Colonial deliriums and shamanic performances in the house of the Other
Notes from an indigenous student of anthropology in Europe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17810738 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Felipe Sotto Maior Cruz (0000-0002-9811-0042, University of Vienna, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1809-4341 • E-ISSN: 1809-4341 |
| Publisher | Associação Brasileira de Antropologia (PUBLISHER • BR) |
| DOI | 10.1590/1809-4341.2026v23e05405 |
| OpenAlex | W7154505723 |
| SciELO | S1809-43412026000105405 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
I want this essay to be a reflective, personal and critical account of the experiences of an Indigenous Brazilian anthropology student navigating European academic institutions and spaces. I situate these experiences within broader histories of colonial knowledge production, legal violence, and epistemic injustice. Drawing on encounters with German and Austrian speaking scientific traditions, archival collections, political arenas, and contemporary Anthropologic debates, I interrogate how Europe continue to imagine and classify Indigenous Peoples through colonial epistemologies that persist in museums, universities, and emerging global legal-political frameworks, therefore, I name this as colonial deliriums. Dialoguing with Indigenous scholars such as Shawn Wilson, Vine Deloria Jr., David Kopenawa, Ailton Krenak, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. My essay develops the concept of shamanic legal imagination as both critique and method, displayed as a mode of knowledges grounded in relationality, territory, and cosmopolitical ethics. My narrative juxtaposes examples of legal and political spaces: the ongoing legal struggles in Brazil, including the Marco Temporal correlating with the pressures of European sustainability legal frameworks, such as CSDDD, Raw Materials Act); I`m able to do it because of my experience of advocacy, and facing the epistemic oppression and racialized disciplining within European academia. Through this lens, the text proposes a “counter-anthropology” that recentres Indigenous epistemologies, advances methodological reciprocity, and confronts the extractivist logics embedded in the legal and academic imaginary and regimes in the old continent. By foregrounding Indigenous cosmologies, archival readings, and shamanic methodologies, the essay argues for a renewed anthropological practice capable of supporting Indigenous sovereignty, territorial justice, and the recognition of other worlds within the house of the Other
Colonialism · Foregrounding · Indigenous · Metis · Oppression · Politics · Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies
| Highly cited | No |
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