Towards a circular theory of communication: The case of the Wayusa ritual of the traditional Kichwa people of Sarayaku

Abstract

The Wayusa is a community ritual that is part of the exercise of political imagination among the Kichwa Indigenous people of Sarayaku, in Ecuador. In this article it will be discussed as a case study arguing towards a circular theory of communication, emerging from the works of Paulo Freire and calling for an approximation with Indigenous cosmology, looking for epistemological diversity and interdisciplinarity. Based in comprehensive fieldwork, this article suggests that the Wayusa illustrates the role of communication in the knowledge-chain in the community of Sarayaku, while also describing the kind of communication that it is made of. Different from a dominant linear theory of communication, it points to a conceptual framework whose horizon is not universalist but based on each space–time context. Beyond explaining a localized practice, it is argued that such circular model can dialogue and challenge the linear one as an operative general framework.