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An Ethnography of Value among the Sanema of Venezuelan Amazonia Amy Penfield PDF

280 Pages·2015·4.95 MB·English
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London School of Economics and Political Science Material Morality: An Ethnography of Value among the Sanema of Venezuelan Amazonia Amy Penfield A thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy London, March 2015 DECLARATION I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare this thesis consists of 96,925 words.   2 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the value of manufactured items among the Sanema, a hunting and horticultural people of Southern Venezuela. By extending the ‘virtue ethics’ approach prevalent in the study of Amazonian societies, I suggest that artefacts are as much a component of Sanema virtuous conviviality as corporeal practices. Manufactured items are meaningful in a distinct way to the often-studied crafted artefacts, which are widely seen to embody the human subjectivities of the maker. Instead, the valuable prefabricated properties of industrial goods, which I refer to as ‘affordances’, can allow morality to be conceptualised and materialised. The focus on manufactured items reflects the recent influx of such goods into Sanema lives that feature centrally in their daily narratives of personhood, sociality and ethical practises. In drawing attention to these industrial goods that emerge from the wider national context, I contextualise Sanema experiences within the contemporary setting of political participation, the market economy and frequent encounters with non- indigenous people. In contexts that range from expressions of care, inter-ethnic dependence, acts of justice, manoeuvrability within state apparatus, and the moral actions of nonhuman beings within the cosmos, the ethnography demonstrates that morality is often articulated as being realised through or within ‘things’. As such, my approach attempts to transcend the human-artefact dichotomy by leaving open the possibility that morality emerges from manifold material forms.   3 In memory of Na’ai and Japa   4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 LIST OF FIGURES 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 9 A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY 11 GLOSSARY OF FREQUENTLY USED TERMS 12 TRANSLATIONS, FIGURES AND PSEUDONYMS 13 PROLOGUE Generator-Shaped Kinship 14 CHAPTER ONE Uncovering the Source of Manufactured Value 16 Virtue Ethics in Amazonian Scholarship 16 Coexisting with Manufactured Things 20 Things as Concepts and Concepts as Things 26 Value, Aesthetics and Morality in Action 30 From Crafted and Subjectified to Prefabricated and ‘Moralised’ 32 Reflections on Fieldwork and Methods 37 Chapter Outline 45   PART ONE: DESIRING AND PROCURING THINGS CHAPTER TWO Sanema Historical and Regional Context 51 The Sanema 51 Historical Context 54 Life in a Sanema Settlement 60 Kinship 69 CHAPTER THREE The Pursuit of Good Things: Manufacturing Personhood and Sociality with Goods 74 The ‘Goods’ Life 76 A Historical Desire for Good Things 79 Owning and Protecting 84 Morality Materialised 89 Conclusion 95     5 CHAPTER FOUR Submission as Extraction: Active Strategies for Procuring Goods 97 Relations of Dependence 100 Timid Fearlessness in the Presence of Others 103 A History of Extraction from the Ye’kwana 108 Nonreciprocal Relations 115 A New Perspective on Predation 118 Conclusion 121   PART TWO: FOUR VALUABLE THINGS   CHAPTER FIVE Kin as Adornments to the Self: Beads as Kinship 124 Kinning the Absential Body 126 The Properties of Beads 133 The Source and Use of Beads 136 Kin as Adornments to the Self 139 The Moral Affordances of Beads 145 Conclusion 150 CHAPTER SIX The Sharp and the Flat: The Machete as a Medium of Balance 152 The Properties of Machetes 153 Accompanying Fear 156 Empowering Fearlessness 160 Facilitating Revenge 165 Resolving Conflict 170 The Machete’s Moral Affordances 174 Conclusion 176 CHAPTER SEVEN Manoeuvring for Knowledge: Experiencing Venezuelan Society with Paper 178 Paper and the State 179 The Properties of Paper 181 Paper for Petrol 183 A Revolution of Goods 186 Communal Council Papers and Diligencia 191 Voyaging for Knowledge 197 Paper’s Moral Affordances 201 Conclusion 204 CHAPTER EIGHT Between Animism and a Petro-State: Petrol and Moral Relationality 206 A Substance that Doesn’t Fit 208 The Material Manifestation of the Petro-state 210 The Properties of Petrol 213 Moral Animism 216   6 The Absence and Presence of a Spirit 219 Petrol’s Poison 221 Petrol Responding 226 Petrol’s Moral Affordances 230 Conclusion 231   CHAPTER NINE 234 Conclusion: Action Emerging from Value 234 