Human Bodies and Bodies of Water. An Indigenous Kukama Theory on Aquatic Territory in Peruvian Amazonia

Abstract

In this essay, I analyze the relationship with the aquatic environment developed by the Kukama people (Tupi-Guarani) in the floodplains of the Loreto region, in Peru. The kukama engage with a variety of beings whose action causes profound transformations in the world they inhabit. I also examine the struggle of the Kukama people against the Amazon Waterway, a large-scale river infrastructure project, and the exchanges held between the Kukama organizations and the Peruvian State. The interaction between indigenous thought and governmental discourse results in a set of equivocations. The State manages these through a “translation” toward technical and legal language that replaces the corporeal relationships, situating translation in a “cultural” dimension that is defined in terms of subjectivity and symbolism. This process allows us to observe how indigenous thought overflows the intercultural models developed by contemporary nation-states.