Jiwasa: when territory becomes “we”

What if the collective were not a mass that erases the individual, but a living body in which each person can feel, think, lead, and belong?

This question lies at the center of Jiwasa. In the BrainLatam2026 perspective, Jiwasa is the experience in which territory ceases to be merely a place and becomes “we.” It is not a crowd driven by fear, propaganda, or authority. It is a living collective agency in which the individual does not disappear; rather, the individual is regulated, expanded, and situated within a larger field of belonging.

After understanding Body-Territory and APUS, we recognize that the body does not end at the skin. It extends into the home, the street, the water, the forest, the mountain, and into relationships. But this extension is not only environmental—it is also relational. When people share a task, a rhythm, a conversation, a classroom, a struggle, or a moment of care, something emerges between them. That emergence does not belong to any single individual. It belongs to the relational field itself.

That field is Jiwasa.

In a healthy Jiwasa, the collective does not eliminate singularity. On the contrary, it allows each person to express their best way of participating. One person may detect risk early. Another may organize speech. Another may regulate tempo. Another may lead briefly and then return leadership to the group. Leadership is no longer a fixed position; it becomes an emergent function.

This is radically different from colonial, hierarchical, or authoritarian models, where leadership is often equated with permanent command. In Jiwasa, leadership is dynamic. It arises from the needs of the living system. At times, the one who listens most leads. At others, the one with technical knowledge leads. At others, the one who first senses change in the environment guides the group.

For this reason, Jiwasa is not mass behavior. A mass loses critical sense. Jiwasa maintains belonging without losing awareness. The mass reacts. Jiwasa perceives. The mass obeys. Jiwasa composes. The mass seeks protection through fear. Jiwasa builds trust through relation.

This distinction is essential for Decolonial Neuroscience. Much of social and cognitive science still describes the collective through linear categories: individual versus group, leader versus follower, stimulus versus response. These frameworks are useful in limited contexts, but insufficient to describe living systems.

Jiwasa proposes another view: the collective as relational intelligence. It is not the mechanical sum of individuals. It is a dynamic configuration of bodies, affects, memories, rhythms, breathing patterns, postures, gazes, silences, and decisions.

Contemporary neuroscience has begun to measure aspects of this phenomenon. Research using hyperscanning with EEG and fNIRS shows that, during cooperation, learning, and social interaction, inter-brain synchrony can emerge. These studies demonstrate that brain activity between individuals becomes coupled when they share attention, goals, or emotional states.

Relational neuroscience expands this view by arguing that social interaction must be studied across multiple levels simultaneously—brain activity, physiology, behavior, and context—rather than focusing on isolated individuals (De Felice et al., 2025). This aligns closely with Jiwasa: what matters is not only what happens inside each brain, but what emerges between bodies.

A 2025 fNIRS hyperscanning study on cooperative learning shows that bidirectional information flow between participants reflects emergent leadership. Leadership, in this case, is not located in a single individual but distributed across the interaction itself (Li et al., 2025). This directly resonates with Jiwasa: leadership is not possessed—it emerges.

Another important development is the growth of embodied hyperscanning, which integrates brain data with bodily signals such as respiration, heart rate variability (HRV), posture, and movement. These studies indicate that social coordination is not purely neural—it is physiological, affective, and embodied (Grasso-Cladera et al., 2024).

Yet, scientific language still tends to fragment these processes into technical terms:

• neural synchrony

• inter-brain coupling

• social coordination

These terms describe mechanisms but rarely capture lived meaning. They measure connection but often fail to ask: what kind of territory, trust, and shared experience make this connection possible?

Here, Latin American perspectives become crucial. Territory is not simply land or administrative space. It is a field of life, memory, struggle, and belonging. Rogério Haesbaert emphasizes territory as lived and relational, connected to body and existence. Arturo Escobar frames territory as ontology—a way of being in the world. Ailton Krenak reminds us that belonging to a place is becoming an extension of it.

From this perspective, Jiwasa is not only cooperation. It is a mode of existence.

This mode requires criticality. A healthy Jiwasa is not forced agreement. It does not eliminate difference. Instead, it allows diversity without breaking belonging. This is a defining feature of complex systems: diversity increases adaptability when trust is present.

