WEAVING THROUGH DIFFERENT NETS: REFLECTIONS FROM A MULTI-SITUATED ETHNOGRAPHY WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF SIERRA NEVADA DE SANTA MARTA (COLOMBIAN CARIBBEAN)

Abstract

The Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, Colombia, is the territory of four indigenous groups: Kogui, Wiwa, Arhuaco and Kankuamo. They share the ley de Sé, the natural order of the universe, addressed in this article as their cosmopolitics (Stengers), which manages alterity defining the function of all the existent, from an animistic ontology (Descola). The trabajos espirituales, spiritual works, including the pagamentos, are rituals for the vital woven between entities which allows the energetic and though flows that connects mamos (traditional spiritual authorities), owners of beings (jaba and jate), and the sacred materials, in an exchange relation, enabling these parts to reconfigure and appropriate each others sewá (knowledge). Because some of these materials have been removed from their original territory, the indigenous organizations and some concerned state entities have started a process for the nomination of their sacred materials as heritage as a protective strategy. Within this general context, and from the notion of cosmopolitics and the understanding of the indigenous knowledge as epistemology, this article reflects on the ideological stance of the anthropologist regarding the management from where different nets with different ontologies can be woven.