Non-humans, time-spaces and Amazonian sociality among the Llanchama Runa of the Tiputini River

Abstract

We propose an analysis of the relationships with otherness that nonhumans and the forest as a living entity establish with the Llanchama Runa of the Tiputini River in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In order to develop this proposal, we have collected three stories that were shared with us during our fieldwork and that narrate experiential encounters between human and non-human beings, with special attention to the notions of time and space in which they occurred. We confront our data with the perspectivist theory and relational ontologies to delve into the particular ways in which humans face the crossings of perspective and into the figure of the shaman as a mediator and restorer of everyday life when it is disturbed by
the predatory attempts of non-human entities. We will see that the Llanchama Runa deal with non-human agencies using specific, relational and transformative values, mobilising themselves in two differentiated and simultaneous times-spaces; a condition that allows them to continue to exist and inhabit the forest under the social model of predators and preys that is always creative and performative.