Between territories and worlds: spatiality and counter-cartography among the Kotiria and Kubeo on the Upper Vaupés River (AM)

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between the conceptions, discourses and cartographic productions about the territory of the Kotiria (Wanano) and Kubeo peoples, who live on the Uaupés river in the Upper Rio Negro Indigenous Territory, and are speakers of languages of the Tukanoan family. Our data and reflections are mainly from the project Plano de Gestão Ambiental e Territorial Kotiria e Kubeo (PGTA-KK) carried out between 2014 and 2016. We analyze the mapping and mapmaking processes, and the various maps resulting from PGTA-KK. From the identified places, we explored the relationship between toponymy, mythical narratives, healing prayers and other forms of symbolic expressions of kinds of knowledge that ‘sit in places’ and in the landscape. The comparative analysis of these issues between the Kotiria and Kubeo gives rise to a reflection on a shared spatiality as a symbolic dimension that structures the conception about territory. Based on this concept, we revisit the cartographic production of Kotiria and Kubeo in order to reflect on the limits and potentialities of the use of different types of maps and mapmaking activities by indigenous peoples. This includes the so-called ‘counter-cartographies,’ ‘indigenous cartographies,’ ‘ethnomapping’ and other forms of cartographic productions capable of innovating the representation of territory so as to be more faithful to indigenous conceptions about place, territories and worlds.

Keywords
Kotiria; Kubeo; Vaupés; Contra-Cartography; Ethnomapping; PGTA