Translating the World and Making Persons through Kertí Werése, The Everyday Communicative Practice of the Tukano

• Grant number: 25/01054-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino
• Grantee: Dora Savoldi da Rocha Azevedo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 24/17181-2 - Subsidies for the installation of the Indigenous Documentation Center - actions by the Museum of Archaelogy and Ethnology, AP.ESP

Abstract

The research will address Tukano social relations and knowledge regimes through aspects related to language and the study of communicative events. To this end, it brings into dialogue ethnographic, linguistic, and translational literature. More specifically, I will examine the phenomenon of evidentiality, highlighting how understanding the use of this grammatical category requires an understanding of the context in which it emerges. I begin with the premise that language is an equivocal concept, and therefore, the study of the comprehension, analysis, and translation of linguistic events is embedded in an epistemological debate. Translation thus becomes an ethnographic problem. By examining Tukano evidentials, I intend to demonstrate that, similar to verbal arts, everyday linguistic practices hold anthropological significance in their relationships with specific thought regimes.