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The Sisyphus Syndrome , or the struggle for conviviality in Native Amazonia
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Santos-Granero, Fernando |
| Copyright Year | 2012 |
| Abstract | Ever since the pioneering works of such people as Nimuendaju (1939), Fejos (1943) and Oberg (1949) were published, Amazonianist anthropologists have produced an impressive body of ethnography that has contributed significantly to general anthropological theory. Along with this process, and as discussed in the Introduction to this volume, they have shaped more or less consciously an ethnographic imaginary based on two radically opposing conceptions of Native Amazonians. The first image depicts them as 'fierce' peoples who exalt the value of war, entertain a 'macho' ideal of virility and are engaged in permanent intraand intertribal fighting. The second image portrays them as 'gentle' peoples who value peacefulness, have an 'intellectual' ideal of manhood and attempt to maintain harmonious relations at both the intraand intertribal levels by practising reciprocal generosity.' This bipolar imaginary is based in part on empirical observation. In effect, there are Native Amazonian societies that are more violent, or more peaceful depending on where we put the emphasis than others. But it is also based on emic models, conscious Native perceptions and ideals about how social organisation and interaction work which in some cases have seeped into the ethnographers' interpretations, and in others have been deliberately adopted as the basis of their analyses. No Amazonianist anthropologist would support the notion that Amerindians are quintessentially violent or quintessentially pacific. In recent years, however, there has been a tendency to raise to the level of anthropological theory the emic perceptions upon which these stereotypes have been constructed. Presented as antithetical ways of apprehending Native Amazonian sociality, these two approaches have been labelled as 'the moral economy of intimacy' and as 'the symbolic economy of alterity' (Viveiros de Castro 1996: 190). According to this view the first approach focuses on the local level and the domestic domain, placing emphasis on consanguinity, endogamy and the solidarity induced by moral sentiments, whereas the latter focuses on the interlocal level and the political domain, highlighting the importance of affinity, exchange and ontological predation (cf. Introduction (pp. 6, 24 n. 9), Goncalves and Riviere, this volume). |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/18147/stri_2000_The_Sisyphus_Syndrome_In_Overing_Passes.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Affinity analysis Amazonia Biological anthropology Conception Consciousness Entity Name Part Qualifier - adopted Ethnography GENtle Imaginary time Interpretation Process Masculinity Not invented here Scientific Publication Societies Stereotypic Movement Disorder Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
