Detachable Persons, Porous Bodies, and the Art of Love in the Argentinean Chaco

FLORENCIA TOLA

Lowland South American Worlds

ROUTLEDGE

Lugar: LONDRES; Año: 2023; p. 1 - 25

In this paper, I examine aspects of personhood (shiỹaxaua) among the Qom (Toba) people of the Gran Chaco, specifically those in Argentina. I explore Qom ideas of birth, body appearance, disease, death and passionate love, showing that persons are the result of gradual processes of transformation that take place before birth and continue even after death. These processes involve parents and relatives, together with a variety of nonhuman beings, without which the body manifestations that a person goes through could not take place. This leads me to describe those body components that make life possible and that transcend the human person (nqui’i and ncalaxa). I conclude by showing the importance of studies of the body and personhood among indigenous peoples who have been involved in permanent interaction with nation states for more than a century, including land claims. Notions of personhood and the body suggest an ontology in which relations with the environment are not limited to subsistence, as nonhuman persons are also necessary for the constitution of human persons.