Narrating and listening to the plots of lives of territories: Building bridges in face of the climate emergency.

Construindo pontes diante da emergência climática

Abstract

The climate emergency, which threatens all of humanity and places certain groups at greater risk, calls us to act and think collaboratively. Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, through their relational ontologies, are more aware of the ecodependence in which we participate, yet their voices are often overshadowed by historical colonialism and racism. This text highlights the importance of storytelling and listening to the experiences of relationship, coexistence, and communication with the diverse beings, bodies, and things that compose and recreate a territory. Storytelling and listening are tools that capture multispecies affective ties in territories threatened by extractive and dispossessing logics, which can lead to what Donna Haraway (2019) calls “respons—ability” to confront present and future challenges. This analysis is based on written sources from Latin American political ecology, social psychology, environmental philosophy, and authors from Indigenous peoples.