Symbiotic Corpography: Experiential Learning with Proustian Signs and Huni Kuin Ritual Trance

Abstract

This article proposes an interdisciplinary investigation into experiential learning processes through signs, articulating the work of Marcel Proust and the ritual practices of the Huni Kuin people of the Amazon. Drawing on Deleuze’s reading of “Proust and Signs”, the discussion explores how the variety of signs and the sensitivity of the body without organs configure a learning space that transcends voluntary control, allowing for the emergence of new potentials for individuation. In parallel, the study examines ritual learning among the Huni Kuin, particularly through trance experiences mediated by songs, drawings, and cosmologies that establish a symbiotic body without organs, emerging from the relationship with the signs of the ancestral world and the sacred medicine of Ayahuasca. By integrating these horizons, the study proposes an enactivist reading of learning that considers the dance between three bodies (organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective) and a fourth ontogenetic body—a space of bifurcation and lived potentiality within transformative experiences, both artistic and ritualistic.