Cuerpo-Territorio. Lessons Learnt on a Method to Study Embodied Emotions

Qualitative researchers have strived to recenter epistemic authority and knowledge creation by increasingly engaging with Indigenous methodologies. Such effort is fundamental to decolonizing research i.e., putting the research participant in the position of the knower and facilitating the emergence of their knowledge through methods aligned with their ontoepistemology. In this paper, we introduce the method of cuerpo-territorio (body-territory) to the wider social science Anglophone qualitative research milieu and join the conversation regarding the centrality of emotions in research. Cuerpo-territorio is a method for qualitative research centered on emotional and embodied responses to environmental change, developed by Latin American communitarian feminists and collectives. It is grounded in the ontological understanding that what happens to the environment is reflected and experienced in one’s body. In this article, we draw on original material from two case studies in Oña and Nabón, Ecuador and Xolobeni, South Africa, where local communities are involved in resisting the threat of impending mining projects. We reflect on the lessons we have learnt through applying cuerpo-territorio, particularly in relation to participants’ time availability and discomfort in drawing and linking the body and the territory to strengthen the method and enhance its broader application. We learnt that we cannot assume that participants will be fully able to appreciate its value and lend their time to it. In ideal circumstances, having time to properly deploy the method, leaving space for plenty of participants’ reflections, avoids instrumentalizing the method as purely a data-gathering tool and opens the possibility of rupturing it and making it their own for participants and researchers alike. Realizing when these circumstances are not present and adjusting the course of our projects is a fundamental part of our work of reflexivity as scholars.