Naro San Song: Tracks of feeling and healing with a more-than-human world

This thesis explores Naro San song as a relational way of being, offering a subtle shift from ontological framings toward what I call a becoming of feeling. It asks how song brings the Naro San into felt relationship with a more-than-human world. Guided by decolonial and relational Indigenous paradigms, the inquiry took shape through six semi-structured conversational interviews with elders from the Naro San community of D’Kar in the Ghanzi District of Botswana. What emerged were stories of song drawing people into zones of close-felt encounter with a more-than human world. This thesis suggests that it is through close-felt encounters facilitated by song that healing occurs. Rather than framing song as expressive or symbolic, this study foregrounds song as relation itself — a thread of attunement that deepens proximity with more-than-human diversities and imbues healing. This research contributes to conversations at the intersections of ethnobiology, Indigenous knowledge, and decolonial scholarship. It does not seek to redefine ethnobiology but to offer a connection to centre ways of relating that are felt, embodied, and rooted in lived experience. In doing so, it gestures toward relational ways of being.