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SALSA: Fifth Sesquiannual Conference June 17–21, 2008 Oxford, England - Paris, France |
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ABSTRACTS Page 1 Page 2
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Alès, Catherine
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Gow, Peter |
Mentore, George |
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Panel: Indigenous Peoples, the Private Sector, NGOs and the State- organized by Steven Rubenstein and Marcus Colchester This panel is meant to open a space for measured reflections and dialogue on the hotly debated issue of interactions between indigenous peoples, state agencies, human rights and conservation NGOs, and the private sector. It is aimed especially at NGO activists who design, and academic anthropologists who conduct research on, human development, human rights, poverty alleviation, and ethnodevelopment projects for indigenous peoples in lowland South America. We specifically invite papers on such topics (but not limited to): Hvalkof, Søren Large-scale collective land titling to indigenous communities was carried out in the Peruvian Amazon during the 1990s, radically changing the regional scenario of land tenure and control, altering local structures of power in favor of the indigenous population. This caused the timber extracting industry to change strategy,aggressively targeting large uninhabited forest areas adjacent to the communal lands. To counter this, the indigenous organizations proposed the establishment of co-managed protected areas, so called Reservas Comunales, where indigenous people have exclusive rights to carry on subsistence activities. However, the state environmental authority soon appropriated the process, turning Communal Reserve management into a multi-million dollar money-making machine fueled by GEF-World Bank funding. Based on a case study of the “Sira Communal Reserve”, the paper analyzes the social and political dynamics in the indigenous struggle to maintain territorial control and access to natural resources. It portrays the neo-liberal imprint on environmental policy, creating contested spaces of governance and contending discourses, as well as criminalization of social conflicts over natural resource exploitation. Caruso, Emily (University of Kent/Rainforest Foundation) The Peruvian Amazon is currently a highly contested political, economic and social space. Not only are huge swathes of it being concessioned out to petroleum and logging companies, but colonisation of indigenous territories continues apace, with coca-growers and the attendant ‘narco-terrorism’ being a particular threat. While the Amazon’s lands and resources are increasingly commoditised and industrialised, international pressure is also high to conserve and protect its ‘wildernesses’. It is within this context that the 1997 Law of Protected Areas enshrined a new category of protected area called communal reserves, which are co-managed by ‘beneficiary communities’ and the state’s natural resources agency, INRENA. Based on ongoing research in the Ashaninka Communal Reserve in Selva Central, this paper will explore co-management and how it affects the politics of indigenous organisations at the local and national level. Although co-management is configured as an ‘anti-political’ instrument serving to extend bureaucratic power over indigenous communities while de-politicising indigenous claims to territory and natural resources (Nadasdy 2005), I contend that indigenous organisations are also actively manipulating the co-management process to their own political ends. I explore how an in-depth examination of co-management regimes is a prime site for understanding the changing nature of indigenous-state relationships in contemporary Latin America. Gasché, Jorge (Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP), Iquitos) In the course of nearly 40 years’ experience working with rural Amazonian communities (in Peru and Colombia), we have observed that academic anthropological studies have had, and continue to have, very little acceptance - and still less use – amongst those politicians and economists responsible for development. As such, we consider the need to devise an “operational anthropology” whose interpretive language employs the terms current within the “developmentalist technocracy”, while subjecting their contents – usually implicit in the dominant ideology of development – to critique, contrasting them with the facts and experiences observed in the course of the communities’ daily activities, and the “rainforest” subject’s “own” logic of life (his or her motivations, actions, goals and priorities) – a logic that results from our interpretation of such observations. Hewlett, Christopher This potential paper will argue that the positions of indigenous and non-indigenous actors on the frontier of Ecuador can best be understood if the overlapping cosmographies (Little 1999, 2001), which guide them are emphasized, thus bringing to light the way alternate, and sometimes opposing, cosmographies are exercised during different interactions. By examining logging as a social phenomenon through a political ecology framework I will address the Huaorani’s particular understanding of trees (youth and maturity or fast and slow growth), as discussed by Rival in relation to the incentives for and against allowing illegal logging to continue in their territory. By looking at logging specifically, the scope of non-Huaorani actors (mostly NGO’s), and their perspectives, that require attention is narrowed, making it possible to discuss those actors and their particular agendas in greater detail. While many of these NGO’s have and continue to make progress in this area, they continually compete with one another as well as with the Huaorani in order to “help.” This paper will examine the different ways in which these actors interact with one another and the frontier as a field of power in order to draw out some of the complexities and contradictions of certain Huaorani’s simultaneous participation in and fight against logging and the different approaches taken by NGO’s to stop the illegal practice. Maria Lauriola, Vincenzo (CPCSH-INPA) The role of areas inhabited by traditional and indigenous peoples in present and