Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article I consider the impact of Peter Gow’s writing on indigenous histories as a key area of research on Amazonia. Building on his study of kinship as history on the Bajo Urubamba (1991) he presented a regional perspective on the dynamic social categories by which Amazonian people understand their relations with various “others.” Focusing on indigenous agency and modes of thought, Gow challenged certain lines of historical thinking that dominated anthropology at the time. I explore how his ethnographic approach to history has influenced a generation of regional scholarship, including my own work on memory and social transformation …

Singularity On The Margins: Autobiographical Writings Among The Shuar Of Ecuadorian Amazonia, Grégory Deshoulliere, Natalia Buitron

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Inspired by Stephen Hugh-Jones’s suggestion of a fit between Tukanoan writing genres and their sociocultural systems, in this article we explore Shuar autobiographical writings in light of Chicham (Jivaroan) individualism. By exploring first-person—nonpatrimonial—texts that have received much less attention in the regional literature, the article contributes to theorizing a different way of transmitting tradition:one focused on individual praxis rather than on collective patrimony. Through the analysis of three autobiographical texts, we show how their authors appropriate writing to construct singularity, or distinct “paths of individuation”: the personal story of resistance of a school teacher, the exemplary life course of a …

Territorialidad De Los Grupos Familiares De Pueblos Indígenas En Aislamiento (Pia) En La Región Del Yasuní, Amazonía Ecuatoriana, Roberto Esteban Narváez Collaguazo

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

El artículo presenta información etnográfica y una interpretación etnológica sobre los Tagaeiri y Taromenane como parte de los grupos familiares en aislamiento que habitan en el Yasuní, su forma de vida tradicional y su territorio, en un contexto de actores externos que inciden en la generación de violencia y de amenaza a su supervivencia. Sobre los pueblos en aislamiento en Ecuador existe información referenciada en datos indirectos que han dado indicios de presencia a partir de registros de rastros e imágenes satelitales y algunos datos directos, como avistamientos, encuentros en la selva, fotografías aéreas y, el principal, encuentros que generaron …

The Shuar Writing Boom: Cultural Experts And The Creation Of A "Scholarly Tradition", Natalia Buitron, Grégory Deshoulliere

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In dialogue with Stephen Hugh-Jones’s work on Tukanoan writing, this article analyzes the boom in patrimonial writing among Chicham (Jivaroan)-speaking Shuar people. Patrimonial writing foregrounds collective identity and understandings of culture as group property common to the Tukanoan speakers of the Upper Rio Negro but foreign to the pre-missionized Shuar. We argue that the Shuar interest in patrimonial writing can be explained through the history of missionization and the recent shift to intercultural exchange within the plurinational project of state-building spearheaded by the indigenous movement. By analyzing the wider context of knowledge production and the forms of knowledge Shuar scholars …

“Being Flexible”: Reflections On How An Anthropological Theory Spills Into The Contemporary Political Life Of An Amazonian People, Stine Krøijer

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article examines the work of William T. Vickers and describes how his theory about the flexible adaptation of the Siona-Secoya to their forested environment has spilled into their contemporary political life. Based on recurring fieldwork among the Secoya in Northeastern Ecuador, the article shows that “being flexible” has become a particular way of talking about and managing relations to powerful outsiders such as representatives of oil companies and government officials. The article brings together ethnography on the Secoya’s relationship to Occidental Petroleum Company in 1999–2001 and their turn to oil palm cultivation as subcontractors to a plantation company after …

Indigenous Political Participation: The Key To Rights Realization In The Andes, Stephanie Selekman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

"There is no way back, this is our time, the awakening of the indigenous people. We'll keep fighting till the end. Brother Evo Morales still has lots to do, one cannot think that four years are enough after 500 years of submission and oppression,” said Fidel Surco, a prominent indigenous leader, reflecting on Bolivia’s first indigenous president entering his second term (Carroll & Schipani 2009).

The Andean region is particularly appropriate for examining indigenous political rights because 34-40 million indigenous people reside mostly in this region. The actualization of human rights for Andean indigenous groups is an inherently complex issue, …