BIBLIOGRAPHY 241 APPENDICES 261 Appendix 1: Map of the Caura Basin 261 Appendix 2: Caura Communities 262 Appendix 3: Silverio’s Account of the Founding of Maduaña 263 Appendix 4: Kinship Terminology 264 Appendix 5: The Myth of The Origin of Modern Goods 265 Appendix 6: The Myth of The Origin of the Sanema 268 Appendix 7: Two Stories of the ‘War’ with the Ye’kwana 270 Appendix 8: The Ye’kwana Myth of the Sanema (Shirishana) 272 Appendix 9: Population Segments 273 Appendix 10: The Myth of Pumutuma 274 Appendix 11: The Myth of Waso Osowai 276 Appendix 12: The Myth of the Origin of Fire 277 Appendix 13: Fabiana’s Story of Escape from Oka Töpö 280   7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Maduaña’s generator .................................................................................... 15 Figure 2: Outboard motor ............................................................................................ 16 Figure 3: Boy with a pot .............................................................................................. 21 Figure 4: Map of Venezuela with field sites ................................................................ 38 Figure 5: Yanomami language groups ......................................................................... 51 Figure 6: Maduaña’s encampment in Maripa .............................................................. 53 Figure 7: Maduaña with Venezuelan flag .................................................................... 60 Figure 8: Maduaña with family sectors ....................................................................... 62 Figure 9: Sanema men after a hunt .............................................................................. 63 Figure 10: Dancing Shaman ......................................................................................... 65 Figure 11: Sanema man with a yucca-grating machine ............................................... 76 Figure 12: Sanema family at their hearth ..................................................................... 89 Figure 13: Clothed children ......................................................................................... 94 Figure 14: Ye’kwana man speaking to a group of Sanema during the ‘operative’ ... 100 Figure 15: Ye’kwana man sharing roasted frog with a Sanema man ........................ 115 Figure 16: Woman wearing beads ............................................................................. 126 Figure 17: Girl with beads following jokölomo seclusion ......................................... 131 Figure 17: Woman threading beads ........................................................................... 135 Figure 19: Children with beads .................................................................................. 142 Figure 20: Two girls with beads after jokölomo seclusion ........................................ 143 Figure 19: Sanema with Venezuelan flag .................................................................. 147 Figure 22: Woman peeling yucca with a machete ..................................................... 158 Figure 22: Nelson’s back with machete marks .......................................................... 173 Figure 23: The guía .................................................................................................... 179 Figure 24: Sanema man with election ink on finger .................................................. 189 Figure 25: Sanema man with paperwork ................................................................... 193 Figure 26: Children swimming with barrels of petrol ............................................... 208 Figure 27: A group of young Sanema men with barrels of petrol ............................. 214 Figure 28: Gold .......................................................................................................... 219 Figure 29: My Sanema family with some of their matitö .......................................... 239 Figure 30: Map of the Caura basin showing locations of communities .................... 