Techno-ecologies of presence and the afro-indigenous opening

Abstract

In this article, we propose to conceive the rainforest and the Internet as techno-ecologies of the presence, that is, devices and contexts of relation aimed at making the Other present. We focus on ways of generating co-presentiality that, in a physical or virtual manner, precede the communicative field. In other words: we suggest that the forms of relationship between those present constitute the genesis (not the result) of media. Comparing some of the creative communicative uses that Afro-indigenous groups make of the rainforest and of the Internet, we depart from the idea of the​​“communication media” as mere technological mediator among people. As an alternative, we adopt a relational and ontogenetic perspective of media, paying attention to how socio-ecological relations create fields of co-presentiality and communication. Moving our attention from the technical nature of the media towards its practical genesis and social transformability, our ethnographic cases show how media, as techno-ecologies of presence, are configured, reinvented, and permanently opened to the incorporation of the difference.