For this reason, Jiwasa depends on Zone 2. In Zone 2, the body reduces defensive activation, breathing becomes deeper, attention expands, and the individual can perceive nuance, update beliefs, and engage creatively. A collective operating in Zone 2 can rotate leadership, correct errors, sustain disagreement, and avoid destructive polarization.

In contrast, a collective in Zone 3 becomes mass-like. It seeks enemies, simplifies reality, repeats slogans, and becomes vulnerable to ideological capture. Not every “we” is Jiwasa. There is a “we” based on belonging and a “we” based on threat. The latter requires enemies to exist. Jiwasa does not.

The formation of Jiwasa is deeply influenced by early life. When children grow up in environments where trust is unstable, where authority is violent, or where the collective is unsafe, their nervous systems may fail to develop a stable sense of “we.” This leads to wounded Jiwasa, where the individual seeks belonging through rigid structures, ideologies, or authority figures, often at the cost of critical thinking.

This has direct implications for education. A classroom is not merely a place where an individual teacher transmits information to individual students. It can be a field of Jiwasa, where attention, curiosity, breathing, and interaction form a living system. Research using EEG and fNIRS in educational settings shows that teacher–student synchrony correlates with engagement and learning quality, suggesting that learning is not purely cognitive but relational.

The same applies to music, healthcare, teamwork, and community organization. A well-coordinated musical group is not just individuals playing together—it is a shared field. A healthcare team is not just professionals—it is a coordinated system of care. A community defending its territory is not just individuals—it is collective agency.

However, Jiwasa can also be distorted. Digital platforms often simulate belonging through algorithmic amplification. People feel connected but may actually be isolated, reactive, and polarized. The body senses “we,” but the underlying structure is not relational—it is extractive. This produces mass behavior rather than Jiwasa.

This is one of the major tensions of our time: the collective has been partially captured by digital, financial, and political systems that generate belonging without territory, connection without care, and coordination without responsibility.

Reconstructing Jiwasa, therefore, requires reconstructing territory, trust, and material conditions of life. It also connects directly to proposals such as DREX Cidadão, where money is re-grounded in the citizen as a basic metabolic function of the social body. If economic systems remain abstract and concentrated, they reinforce fragmentation. If they are reconnected to life, they can support conditions for belonging: food, health, education, time, care, and participation.

In the end, Jiwasa is the capacity to experience “we” without losing “I.”

It is territory becoming relation.
It is the body becoming collective.
It is leadership becoming flow.
It is criticality becoming shared care.

Masses need command.
Jiwasa needs belonging.

And perhaps one of the central tasks of Decolonial Neuroscience is to show that the human brain was not designed only to compete, obey, or accumulate.

It was also designed to compose.

References

DAMASIO, Antonio. Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. New York: Pantheon Books, 2021.
Foundational for understanding consciousness as embodied, integrating interoception, proprioception, and action.

HAESBAERT, Rogério. “From Body-Territory to Territory-Body (of the Earth): Decolonial Contributions.” GEOgraphia, 2020.
Key reference for understanding territory as lived, relational, and embodied.

ESCOBAR, Arturo. Pluriversal Politics: The Real and the Possible. Duke University Press, 2021.
Frames territory as ontology and supports a relational understanding of collective existence.

KRENAK, Ailton. Futuro Ancestral. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2022.
Provides a perspective of belonging as continuity between body, land, and community.

DE FELICE, Silvia et al. “Relational Neuroscience: Insights from Hyperscanning Research.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2025.
Highlights the importance of studying social interaction across brain, body, and context.

LI, Y. et al. “Bidirectional Information Flow in Cooperative Learning Reflects Emergent Leadership.” 2025.
fNIRS hyperscanning study linking cooperation and distributed leadership.

GRASSO-CLADERA, Aitana et al. “Embodied Hyperscanning for Studying Social Interaction.” Social Neuroscience, 2024.
Shows the importance of integrating brain and body measurements in social interaction research.

CAROLLO, A. et al. “Hyperscanning in Social Neuroscience: A Review.” 2024.
Reviews the development of hyperscanning as a tool for studying real-time social interaction.