Losing sight
Melanie Strasser
Translation in Society May 5, 2026 DOI: 10.1075/tris.25002.str (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Linguistics |
| Key points | Argues that Amerindian perspectivism reframes translation as a mutual metamorphosis between self and Other, and proposes an ethics of translation grounded in relationality and difference that extends across human and nonhuman boundaries. The paper distinguishes translation from shamanism and critically revisits the Brazilian modernist concept of anthropophagy. |
Abstract
This paper examines the role of translation within Amerindian perspectivism. Drawing on Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s claim for an indigenous alter-anthropology informed by perspectivism, multinaturalism, and cannibal alterity, it explores the relationship between anthropology, anthropophagy, and translation. The first part critically revisits the modernist concept of anthropophagy in Brazil; the second part analyzes translation in Amerindian perspectivism, distinguishing it from shamanism; the third part develops a poetics and ethics of translation in light of perspectival thought. The paper asks how an ethics of translation shaped by perspectivism might be conceived and what an epistemology of alterity in translation might entail. By intertwining perspectivism, anthropophagy, and translation, it conceptualizes the encounters with alterity as a process of mutual metamorphosis between self and Other and proposes an ethics of translation rooted in relationality and difference that transcends boundaries between humans and nonhumans.