Artionka Capiberibe (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, [email protected]) and Oiara Bonilla (Universidade Federal Fluminense, [email protected] )
Este panel tratará de parentesco, economia y política. Temas clásicos de la disciplina antropológica que están siendo puestos a prueba por transformaciones radicales en la vida de las poblaciones indígenas, generalmente provocadas por las relaciones cada vez más intensas con el mercado y el Estado. Estas transformaciones, a su vez, son provocadas por la creatividad indígena involucrada en estas relaciones. Proponemos, por un lado, el rescate de problemas ya abordados por una antropología sur-americanista sensible a las cuestiones de género, sobretodo en lo que toca a las mujeres, y, por otro lado, abordar nuevas implicaciones de esta temática, repensando desarrollos que se presentan hoy como problemas empíricos y conceptuales de la cuestión del género. El panel propone pensar el lugar de la mujer indígena en la producción de la vida material, incluyendo actividades productivas orientadas hacia la comercialización, el consumo, el acceso al dinero de la asistencia social y sus usos. La discusión propone provocar un desplazamiento de las visiones clásicas sobre genero, situadas en la heterosexualidad de personas cisgénero. Uno de los objetivos es trabajar la idea según la cual polaridades dicotómicas, conceptualmente puestas a operar, ya no nos sirven para entender completamente realidades que, cada vez más, sobreponen significados. Como describir y compreender la acción de las mujeres indígenas y la visibilización de otras posiciones de género, como la de transgéneros, en espacios que generalmente son asociados a los hombres? Y como entender su particularidad? Estas serán las cuestiones principales puestas a discusión en nuestro encuentro.
María C. Chavarría (Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, [email protected]) and Thomas Moore (Centro Eori de Investigación y Promoción Regional, [email protected])
Southwestern Amazonia in Peru, Bolivia and western Brazil, is exceptional in its biological and ethno-linguistic diversity. Moreover, unlike the rest of Amazonia, this region was not occupied by non-indigenous peoples prior to the rubber boom and experienced no presences of the nation states of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil until that time in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. This panel presents a variety of linguistic, historical, and ecological perspectives by specialists having long-time experience in that area on the development of diverse cultural identities and territorial concepts by the original peoples of the area. It addresses the impact of the rubber boom and the demographic changes and dislocations it brought with it and also more recent incursions into traditional territories by gold mining, timber extraction, oil and gas exploration and development, as well as public sector interventions in land titling and the establishment of natural protected areas, the introduction of public education and new concepts of property, territory, and sociopolitical organization by the national governments. It discusses both indigenous resistance and adaptations to these changes and adaptations. The panel seeks to capture key aspects of the variety of cultures in the area, the history of their development and also the immediacy of their presence and identity in the face of myriad external destructive forces. Ideally, it will be a two session panel with eight contributors and two discussants, but we are flexible regarding its size and composition. The papers will be delivered in Spanish.
Marcela Stockler Coelho de Souza (Universidade de Brasília, [email protected])
Este painel pretende debater a pertinência de noções de gênero para o entendimento das socialidades ameríndias em suas múltiplas dimensões sociais, políticas, rituais e cotidianas. Desse modo, visa fortalecer abordagens de relações de gênero para além dos dualismos e dicotomias analíticas como público/doméstico, ritual/cotidiano, cultura/natureza, dominador/dominado, masculino/femenino, entre outras classicamente mobilizadas na literatura antropológica. Considerando que questões de gênero vêm ocupando um espaço residual nos debates teóricos recentes, a mesa pretende discuti-las em relação a distinções entre humanos e não-humanos, consanguíneos e afins, bem como outras pertinentes às socialidades ameríndias, cuidando para não homogeneizar as diversas concepções e práticas existentes entre os povos indígenas. A “dissolução perspectivista” do dualismo realizada por Tania Stolze Lima nos incita a pensar as dualidades não como “englobamento hierárquico”, mas a levar em conta a “errância da perspectiva”, que o impediria. O propósito é assim focar no gênero como um vetor de alteridade (e alteração) que atravessa distinções entre humanos e não-humanos, operando transformações nos corpos ao longo do ciclo de vida, bem como nos coletivos em sua história. O ritual, particularmente, configura-se como um espaço-tempo privilegiado para se pensar a questão de gênero em articulação com as distinções mobilizadas pelo pensamento e práticas ameríndias. Ainda, este painel busca acolher propostas que se deixem afetar por outros efeitos etnográficos na escrita, evidenciando relações (como aquelas pautadas por uma estética de gênero) que tenham sido ignoradas ou exploradas de modo residual em trabalhos anteriores.
