Otro lado. An inquiry into the conceptual topology of animism among the Moré (Itene) of the Bolivian Amazonia

Paweł  Chyc

doi:10.26881/etno.2020.6.06

Autor

Paweł Chyc Uniwersytet w Białymstoku

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26881/etno.2020.6.06

Słowa kluczowe:

animism, perspectivism, ontology,, topology, Amazonia

Abstrakt

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Moré (Itene) who, together with Wari’ and Oro Win, are the descendants of the last Chapacura speaking groups in Amazonia. I analyze, hunting story and elderly people stories (los cuentos) where the Moré explicitly conceptualize the notion of “the other side” as the realm of reality inhabited by non-human persons (the Deads, Spirits, Mothers of game, etc.). I focus on some topological aspects of Moré animism, such as conception of surface, boundary, space-time, distance markers, inside/outside distinctions. In conclusion I sketch some possible directions for further research in this topological framework for animism. I hope this paper can contribute to the renewed debate about animism in Amazonia and more broadly to the onto-
logical turn in anthropology.

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Biogram autora

Paweł Chyc - Uniwersytet w Białymstoku

Cultural anthropologist, PhD candidate at the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Assistant researcher at the Department of Cognitive Sociology, University of Białystok. His research interests include animism, ethnohistory of Moré-Kujubim and cognitive anthropology.

E-mail: pchyc@amu.edu.pl

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