The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

Abram points out that Indigenous cultures do not experience space and time as separate entities but as intertwined aspects of the living world around them. Stories and narratives in such cultures are rooted in the land, and each locale has its own distinct voice and power, communicated through tales specific to each place.

Recording oral stories in written form detaches them from their specific locations, allowing tales to be transported and read in places far removed from their origins. This process gradually abstracts the stories from the land, leading to the emergence of a concept of space as a homogeneous void, separate from the place-specific experiences of oral cultures. Similarly, the cyclical, place-bound concept of time begins to give way to a linear, abstract understanding of time as a sequence of events, further distancing human experience from the immediate, animate presence of the earth.

The indistinction between space and time in oral cultures contrasts sharply with the abstract concepts of space and time in literate societies, where time is seen as linear and space as a void separate from human experience. The shift toward abstract space and time begins to diminish the sensory engagement with the world that characterizes oral cultures.