Jonathan D. Hill (Southern Illinois University, [email protected]) and Bernd Brabec de Mori (KUG, [email protected])
Neil Whitehead escribió que “la musicalidad, la cosmología del mundo de los espíritus, y los hechos de los antepasados para la configuración del paisaje … abren una vista en todas las historias” (2011: 358). Nuestro panel explora la musicalidad y otros fenómenos acústicos en historicidades de los pueblos indígenas de las tierras bajas de América del Sur.
“Cómo Cantan las Selvas” reúne a investigadores que han hecho trabajo de campo intensivo en el arte musical y / o verbal, en las tierras bajas de América del Sur y que pueden contribuir al desarrollo de formas alternativas, centrado en el sonido, de teorizar todas las historias. En lugar de vistas o perspectivas, queremos fomentar la aparición de nuevos puntos de escuchar, y en vez de canibalizar, buscamos la “musicalización” de la alteridad y de la historia. Deseamos abrir nuevas formas de entender todas las historias como formas dinámicas y creativas de interpretar y relacionarse con el mundo contemporáneo que todos compartimos. Los temas específicos incluyen, pero no se limitan a:
Neil Whitehead wrote that “Musicality, the cosmology of the spirit world, and the deeds of the ancestors in fashioning the landscape …open up a vista on all histories” (2011: 358). Our panel explores musicality and other acoustic phenomena in historicities of indigenous peoples in Lowland South America.
“How Forests Sing” gathers together researchers who have done intensive fieldwork on musical and/or verbal artistry in Lowland South America and who can contribute to the development of alternative, sound-centered ways of theorizing all histories. In place of vistas or perspectives, we want to foster the emergence of novel points of hearing, and instead of cannibalizing, we seek the “musicalizing” of otherness and of history. We wish to open up new ways of understanding all histories as dynamic and creative ways of interpreting and engaging with the contemporary world we all share. Specific topics include but are not limited to:
Magda Helena Dziubinska (Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, [email protected]) and Laura Pérez Gil (Universidade Federal do Paraná, [email protected])
En esta mesa nos interesamos sobre las diversas formas de conyugalidad en la Amazonía, entendida en un sentido amplio y sin limitarla al matrimonio formal, tal y como es vivida y expresada por los amerindios. Las relaciones conyugales en las tierras bajas han sido durante mucho tiempo abordadas partiendo de la reflexión sobre la producción de personas, el parentesco y las relaciones de género, habiendo ocupado el concepto de complementariedad un pape central en análisis sobresalientes. Sin negar su importancia para entender la forma en la que las relaciones de pareja son concebidas y vividas en estas sociedades, nuestra intención es poner el foco en aspectos que generalmente han quedado en la sombra: los sentimientos en el seno de la pareja; las formas de producir y manipular los afectos; el erotismo; la homosexualidad; pero también aquellas dimensiones conflictivas como los matrimonios forzados, las separaciones o la violencia conyugal. Estas cuestiones han ocupado un lugar marginal en las etnografías y, sin embargo, en torno de ellas giran muchas de las preocupaciones y prácticas de los amerindios, tanto de la vida cotidiana como en fiestas y rituales. Priorizando abordajes interaccionistas y pragmáticos, nos preguntamos sobre las maneras en que la migración urbana, la propagación de las ETS, la presencia de iglesias evangélicas, la integración en el mercado o la intensificación de las uniones con no indígenas, por ejemplo, han transformado las uniones matrimoniales en la Amazonía contemporánea y, más ampliamente, las percepciones indígenas sobre el amor, el cuerpo y la sexualidad.
