Maintaining Relations with the More-than-Human World through Shuar Science
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Authors
Jakubchik-Paloheimo, Martina
Date
2025-05-05
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Indigenous Science , More-than-human , Planetary Health , Decolonial Theory , Amazon Rainforest , Ecuador , Pluriverse , Relationality , Community-based Participatory Research , Indigenous-led Research , Development Geographies , Geographies of Peace , Buen Vivir , Rights of Nature , Cuerpo Territorio
Alternative Title
Abstract
The environmental health of the collective 803,000 hectares of biodiverse Shuar territory that sustains Shuar life and livelihoods is at risk of contamination and degradation. Increasing mining conflicts in Shuar territory over the last five and a half years exposed the coloniality of Ecuadorian state power, which is increasingly supporting transnational mining interests over the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Increasing extractive activities in the region threaten this vital ecosystem, and ancestral science is being lost alongside Shuar territory.
Shuar communities steward their relations with the more-than-human world through their science. Engaging in decolonial theory and a political ecology framework, this dissertation investigates Shuar science as critical for the communities’ well-being in the context of overall planetary health. We highlight Shuar’s relational epi-ontology of their ancestral landscape through spiritual geographies that point to determinants of planetary health and human flourishing. Envisioning peace through the eyes of the Shuar Peoples points to the need to engage with ‘cuerpo territorio’ around geographies of peace to make strides towards the pluriverse.
Interviews for this research were conducted in Shuar communities across the Morona Santiago province of Ecuador. This doctoral research was initiated and led by Shuar members of the community of Buena Esperanza in partnership with the author of this thesis, a white-settler PhD researcher from Canada. Using a community-based participatory research process (CBPR), this data was collected through seven essential phases called the ‘Chicha Protocol,’ outlining the axis between research and activism using relational CBPR.
Geographies of peace for Shuar People included the rights of nature (‘buen vivir’) or, as articulated by the Shuar concept, penker pujustin: all nature living in harmony with all living beings. Shuar science holds critical lessons about communicating with and listening to this more-than-human world. Ceremonial praxis, such as singing anents, exemplifies customs that make up a larger world of Shuar science. Anentaim-sa-tin -Nunka in the Shuar language, or ‘Thinking Earth’, is the concept that describes the agency of the more-than-human world. Shuar science unveils “Thinking Earth’s” ability to communicate and share wisdom through an understanding of the more-than-human world.