Reading the Clues: Edible Insects and Karijona People’s Cultural Persistence

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n59.03

Nurys Esperanza Silva Cantillo
Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, Colombia

Abstract:

Drawing from more-than-human anthropology and relational ontologies, this research report analyzes how the link between Karijona people (Miraflores, Guaviare, Colombia) and edible insects has favored their cultural persistence face to historical colonization and violence processes. Building upon ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2018 and 2024, this article shows that insects are not only a food source but also agents participating in social life—their “clues” make up a semiotic system shared between people and the jungle, guiding decisions, harmonizing ecological rhythms and social processes, and warning about territorial harm. Entomophagy is informed as a discreet daily resistance practice, contributing to continue living on a relational world that extractive processes, colonization, and violence have sought to dismantle.

Keywords: Cultural persistence, daily resistance, relational ontologies, biocultural memory, Karijona people.