Lately, social outbursts materialized in Southern Abya Yala, making visible the Decoloniality, Epistemicide and Epistemic Violence that affect the territory. This symbolic opening of the decolonial, executed by corporealities that narrate and act, opens the way to propose new conceptions about the corporal composition of the Self based on the cosmovisions of the ancestral communities, in this case of the Central Andes.
Therefore, it is worth asking from the perspective of Corporeal Studies and the Philosophy of Theatrical Praxis: Can an Andean corporeality be identified? The answer at first sight seems to be affirmative, however, it assumes that 'corporeality' is a concept of the established Corporeal Phenomenology, and that 'Andean' is limited to a geographical category.
This presentation proposes that: the notion of 'corporeality' requires an exercise of epistemic decolonization, since the Andean cosmovision identifies 'invisibilized' corporal categories that would contribute to the analysis and understanding of their festive-ritual expressions. And on the other hand, to deepen and provide a current and territorial view of Constance Classen's doctoral thesis (1990) by means of social manifestations, where a process of cognitive justice and corporal concepts of the Runa Simi language can be appreciated.
Keywords: Corporeity, Decolonization, Andean Cosmovision, Cognitive Justice, Epistemicide

Natalia Bieletto Bueno ∆ (Centro de Investigación en Artes y Humanidades, Universidad Mayor, Chile)

“Zungun or Listening to the Mapu”. Indigenous Audibilities in Chile’s 2021 1st Constitutional Convention

After the 2019 social uprise, Chile embarked in a Constitutional process to replace the 1980s Constitution written under Pinochet’s regime. The 2021 Constitutional Convention was constituted in the ballots, with nineteen seats reserved for representatives of the original nations. One of the first quarrels among the conservative right constituents and those representing indigenous groups, concerned the place that indigenous cosmogonies were to play in the new social contract. During this Convention, the indigenous representatives performed rituals, spoke their languages and sang traditional songs hoping for Chile to be declared a plurinational country. That in mind, the proposal considered “Nature as the holder of the rights recognized in this Constitution that are applicable to it” (Ch. II, 18th Article). Such proposition was based on ancestral listening practices and notions of sound (zungun), that confer birds, the wind, mountains or the rivers the same status as humans, and thus considers them legal subjects whose rights should be guaranteed. Dialoguing with the field of sensory legal studies, this paper presents how the mapuche people’s understanding of “listening to the mapu” (earth) has called for a consideration of native acoustemologies and indigenous audibilities (Feld 2015, Robinson 2021, Minks 2023) in the making of the juridical order.

Keywords: Sensory Legal Studies, Listening, Indigenous Audibilities, Acoustemological Conflict, Interculturality and the senses

Maria Fernanda Suarez Olvera ∆ (INDI, Concordia University, Canada)

The Tactility of Textile-Making among Nahua Women of San José Cuacuila, Puebla, Mexico.

As a Mestiza artist, this performance is a way of honouring my relationship with the Nahua women of San José Cuacuila, a community located in the Northern Mountain range of Puebla, Mexico. Through an autoethnographic creative writing approach, combining prose and images, the piece describes the process of decolonizing my senses that has occurred since 2021. By rewriting my fieldwork notes, I reflect on the formation of my touch sensibility in relation to the care of other women in my life. Drawing from my memories of touch, I acknowledge it as the primary sense to create an intimate relationship with the Sihuame Tlatsahuane, weavers of the community. In our relationship, the materiality of wool is a central element that brings us together; through it, we learn about its multiple transformations and our differences as women. In the contingent relation between touch, textile making, and sounds, I delve deeper into the loss of Nahuatl words and the possibilities of listening and naming. Through this, I explore the potentialities of touch and sound as mediums for sharing and passing down knowledge. The process of unlearning my colonized education accordingly acknowledges the live forces that circulate in the folds of the mountains.
Keywords: Indigenous and Mestizas Women, decolonization, touch and sounds