future conservation and development scenarios in the Amazon can no longer be neglected. Independently from viewpoints in the historical confrontation between preservation and conservation advocates, two data must be acknowledged: the extension of these areas in the Amazon and records of their ecological efficiency facing major environmental degradation factors such as deforestation and fire. Particularly relevant in the case of Indigenous Lands, these data represent a double set of challenges, at once scientific and political. On one hand, socio-cultural mechanisms defining appropriation and use models and rules in Indigenous Lands are largely unknown and invisible, thus limiting their valorization and/or strengthening in the perspective of sustainability. Visibility represents a major challenge, scientifically (how to make indigenous “common law” natural resource management rules visible?) and politically (how to have indigenous “common law” rules enforced and respected by the State?). On the other side, exogenous and endogenous, old and new, market and development driven pressures, on their “natural” resources, urge us in the delicate task of defining political and economic mechanisms capable to regulate the interface of these socio-biodiversity rich areas with the State and others institutions and actors of the economy-world, in the respect of ethno-socio-cultural differences which define their very richness. Public policy design and implementation are key challenges, also scientific (how to assess success and efficiency in socio-cultural-bio-diversity protection and change?) and political (how to foster ethno-eco-development alternatives and manage market interactions?) at once. Instead of most of current debate trends, focusing on “values of nature”, would the facing of these challenges not actually need a deeper thinking and analysis on “the nature of values”? Mentore, Laura H. (Cambridge University) In 2006, the community at Erepoimo decided to make a formal application to the government of Guyana for legal title to their land. This paper describes how the application process was articulated and envisioned by Erepoimo residents. By examining the specific kinds of social relations which they see the application as initiating between themselves, neighbouring communities and the state, this paper aims to present some of the key values they attach to the idea of receiving a land title. Here, the implications of the linguistic correlation between the Waiwai terms for land title application and marriage request (from potential son-in-law to potential father-in-law) are the central theme. I argue that this correlation is based partly on an understanding of both as exchange-based relations between ‘affines’, and propose a more general theory of Waiwai exchange as the giving of various forms of trust in exchange for counterpart forms of care. This raises important questions about the affective components of indigenous ways of valuing and evaluating land rights. Feather, Conrad The remote headwaters of the Amazon in Peru are still home to indigenous groups who either totally avoid or strictly limit their direct contact with “outsiders”. The extreme susceptibility of these peoples to introduced diseases to which they have had little or no exposure means that their lives are currently threatened by the incursions of extractive industries in their territories as well as missionary efforts to establish contact. While their lives are in danger an intellectual debate rages in Peru. Their mere existence has been called into question by the Peruvian government and oil and gas industry (despite extensive evidence to the contrary) and even when their existence is recognized; missionaries, anthropologists, indigenous rights activists, politicians and journalists dispute the motivations of these peoples. At one extreme some evangelical and catholic missionaries justify efforts to establish contact by arguing that these people live in a state of involuntary isolation based on ignorance and fear. In contrast, some environmental and indigenous rights campaigners depict a stone age people choosing to maintain a noble and simpler way of life. Advocacy efforts aimed at defending the lives and rights of these peoples are often hampered and easily undermined by those with vested economic interests through the use of ill conceived terms and concepts. In this paper I use my own ethnographic fieldwork with indigenous peoples in the South Eastern Peruvian Amazon who have only recently established such contact. By listening to these peoples’ experiences and attitudes I show we can build a more nuanced understanding of their motivations for isolation as well as a better understanding of the implications of contact from their perspective. I hope this in turn can make a contribution to improving advocacy work on these peoples’ behalf. Macedo, Valéria (USP) Braunstein, José (CONICET, Argentina) and Edgardo Krebs (NMNH, Smithsonian Institution) Changes introduced in Argentina's constitution in 1994 established --through its article 75-- an ambitious framework of rights for the countrys' Indian peoples. This framework follows models set down by the US in the 19th century. A series of novel juridical, governance and ethnological problems have emerged in its wake. This paper examines the nature of these problems, which require historical analysis of diverging juridical traditions in Argentina and the US, competing concepts of race and "mestizaje", and the impact of faulty or non-existing ethnographic input --regarding, for instance, indigenous kinship and political systems-- on particular cases and outcomes. Shankland, Alex (University of Sussex / Associação Saúde Sem Limites) Hemming, John Paulinho Paiakan has been involved in almost every type of interface between the indigenous and Brazilian-national worlds. He was successively: in the workface cutting the Transamazonica highway (1970-74); at first contacts with other peoples (Arara, Asurini) (1972-73); standoff and then successful negotiation with garimpeiro prospectors (1985-6); orchestration of the Kayapós’ flamboyant lobbying of the Constituent Assembly in Brasilia (1987-88); organization of the largest, best-publicised and most successful indigenous protest, against hydroelectric dams on the Xingu, at Altamira (1988-89); international acclaim and visits to celebrities, political and religious leaders (1988-92); and action to achieve the designation and demarcation of Kayapó territories. Throughout this ascendancy, Paiakan mastered public relations and manipulation of the media. He was also an advisor to politicians and civil servants. Kelly Luciani, José Antonio This paper discusses the advances and setbacks in Venezuela's indigenist and other policies put forth as part of the Bolivarian revolution, that have directly affected indigenous people in general, and Yanomami people in particular. An analytical thread is woven linking the general nation rebuilding process to concrete examples of policy implementation and their effects in indigenous communities. This is done mainly through the examination of new indigenist rhetoric and its articulation with indigenous health policies and in particular the Yanomami Health Plan and its outcomes in Upper Orinoco Yanomami communities. Shepard Jr., Glenn H., and Carolina Izquierdo State agencies and non-governmental organizations make a wide range of investments and interventions in indigenous communities throughout Amazonia. Anthropologists can play a role in critically evaluating the results of such projects or actively participating in their development. This paper traces the trajectory of a tap-water project in the native community of Huacaria (upper Madre de Dios), originally installed by a Peruvian government aid agency (FONCODES) and later overhauled by a small, U.S.-based non-profit called “House of the Children.” The government agency prioritized fast and cheap installation based on a standard model, to reach the maximum number of communities with limited funds, and invested no time or money in local capacity building. The result was a failed system that delivered contaminated tap water to households, who consumed the water with no further treatment assuming that, because it came from a tap, it was “pure.” (Ironically, water in the tap proved to be more contaminated than the traditional stream sources used by some families). House of the Children’s intervention emphasized capacity building, long-time single-community investment, collaboration with existing state institutions (FONCODES, Health Ministry, public school system) and consultation with anthropologists (including the two authors) and other specialists. Today, the Huacaria water system delivers pure water using simple technologies (slow-sand filtration and gravity fed distribution) and is fully maintained by the community. The water system has even been incorporated into the community's ritual life by a creative local shaman. House of the Children is now using the Huacaria project as a model to develop water systems in other indigenous communities in collaboration with FONCODES and the regional government. We present a critical assessment of the lessons learned and draw some conclusions for successful NGO and state engagement with indigenous communities. SPECIAL DAY IN PARIS France, which has the largest number of Amazonian anthropologists in Europe, has recently rehoused its ethnographic collections (masterpieces of the arts and civilisations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas) at the Louvre and at the Musée du Quai Branly. Lévi-Strauss’ recognition of formal similarities between art forms unconnected in time or space is gaining new prominence, and new ideas about the relationship between art and anthropology are being debated. Round-table: Amazonía y Andes. Relaciones y transformaciones. Organizers: Isabelle Daillant and Tristan Platt Se presentarán algunos avances de un proyecto franco-británico sobre las relaciones entre los Andes y la Amazonía. Situamos este trabajo en el contexto de una crítica más general de la regionalización académica del mundo amerindio sudamericano. Isabelle Daillant (LESC, Nanterre) and Vincent Hirtzel (EHESS, Paris) Round table: Antropologías chaqueñas. Organizer: Kathleen Lowrey. Chair: Capucine Boidin. Esta presentación general del chaco boreal, sus etnologías, enfoques y enigmas empieza con El Chaco y sus Otros, donde Kathleen Lowrey a la vez de caracterizar la zona destaca las oportunidades de su antropología comparada con las corrientes dominantes en los Andes y la Amazonía el Chaco entre estructura e historia; Diego Villar en Etnologías y etnólogos del Gran Chaco ofrece un breve panorama de los grandes enfoques y los grandes nombres de la antropología chaqueña, destacando sus tendencias y enigmas paradigmáticos. Nicolás Richard e Isabelle Combès cierran la sesión con la Babel chaqueña, abogando por una verdadera etno-historia chaqueña a partir de los casos tapiete y zamuco. British social anthropologists played a pioneering role in the explosion of ethnographic research on lowland South America that began in the mid sixties, the period that Lévi-Strauss' major works began to appear in English translation. L-S's writings inspired some of this early research and his ideas on exchange, marriage, myth, and other topics have remained a constant point of reference up till the present. However, with few exceptions, Lévi-Strauss's influence has been rather less than one might at first imagine. This, I suggest, is because some key features of Lévi-Strauss' conception of anthropology were often at odds with the vision of the British anthropologists who mediated his ideas to younger generations of americanists. I suggest finally that in order to realise the full potential of what has happened since the sixties, a return to a Levi-Straussian vision would be in order. What types of "documents" or data do the photographs taken by Claude Lévi-Strauss among the Nambikwara represent? Today, seventy years after his fieldwork, the Nambikwara still express themselves bodily in similar ways. This Visual-Anthropological communication attempts to cast a new light on Lévi-Strauss's fieldwork by showing recent photographs and images of the Nambikwara, how the Wakalitesu have kept their own archives with unpublished photos of Lévi-Strauss's expedition and how one of their elders still remembers quite vividly the passage of the anthropologist through his community (images from a new documentary film to be broadcast in France by November 2008). |
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