Question
Asked 18 March 2015
  • Landesmuseum Festung Franzensfeste/ Museo provinciale Forte di Fortezza & Museum Eccel Kreuzer

Can you recommend any articles on "Anthropology in/of the Amazon"?

I am especially interested in the Brasilian part of the Amazon, but hints on the neighbouring countries are welcome as well. Thank you.

Most recent answer

Philipp Altmann
Central University of Ecuador
Maybe, Eduardo Kohn is of your interest. His book "How forests think" is quite famous, a newer article called "How dogs dream" is a nice start into his work.

Popular answers (1)

Magnus Pharao Hansen
University of Copenhagen
I really like the somewhat overlooked work of the late Steven Rubenstein:
Rubenstein, Steven L. "Steps to a political ecology of Amazonia." Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 2.2 (2004): 2.
Rubenstein, S. L. (2012). On the importance of visions among the Amazonian Shuar. Current Anthropology, 53(1), 39-79.
Chicago
3 Recommendations

All Answers (15)

Werner Krauss
University of Bremen
"Tristes Tropiques" by Claude Levi-Strauss, and "Les lances du crépuscule. Relation Jivaros, Haute-Amazonie" by Philippe Descola. Obligatory rites-des-passages literature.
1 Recommendation
Robert Walker
University of Florida
Definitely Tristes Tropiques for Mato Grosso and the SW Amazon, out through Rondonia.  For the lower basin and Amazon Delta, look for Charles Wagley.  Not so much anthropologic as exploratory are the works by Henri Coudreau for voyages up the Xingu, Tocantins, and Tapajos.  If you are interested in readings on indigenous peoples, consult the socioambiental website ( http://pib.socioambiental.org/en?busca).  Here, you will find an entry for each tribal group, and a list of references, most of it anthropological, specific to that group. 
2 Recommendations
Philipp Altmann
Central University of Ecuador
For the Ecuadorian part, you should check (alongside with Descola) Norman Whitten and his wife.
1 Recommendation
James Maguire
IT University of Copenhagen
How about Hugh Raffles great book, In Amazoinia?
1 Recommendation
Magnus Pharao Hansen
University of Copenhagen
I really like the somewhat overlooked work of the late Steven Rubenstein:
Rubenstein, Steven L. "Steps to a political ecology of Amazonia." Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 2.2 (2004): 2.
Rubenstein, S. L. (2012). On the importance of visions among the Amazonian Shuar. Current Anthropology, 53(1), 39-79.
Chicago
3 Recommendations
Franz Rolando Flórez Fuya
University of Antioquia
Amazonía: pasado y presente de un territorío remoto: el ámbito, la historia y la cultura vista por antropólogos y arqueólogos en la Amazonía; by Santiago Mora
Can found it here
1 Recommendation
Kun-hui Ku
National Tsing Hua University
what about this? Browse through recent issues to get a sense what the association has been doing... http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_serial&pid=1809-4341&lng=en&nrm=iso
1 Recommendation
Maurizio Alì
University of the French Antilles
Dear Emanuel
Since 2011, I live in French Guiana, near the borderline with Brazil and Suriname. I admit... I am allergic to "classical" works realized on the basis of very short fieldwork (such as of Lévi-Strauss).
  • I think that a basic author to understand Brazil anthropology is Darcy Ribeiro (a very interesting author, with a critical point of view about the effect of ethnic transfiguration, who spent a long part of his life working on the ground).
  • Also, you will find a lot of data within the works of the Villas Bôas brothers: they have a more naïf/ingenuous approach than Ribeiro, without the same theoretical complexity, but they did a great work in Xingu region and played a seminal role in the development of public policies focused on the wellness of indigenous communities in the Amazon.
  • For a great corpus of ethnographic and ethnobotanical data, take a look to the work of Richard Evans Shultes.
  • A good ethnohistorical synthesis is "Reves d'Amazonie", the catalog of the homonym exposition held in 2012 (see also the works of the first explorers into the region: La Condamine, Ferreira, von Humboldt...).
  • About the impact of modernity/development/postcolonialism, a good starting point is the work of Colombian anthropologist Margarita Serje.
