--- title: "Memory and Transmission: Living Archives, Written Archives" sousTitre: "Two Voices on Knowledge and Its Supports" description: "Between the organic memory defended by Baptiste Morizot and the oral transmission of Yanomami knowledge carried by Davi Kopenawa, a tension emerges around the forms of preservation and sharing of understanding. These two excerpts invite us to question the conditions of their persistence, without prematurely opposing or reconciling their approaches." date: 2026-09-18 lang: en tradition: transversal auteurs: ["Baptiste Morizot", "Davi Kopenawa"] --- # Memory and Transmission: Living Archives, Written Archives Give us a lever, and a fulcrum… These words open a reflection on the conditions of transmission. Two voices, two contexts, two ways of conceiving the memory of knowledge. One clings to what persists in practices and narratives; the other questions the effects of writing on knowledge carried by speech. Neither offers a single solution, but each exposes, in its own way, the stakes of what is passed down—and what risks being lost. ## Memory as a Lever Baptiste Morizot evokes a memory that cannot be reduced to inert traces. This is not about archives in the conventional sense, but an active persistence rooted in the living itself. The passage cited does not elaborate on what these archives might be, but it suggests a form of knowledge that does not content itself with being recorded. It raises a question: what can we rely on to ensure this knowledge does not vanish? > Give us a lever, and a fulcrum… On Monday, May 6, 2019, scientists... > > — **Baptiste Morizot**, *Raviver les braises du vivant*. éd. after the French original. The image of the lever and the fulcrum refers to a mechanics of transmission. It implies that knowledge is not merely content to be preserved, but forces to be reactivated. Morizot does not specify here how this knowledge manifests—through gestures, stories, relationships with the non-human?—but he indicates that its survival depends on action, on intervention. The fulcrum is not given: it must be found, or created. ## Writing as Tool and Risk Davi Kopenawa approaches the question of writing from a different angle. His relationship with the written word is marked by tension: he acknowledges its usefulness in defending his community’s rights while maintaining a critical distance. The passage cited does not describe the modalities of Yanomami oral transmission, but it reveals a wariness toward a tool that, though necessary, is not neutral. > Davi Kopenawa, concerned with enabling the young people of his community to master the Whites’ writing in order to better defend their rights, was, despite his shamanic reservations about writing and its mode of knowledge, the driving force behind this project. > > — **Davi Kopenawa**, *La Chute du ciel*. éd. after the French translation by Bruce Albert, Plon, Terre humaine series, 2010. Kopenawa does not reject writing, but he underscores its limits. His "shamanic reservations" are not detailed here, yet they suggest that writing transforms the knowledge it claims to preserve. The Whites’ writing is not presented as a mere instrument: it engages a distinct mode of understanding, one that comes into tension with other forms of transmission. The project he initiates is not an abandonment of his reservations, but a pragmatic adaptation. ## Two Fulcrums, Two Levers These two excerpts do not directly respond to one another. Morizot speaks of a fulcrum to be found for knowledge to persist, without specifying its nature. Kopenawa, for his part, evokes a tool—writing—whose usefulness and dangers he measures, without making it the heart of his reflection on transmission. Neither proposes a synthesis, nor suggests that their approaches might converge. Yet a common question emerges: how can we ensure that knowledge does not become mere relics? Morizot suggests it must be reactivated, without saying how. Kopenawa shows that an external tool can be employed, but cautiously, without resolving the tension between orality and writing. Neither settles the matter. Instead, they lay out the terms of a problem: knowledge does not preserve itself, and the means of transmitting it are never neutral. What remains is to observe what these two voices leave unresolved. Morizot does not say whether the lever he calls for could pass through writing, or if he excludes that possibility. Kopenawa does not clarify whether his shamanic reservations extend to all forms of archiving, or if they target only certain uses of writing. Their words do not contradict one another, but neither do they align. They open a space where the transmission of knowledge is considered through its concrete conditions, without a universal recipe. ## Sources - Baptiste Morizot, *Raviver les braises du vivant* — - Davi Kopenawa, *La Chute du ciel* — Plon, coll. Terre humaine, 2010, trans. Bruce Albert (propos yanomami recueillis et traduits) Canonical source : https://viasophia.org/en/articles/2026-09-18-memoire-transmission-archives-vivant-archives/