Communication and indigenous thought

Indigenous Thought and Communication

 

The field of Communication, traditionally anchored in Western paradigms, finds in Indigenous thought an opportunity to expand its epistemological and methodological boundaries. The thinking of Brazil's Indigenous peoples, representing 305 ethnic groups and 274 distinct languages (IBGE, 2010), offers a worldview that transcends the typical dichotomies of Western thinking, such as nature and culture, subject and object, body and spirit (Viveiros de Castro, 2002). Instead of a reductionist and linear view of Communication, Indigenous thought proposes an interconnected approach, where Communication is not limited to the exchange of information but is a complex web involving cosmology, spirituality, art, and community life (Kopenawa & Albert, 2015).

 

Recognizing Indigenous participation in epistemological work, as observed by Correa Xakriabá (2018), is a way of contributing to the process of decolonizing minds and bodies, deconstructing the perception that Indigenous peoples are unable to occupy spaces for the production of knowledge.

 

This special issue aims to explore and make visible the Indigenous way of thinking, perceiving, and practicing Communication, paving the way for an interethnic and multispecies dialogue, from which emerge knowledge, concepts, and approaches that carry within them seeds capable of propagating alternative ways of thinking, creating, and relating to the world.