. How can this fact be accommodated, not by advancing a wishful post-dualism, dangerous post-secularism, or implausible ontological relativism, but by working within the tradition of secular political philosophy so that indigenous knowledge, too, can be a basis for public policy and collective action in secular societies? Via a reframing Amazonian multinaturalist perspectivism–which has so inspired post-dualist civilizational critiques–as a social theory of health and illness that informs contemporary Western epidemiology’s struggles to theorize the distribution of health and illness in mass society, this article advances a general approach to recognizing knowledge that has been developed on the other side of boundaries of ontological difference. It argues that the accuracy or efficacy of any particular indigenous knowledge-practice implies the generative potential as theory of the ontological presuppositions that facilitated the knowledge-practice’s evolution. Combining the ontological turn’s interest in the innovativeness of indigenous concepts with a proposal for superseding its incommensurable worlds and abandonment of the aspiration to more-than-local knowledge, the article shows that indigenous ideas and their underlying ontologies are more than generic alternatives to inspire Western civilizational renewal, and opens a path to their legitimization as actionable knowledge in the terms of secular public reason.

show abstract

Where the material and the symbolic intertwine: Making sense of the Amazon in the Anthropocene

Pereira

Gebara

2022

Rev. Int. Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Forests, and ways of relating to forests, are critical to the planet, yet largely neglected in IR. In this article, we engage with the debate on the Anthropocene and explore different forms of relationality to forests and Amazonian indigenous symbolism. Drawing mainly on political sociology, political ecology, and anthropology, we approach the Amazon basin as a site where nature, culture, resource extraction, and spirituality are enmeshed, and discuss material and symbolic meanings of the forest. The article starts by briefly reviewing discourses around the Anthropocene. It then looks at Amazonian countries with a specific focus on the classist foundations of socioecological exploitation that underpin anthropocentric attitudes and practices, and analyses the material way of perceiving the Amazon. It proceeds by addressing the diverse symbolism present in indigenous traditional knowledge; symbolism that may help in moving politics and society beyond the dominant attitudes that initiated the Anthropocene. Finally, the article offers possibilities for perceiving the forest differently and intertwining the Amazon's material and symbolic worlds.

show abstract

Copernicus in the Amazon: Ontological Turnings From the Perspective of Amerindian Ethnologies

Cited by 17 publications

References 22 publications

Anaconda-becoming: Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics

Anaconda-becoming: Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics

Indigenous Knowledge and Ontological Difference? Ontological Pluralism, Secular Public Reason, and Knowledge between Indigenous Amazonia and the West

Where the material and the symbolic intertwine: Making sense of the Amazon in the Anthropocene

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About