The Shape-Shifting Territory: Colonialism, Shamanism and A’I Kofán place-making in the Amazonian Piedmont, Colombia

This research attempts to bring into a serious dialogue critical ethnography and postcolonial historiography to analyse the Kofan indigenous peoples of the Colombian amazon frontier and the transformations of their socio-spatial practices and cosmographies in a long durée perspective. The thesis is chiefly focused on problematizing "indigenous territory", the notion that is taken for granted by a diverse range of actors, including the Colombian state, indigenous activist, as well as analysts. The ethnographic exploration presented unpacks the ways in which the Kofan people constructs and perceives the territory as complex and 'shape-shifting' in a context of historical violence, colonization, missionization, cocaine production, sorcery and militarization.