Abstract

RESTREPO, Eduardo. Afro-Descendant Corporalities in the Colombian Pacific. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2024, vol.60, n.3, e2671.  Epub Sep 01, 2024. ISSN 0486-6525.  https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472x.2671.

This article focuses on examining the notions and bodily practices among Afro-descendants in the Colombian Pacific, highlighting the importance of understanding how multiple networks of meanings and bodily technologies intersect in different contexts. Through the analysis of documentary and ethnographic archives, principles of intelligibility are identified, which shape the conditions of possibility for meaning-making practices in the social world. These principles are not understood as closed models, but as open and contestable configurations, in line with a logic of heterogeneity. The ontological approach is rejected, and the folklorization of beliefs is avoided, emphasizing instead the importance of contextualizing and historicizing these principles. The article is grounded in decades of ethnographic work in the region and examines bodily modeling practices from gestation to therapeutic and witchcraft practices, as well as thermal contrasts and the dichotomy between the divine and the human. The conclusions suggest opening interpretive horizons beyond prevailing ethnically-focused approaches.

Keywords : body; principles of intelligibility; body modeling practices; cultural configuration; black communities.

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