Il corpo fluido: Costruzione e dissoluzione dell'umanità tra i kichwa dell'Alta Amazzonia peruviana

In this paper I want to show how, in kichwa context (High Peruvian Amazon), humans and non-humans can understand and penetrate the intentionality of other sentient individuals, generating “transpecific relationship spaces” characterized by a temporary suspension of any ontological difference. For this purpose, I want to observe the Amazonian context through an ecological perspective, that considers human beings as subjects that exist among other subjects. In this way I hope to be able to provide a further ethnographic argument to the thesis according to which, in Amazonian cosmology, the notions of “nature” and “culture” do not constitute substantial categories, but rather represent relational configurations. First of all, I want to address some themes concerning the construction of native humanity, relying on an anthropopoietic approach. Then, starting from these considerations, I want to show how some kichwa adults, far from maintaining the human attributes acquired in childhood, voluntarily recreate places of identity indifferentiation with the aim of achieving “true knowledge”.