Full Description
Recent scholarship on the Amazon has challenged depictions of the region that emphasize its natural exuberance or represent its residents as historically isolated peoples stoically resisting challenges from powerful global forces. The contributors to this volume follow this lead by situating the discussion of the Amazon and its inhabitants at the intersections of identity politics, debates about socioeconomic sovereignty, and processes of place making. Editing Eden focuses on case studies from Amazonian Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador regarding the themes of indigeneity, community making, development politics, and the transcendence of indigenous/nonindigenous divides. Portraits of the Amazon emerge through an analysis of indigenous identity as a product of multiple sources, including state policies toward Amazonian populations, the views of foreign ecotourists, the agendas of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and accounts of journalists. At the same time, indigenous and nonindigenous Amazonians challenge the representations constructed for and about them by integrating anthropologists and other nonlocals into their reciprocal systems of gift giving, or by utilizing NGO or ecotourist dollars to support their own cultural agendas. Editing Eden offers insights from leading anthropologists of the region, providing perspectives on the Amazon beyond the counterfeit paradise but short of El Dorado.
Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Frank Hutchins and Patrick C. Wilson Part 1. Myth, Meaning, Modernity, and Representation 1. Indigenous Capitalisms: Ecotourism, Cultural Reproduction, and the Logic of Capital in Ecuador's Upper Amazon Frank Hutchins 2. Fractal Subjectivities: An Amazonian-Inspired Critique of Globalization Theory Michael A. Uzendoski 3. The Portrayal of Colombian Indigenous Amazonian Peoples by the National Press, 19882006 Jean E. Jackson 4. Cannibal Tourists and Savvy Savages: Understanding Amazonian Modernities Neil L. Whitehead Part 2. Ethnopolitics, Territory, and Notions of Community 5. For Love or Money? Indigenous Materialism and Humanitarian Agendas Beth A. Conklin 6. Alternative Development in Putumayo, Colombia: Bringing Back the State through the Creation of Community and "Productive Social Capital"? Maria Clemencia Ramirez 7. Normative Views, Strategic Views: The Geopolitical Maps in the Ethnic Territorialities of Putumayo Margarita Chaves 8. Indigenous Leadership and the Shifting Politics of Development in Ecuador's Amazon Patrick C. Wilson 9. Worlds at Cross-Purposes Alcida Rita Ramos Contributors Index