261       8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was made possible by a grant from the Economic and Social Research council. Its completion was also facilitated by a research studentship from the London School of Economics and a Childcare grant from the LSE Students Union. There are many people who have made this thesis possible, only some of whom have been named here. First and foremost my most profound gratitude goes to the Sanema of both of the communities where I conducted fieldwork. They graciously accepted a strange criolla into their lives with laughter, generosity and warmth. In particular I am indebted to ipa sawa and ipa nawani whose hospitality, patience and good humour were so precious to me over those years. This all began with generosity and adventurous spirit of an inspirational friend, Dyan Summers, to whom I am immensely grateful. If it weren’t for her, I certainly wouldn’t be writing these acknowledgements now. There were a number of people in Venezuela whose hospitality, support and bureaucratic acumen I could not have survived without. Most importantly is Alejandro Reig who invested a lot of energy in helping me through my permission saga, encouraging me to pursue work among the Sanema despite the difficulties. I also wish to thank Bettsimar Díaz, Claudia Urdaneta, Arturo Jose Garcia Arana, and Piera Lo Curto Coelles, all of whom made my time in Caracas both more fun and more manageable than it would have been otherwise. In Ciudad Bolívar I was lucky to have Carlos Zagala as a supportive friend. Time spent with Natalia Cáceres when doing her own research among the Ye’kwana was helpful to me on an academic and personal level and I am grateful to her for that. From CAICET I thank Magda Magris and America Perdomo for their interest in and support of my work with the Sanema. In the Caura region I am particularly grateful to Aurora Rodriguez and Simon Caura for their kindness and hospitality, and for feeding me fish when on my way downstream. I am grateful also to Marcus Colchester for supplying me with a copy of his Sanema dictionary and for the supportive conversations prior to fieldwork. In London I wish to thank my supervisors, Michael Scott and Harry Walker, who have inspired and supported me throughout the PhD. Michael Scott has been my supervisor since the beginning and I am immensely grateful to him for sharing his   9 unique perspectives, which have helped to shape some of my better ideas, but also for his endless dependability and patience. Harry Walker has been a great support during the latter part of the writing stage; his encouragement and thoughtful insights have been invaluable. It is thanks to Olivia Harris that I was able to do this PhD at the LSE, I only wish I wish I had had more time to get to know her. I am thankful Laura Rival for taking me on as a student after Olivia’s death. Her perceptive comments and suggestions were welcome and very useful. Many of my colleagues at the LSE provided some important insights during the LSE thesis writing seminar, and I am grateful to all participants. There are a number of fellow students, though, to whom I owe a particularly big and special thank you for reading (or listening to) drafts of my work at particularly important stages of writing up, in particular Matt Wilde, Anna Tuckett, Agustin Diz, Ruben Andersson, Joanna Whiteley, Ana Paola Gutierrez Garza, Aude Michelet, Alanna Cant and Daniela Kraemer. I would especially like to thank Tamara Hale, who has been a close friend throughout the PhD, and who has supplied as many laughs as academic flism (and often both at the same time). Mathijs Pelkman, Rita Astuti, Fenella Cannell, Alpa Shah and Charles Stafford also read early drafts of chapters for the thesis writing seminar and I thank them for their comments. I am grateful to Jane Millar for reading a draft of the paperwork chapter. Thanks also to Yanina Hinrichsen for being so organised! My father’s adventuresome spirit brought him down to my field site where he became well-known not only for refurbishing the school, but also for his playful spirit and regular naps. Thanks dad. My deepest gratitude goes to my mother, Ali Cooper, for helping out with Otto in the early stages and then for dropping everything to come and look after him during his gamut of illnesses towards the end of the writing up. My sister, Kate Beaumont, also made the slow transition back into work after the birth of Otto that much easier. Thank you to Jennifer and Brian Cole for the many years of refuge in Bath. Most importantly of all, immeasurable gratitude and respect goes to Alex Cole who was there from the first mention of a PhD until the final manic moments. There are a long list of things I could thank Alex for, but mostly I thank him for his infinite energy, patience and support. And for the excellent maps. Although you might not read this until you are much older Otto, I thank you for your patience too, and for quite literally keeping me sane.   10

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Instead, the valuable prefabricated properties of industrial goods, which I He argues, instead, that 'in the world of materials, humans figure as The Spanish term for page (hoja), which also means 'leaf', is actually a fitting water hoses is illegal, as it is far more destructive to the environm
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