Other Worlds, Underwater Cities: A Proposal for the Ontological Characterization of Indigenous Alterity Worlds in Mesoamerica

Through a review of the Mesoamerican ethnographic literature and the author’s own field data, this article proposes a characterization of indigenous “other worlds” or “worlds of otherness”, highlighting certain ontological aspects that defy conventional conceptualizations elaborated both by ethnogra...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Lorente Fernández, David
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:México
Institución:UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO
Repositorio:Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/78139
Acceso en línea:https://nahuatl.historicas.unam.mx/index.php/ecn/article/view/78139
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:mundos otros
inframundos
cosmografía
cosmología
ontología
chamanismo
nahuas
Mesoamérica
other-worlds
underworlds
cosmography
cosmology
ontology
shamanism
Nahuas
Descripción
Sumario:Through a review of the Mesoamerican ethnographic literature and the author’s own field data, this article proposes a characterization of indigenous “other worlds” or “worlds of otherness”, highlighting certain ontological aspects that defy conventional conceptualizations elaborated both by ethnography and ethnohistory. Starting from a problematization of the apparent instabilities, ambiguities or contradictions that show through in ethnographic data, and inquiring from what perspective they are not, a series of concepts are proposed aimed to rethink the definition of worlds of alterity: geographic indefinition, ontological  continuums, fractal nature, and iterative structure, while questioning the uncritical use of the term “underworld”.