Speaking and Singing Firmly: Beings (Un)related and (In)activated by Language in Amazonian Academic Research

Authors

• Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5879-1074

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.157032

Abstract

Academic research results can serve diverse communities and individuals, whilst the research can itself transform researchers in multiple ways. In this article, I examine the significance of more-than-human beings in the process of becoming a researcher and through their roles within research. By reflecting on over 20 years of research experience in the Southwestern Amazon, I look at nonverbal and verbal modes of communication related to more-than-human dimensions lived and learned with the Manxineru and Apurinã peoples. In these contexts, diverse beings are inseparable from the realms of sociality, and, consequently, from the practices and outcomes of research. In the second half of this article, I revisit a series of language- and land-based knowledge-sharing workshops, co-organised with the Apurinã communities in the Central Purus River region of Brazil. This article shows how community-based work on song vitalisation activated diverse forms of relationality with more-than-humans through nonlinear temporal dimensions. Consequently, it underscores the necessity of researchers' active and ethical involvement, recognising more-than-humans as actors as well as addressing and engaging with them responsibly. 

Keywords: relational beings, more-than-human methodology, language, songs, Amazonia