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Paper short abstract

The legalization of the Eñepa lands in Venezuela allowed to elucidate their geographical ontology. The use of ethno-geographical tools in benefit of a westphalian formulation was followed by experimental proposes for a relational and allocentred approach of their territories.

Paper long abstract

Between 2010 and 2015 I did a fieldwork among the Eñepa (Panare) of Venezuelan Guyana.

A first phase of this work was dedicated to the legalization of their lands.

Among the requirements of this process, there are two evidentiary elements: "ancestrality", which must be justified by the study of written archives and oral tradition; and "traditionality", which arises from cultural vitality.

Both arguments are synthesized in the knowledge of the territory by the toponymy and the monumentalization of certain sites, and respond to a westphalian thought: the territory is the appropriated habitat by a group which makes it their possession.

I followed these requirements and made a participatory map of the loan of 50 Eñepa communities. However, I quickly understood that there was no conscience of a territorial whole and therefore no ancestrality.

The use of the land is done by negotiation and sharing and not by appropriation, the point of view of the others - very often non-human - is essential to account for spatialization.

In addition to the legal procedure, I adapted the geographical tool to the most appropriate levels of spatial cognition: the endogamical nexus (circuits of individual lived space; marital exchanges; assistance in rituals; fractional solidarity) the inter-regional level (exchange of goods; hostility; sorcery) and the onirical level (shamanic trips; mythical places).

The articulation of its three levels reveals the geographical ontology of the Eñepa people, essential to aboard the territorial dispute.