Paper short abstract:

I examine the Andean concept of uywaña ("rearing mutually") in local practices towards the saint-gods, housed in the central church of Qaqachaka, an ayllu in the Bolivian highlands, which constitute the relational ontologies of the place: namely clothing and feeding the patron saint, Tata Quri.

Paper long abstract:

My focus on the Andean concept expressed in the verb uywaña ("rearing ourselves mutually") examines the rituals of practitioners towards their saint-gods, housed in the central church of Qaqachaka, an ayllu in the Bolivian highlands. I examine these within two ritual complexes that help constitute the relational ontologies of the place: in the practices of clothing and feeding the patron saint of Qaqachaka, Tata Quri, that happen weekly. My argument is that, through these practices, the saint-gods are transformed into persons (en Aymara jaqichaña), in counterparts to similar rituals towards the guardian mountains (called uywiri from the same verb) and Earth Virgin of the region. In the practices of clothing the saint-god, his old wrappings are removed and replaced with new layers, rather like the new meaty layer sought through the ch'iwu ritual complex for the carcasses of sacrificed animals buried on the guardian mountains. Evidence suggests that these rituals have Inka or pre-Inka origins, and address the saints as ancestral mummy bundles, although the practitioners do add new ritual elements constantly to the foundational ritual pathways. In the practices of feeding the god-saint, he is offered food and drink, again in memory of the ancestral mummies.

Paper short abstract:

This communication proposes to reflect on the actions that Andean communities have been implementing for the care of the moors and water. We will start from an approach that makes visible the relationships generated by actions that defend access and the right to water.

Paper long abstract:

The mythical accounts of the Kayambi communities highlight the importance of the geographical environment, more specifically, of its aquatic component. These populations maintain a particular relationship with their natural environment. However, access to resources such as water and land continue to be one of its main problems.

Throughout its history, peasant resistance in these regions has faced the legal and political immobility of national society. This caused social processes within community organizations that seek to resume their collective practices related to land and water management.

In this way, access to water is understood more as a process that not only consists in the hoarding of a capital asset but also as an element that affects legal definitions, social mobilization and in the case of the Kayambi communities as a mechanism of recovery of cultural and territorial identity.

This communication proposes to reflect on the actions that these communities have been implementing for the care of the moors and water and in order to consolidate community management. Such is the case of the declaration of water reserves to the territorial jurisdiction of the Kayambi People.

The actions that defend access and right to water are defined as spaces in which particular relationships are generated, so we will start from an approach that makes visible the transformations of political subjectivities and the social bonds that are generated.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on the 'practice-concept' uywa(si)ña, I try to show that the study of the relation between ontogenesis and attentionality, as it is brought forth in Aymara cosmopraxis offers an important venue to rethink critically notions such as "agencement" and "environmental education".

Paper long abstract:

How does the soil rear us? What does it mean, in practice, to be e-ducated and protected by "a house", "a mountain", a deceased mother, all potential uywiris? These and other related questions emerge while talking with Aymara families about their 'becoming' jaqi (Aymara people) with(in) pachamama. Etymologically, following Ingold and Vico, humans are above all people of the soil, who bury their dead (humus-human). Studying Aymara cosmopraxis allows us to see how human families, via everyday and ritual visiting practices -'minor gestures'-, grow intricate relations with the soil they till, the soil-earth hat shelters their dead, that affords wak'as and allows them to rear plants and animals. Through such naturalsocial reciprocity, plants and animals, forebears and other presences educate -and also protect- them and make them attentive to what humanification is all about. About how people make themselves 'humans' (jaqi) over and over again via patient, enskilling movements of affective corresponding with and attending to other potential or actual lines of life. In the paper, we elaborate on why it is necessary to criticize mainstream theorizations about 'agency' (intentionality, interaction, volition) and to look for anthropological ways -exposing ourselves to people's practices and the lines of life they correspond with- for studying the naturalsocial "agencement" in terms of attentionality. How Aymara families, emergent collectivities that are "sited in the encounter" (Manning), attend in an undergoing but active way to that what enfolds them -that what has seen them grow- and thus is educating them, in multiple manners.

Paper short abstract:

Starting from an analysis of kinship in a translocal Aymara community in northern Chile, I seek to reflect on the idea of relationality proposed by Ingold to understand how members of the community learn attentionally in ritual-festive contexts

Paper long abstract:

From an ethnographic study in an Aymara community in northern Chile (Socoroma), whose focus of interest is kinship, I analyzed the relational practices displayed in ritual-festive contexts, since through them can be highlighted in some ways how the people learn to relate attentionally. For this purpose, two moments of the annual ritual cycle are considered: Carnival (Carnaval) and May Crosses (Cruces de Mayo). In the first instance, the interest is in the relationships that arise from the centrality of the figure of the "carnavalón", a non-human character who returns to the village every year for this festivity and becomes human through its incorporation into kinship relations. In the second, the focus is the relationships emerged around the community crosses, sacred entities with family ascriptions, which are lowered from the mountains of the communal territory and then uploaded to them after a series of ceremonial activities in the village. Both festivities are explored from personal and community dimensions, in the relationship established by individuals with these figures, as well as in the instances of the festivities that put into practice different types of relationships that intertwine the members and family's lives of the community. Thus, starting from kinship, I intend to broaden the gaze to reflect on the idea of relationality and how education is being achieved attentionally at certain ritual-festive moments in an Aymara community