Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Indigenous Asháninka narratives of stingless bees reveal a deep respect for nature, linking oral tradition, medicinal honey, and hopes for the future with ecological stewardship. This research exemplifies storytelling as a pillar of human–more-than-human connection, identity, and resilience.

Paper long abstract

In the Peruvian Amazon, indigenous econarratives about Melipona stingless bees shape identity formation and human–more-than-human relationships among Asháninka communities. Our ethnographic fieldwork combined semi-structured interviews, participatory workshops, and collaborative capacity-building. Interviews explored relationships with bees, broader interactions with the natural environment, perceptions of ecological health and change, and hopes for the future.

Ashaninka community narratives portray stingless bees both as vital pollinators and sacred beings, woven into oral traditions that carry moral lessons and cultural values: Ritualized practices of seeking permission from the forest before harvesting— whether honey, wood, fish, or game— express profound respect for more-than-human life, framing human–nature relations as reciprocal rather than extractive. In the industrial capitalist world surrounding these narratives, environmental threats—including deforestation from illegal logging and narco-trafficking, pollution and invasive species—erode both ecosystems and cultural lifeways. Communities respond with adaptive strategies such as artificial hives, reforestation efforts, and natural pest management.

Our bee-location data generated through participatory mapping supports community livelihoods and informs national conservation planning. Engaging with government and NGO programs while maintaining sacred ties to bees and the forest, Asháninka beekeepers exemplify ways human and more-than-human worlds can be collaboratively intertwined.

By centering storytelling as an epistemic and relational practice, this paper highlights how econarratives function as tools of environmental education, cultural resilience, and interspecies care. In showing how Asháninka beekeepers connect past traditions with future possibilities, the research demonstrates how indigenous storytelling sustains both ecological stewardship as a foundational facet of cultural identity and the possibilities of becoming-with the more-than-human world.