Ana of voices

Abstract

To honor the unique person and researcher Ana Pizarro, we chose to do a synchronous reading of her contributions on the Amazon. Their approaches present a familiar and, at the same time, different perspective on the region. The article addresses the topic based on the author’s three motivations for dedicating herself to the region: the lack of knowledge in the Latin Americanism, Chile’s relationship with the Pan-Amazonian region and the issue of ‘our’ utopias and illustrated aesthetics (literature and art). Discourses about the Amazon point to particularities of the Hispanic (Amazon Valley) and the Lusophone (Amazon Basin) vision and always depart from certain situations in historical time and geographical space. The ancient Andean cultures themselves were searching a Paradise, The Golden Land of Peace and given the complex construction of Machu Picchu, we can see that there was a ‘plan’ to penetrate the Amazon. The perspectivation of Ana Pizarro’s approaches keeps the structural and semiotic complexities of historical events alive and she is an important voice in this direction of a new look at the region. Getting rid of a Western perspective means delivering a discourse different from the post-colonial and in line with the current one called ‘decoloniality’.