Dissertation Project

Su Vivir es la Lengua del Agua: Being Kukama between de‑indigenization, re‑indigenization, and the river world (Working title)

In this dissertation project, I seek to comprehend the reemergence of the Kukama people as an indigenous group in the border area of Peru, Colombia and Brazil, after a long period of rejecting the label “indigenous”.

On the one hand, a once powerful nation, under pressure from colonial and later national actors (missionaries, slave traders, military, and the diseases brought by them), transformed into “simple river dwellers” (caboclos / ribereños), resulting in the often-claimed disappearance of the Kukama as a distinctive group. At the same time, accounts from the last 400+ years constantly mention a group called Kokama / Cocama in the region. Descendants of the ethnically heterogeneous populations of Jesuit missions maintained certain cultural elements of the historical Kukama people that were and are often kept well hidden from outsiders; only to then start a form of public “re-indigenization” from the 1980s on.

My interest is how this shift in perspective, from denying any links to the indigenous Amazonian population to affirming them, works from an ontological inside perspective. Also, in this process history is (re‑)interpreted and constructed, but from a specific, non-Western point of view. To analyze this further, I want to investigate oral history applying the theories of Amerindian Perspectivism. The Kukama's own view on history and belonging is the main focus of this work.

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Sarah Albiez-Wieck