  • About the recent history of violence perpetrated against indigenous community, there are 2 seminal lectures: the book "El libro rojo del Putumayo, precedido de una introduccion sobre el verdadero escandalo de las atrocidades del Putumayo" (commented by Prof. Pineda Camacho) and the Figueredo report, which magically "reappeared" meanwhile it was "disappeared" during more than fifty years.
I hope this info could be useful for your work.
Best regards
Mao 
1 Recommendation
Mauro Cerbino
Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences Ecuador
Sugiero algunos trabajos de Blanca Muratorio, por ejemplo: Historia de vida de una mujer amazónica: intersección de autobiografía, etnografía e historia, en revista ICONOS no. 22.
1 Recommendation
Scott Macrae
University of Central Florida
You could look into Dr. Heckenberger research. His work involves both cultural and archaeological research.
1 Recommendation
Dolors Rodríguez-Martín
University of Barcelona
I think you could look too into PhD Montserrat Ventura Oller. Her work is about the Tsachila community in Ecuador and too she works about social construction of person, interetnic relationships...
1 Recommendation
Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez
Los Andes University (Colombia)
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and  Philippe Descola
1 Recommendation
Hi Emanuel.
I suggest these articles:
Ramos, A. R. (1994). The Hyperreal Indian. Critique of Anthropology, 14(2), 153- 171.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (1996). Images of Nature and Society in Amazonian Ethnology. Annual Review of Anthropology 25(1), 179-200.
Santos Granero, F. (1996). Hacia una antropología de lo contemporáneo en la Amazonía indígena. En F. Santos Granero (Comp.), Globalización y cambio en la Amazonía indígena (pp. 7-43). Quito: FLACSO-Ecuador, Ediciones Abya-Yala.
Veber, H. (1998). The Salt of the Montaña: Interpreting Indigenous Activism in the Rain Forest. Cultural Anthropology, 13(3), 382-413.
Dean, B. (2002). State Power and Indigenous Peoples in Peruvian Amazonia: A Lost Decade, 1990-2000. En D. Maybury-Lewis (Ed.), The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States (pp. 199-237). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Smith, R. (2002). El don que hiere. Reciprocidad y gestión de proyectos en la Amazonía indígena. En R. Smith & D. Pinedo (Eds.), El cuidado de los bienes comunes: gobierno y manejo de los lagos y bosques en la Amazonía (pp. 155–179). Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos; Instituto del Bien Común.
Gow, P. (2003). "Ex-cocama". Identidades em transformação na Amazônia peruana. Mana 9(1), 57-79.
Overing, J. (2003). In praise of the everyday: Trust and the art of social living in an Amazonian community. Ethnos, 68(3), 293–316.
Gasché, J. (2004). Una concepción alternativa y crítica para proyectos de desarrollo rural en la Amazonía. En J. Gasché (Ed.), Crítica de proyectos y proyectos críticos de desarrollo. Una reflexión latinoamericana con énfasis en la Amazonía (pp. 105-118). Iquitos: Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana.
Killick, E. (2007). Autonomy and Leadership: Political Formations among the Ashéninka of Peruvian Amazonia. Ethos, 72(4), 461-482.
Hvalkof, S. (2008). Colonization and Conflict on the Amazon Frontier: Dimensions of Interethnic Relations in the Peruvian Montaña. En D. Geiger (Ed.), Frontier Encounters: Indigenous Communities and Settlers in Asia and Latin America (pp. 217-288). Copenhague: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs; University of Zürich.
Chaumeil, J. P. (2012). Una manera de vivir y de actuar en el mundo: estudios de chamanismo en la Amazonía. En C. I. Degregori, P. Sendón & P. Sandoval (Eds.), No hay país más diverso. Compendio de antropología peruana II (pp. 411-432). Lima: IEP.
Romio, S. (2014). Entre discurso político y fuerza espiritual. Fundación de las organizaciones indígenas awajún y wampis (1977-1979). Anthropologica 32(1), 139-158.
Philipp Altmann
Central University of Ecuador
Maybe, Eduardo Kohn is of your interest. His book "How forests think" is quite famous, a newer article called "How dogs dream" is a nice start into his work.

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