The myth of creation: producing podcasts from a pluriversal perspective with Indigenous people from the Amazon region

Abstract

This article describes the process, ontological issues, controversies, and results of a podcast production effort directed by Indigenous leaders of the Uitoto, Okaina, Bora, and Muinane peoples living in the Amazonian region, together with a team of Colombian urban scholars, and addressed to young Indigenous people in their territory. The effort implied a decolonization of concepts such as education, sound, listenership, and podcasting. It required accepting the existence of other ways of living, of other ontologies, in short, to engage in a pluriversal perspective. The Indigenous podcasts produced are based on relational ontologies, with no division between the human and nonhuman world: the voices of the long-gone elders go in tune with the voices of living ones, as well as with the sounds of the water, the birds, and the drums, which show the profound imbrication of all these elements.