Emanuele Fabiano (EHESS,LAS, [email protected]) and Dan Rosengren (University of Gothenburg, [email protected])
En los últimos años, una renovada atención por el impacto de la explotación de recursos minerales, hidrocarburos y de flora maderable ha animado una análisis de sus implicaciones a nivel social, económico y ambiental dentro muchas sociedades amazónicas contemporáneas. Si Por un lado la extensión de los frentes extractivistas ha producido un aumento y un exacerbación de los conflictos sociales, tanto a nivel nacional cuanto local; por otro lado, en algunos casos, ha determinado la constitución de un nuevo espacio relacional socio-político dentro del cual las sociedades indígenas implicadas gestionan y controlan las relaciones asimétricas y el potencial depredatorio de las entidades no-humanas asociadas a estos procesos de explotación. El nivel de conflictividad que caracteriza muchas de las relaciones de estas sociedades amazónicas con los no-indígenas, demuestra toda su ambivalencia a la hora de relacionarse con estas entidades – a menudo asociadas a enfermedades contagiosas, espíritus malignos o a seres metamórficos y depredadores – que se consideran aliados de los blancos, del Estado o de los representantes de las empresas atractivas operantes en la región. Todo esto anima interesantes preguntas: Cuales diplomacias, estrategias y medidas de protección son empleadas como respuestas útiles a controlar el intensificarse de las injerencias por parte de estas entidades? Cuales posibles relaciones existen entre estas entidades no-humanas y los frente extractivistas – tanto históricos cuanto contemporáneos – y como nos informan sobre la relación asimétrica entre indígenas y no-indígenas, implicados directamente o indirectamente en estos procesos (representantes de las empresas, el Estado etc.)? A partir de un análisis etnográfico del material procedente de distintas sociedades amazónicas contemporáneas, las propuestas analizaran como la relación entre los indígenas amazónicos con las entidades no-humanas asociadas a los procesos extractivistas movilizan nuevas formas de conocimiento, experiencia, práctica y acción
Lukasz Krokoszynski (University of Warsaw, [email protected]) and Christopher Hewlett ([email protected])
The panel invites engagements with the ideological groundings and practical implications of the paradoxical, constitutive status of alterity, the ‘outside’, in socialites among members of the Panoan language family. We aim to explore specific ways in which Panoans creatively engage their very openness to alterity (or scepticism towards the identity or sameness), and how this might entail slipping out from the inherently porous generalized anthropological views of the conjunto (Erikson). Therefore, focusing on the external within the nebulous compact, we invite papers reflecting broadly on 1. the Panoan construction of “absolute alterity” (Chaumeil) – e.g. in the Inca figures; 2. On the place of ‘culture’ or ‘sociality’ (such as laws, designs, names, or organising knowledge) as borrowed, stolen or inherited (mythical, ideological or practical perspectives) from different kinds of ‘others’; 3. On the cosmological status and the spatial, ‘topological’ or ‘mereologic’ relations established through such sociality or culture between the formative ‘groups’ ‘names’ or ‘descent’ joined by social alliances – as well as the ways in which these relations produce partial, composite identities; 4. On the ways in which individuals or groups step outside of the ‘traditional’ Panoan position, towards contemporary sublime outsides (God, development, State), or, in from alternative perspectives, towards the practical assimilations of other ‘indigenous’ – Panoan or not – or ‘mestizo’ socialities. We therefore encourage papers on either the ways in which the Panoan neighbours demonstrate the “Panoan” traces, or how Panoans reflect ‘others’. If it is unclear how a topic that is of interest does not fit, then please let us know and we can discuss ways to include papers by reframing or expanding the description, or locating overlaps which may not be immediately apparent.
Els Lagrou (UFRJ, [email protected])
For this workshop we invite the participants to reflect upon the importance of a specific aesthetics (where sound, image and movement interact in precise ways) to come closer to an indigenous understanding of what we call shamanism, the art of relating to what is hidden from ordinary perception. It is through aesthetic torsions, through song and ambiguous images, that Amerindian ritual specialists deal with nonhumans. Equivocation is as crucial to the theory of knowledge professed by Amerindians as it is for anthropologists, something a careful look at their specific aesthetics and poetry can reveal. Once we enter the domain of aesthetics it is clear that the famous batesonian framing of play, ritual and art becomes crucial. Because it is fatal to confound different states of being, to confound humans, animals and spirits, aesthetic artistry becomes critical. It is in the particular aesthetic manipulation of styles of relating, put into practice by different collectives, that we can discover their shamanistic techniques that are crucial to the art of differentiation and relating.
Esther Jean Langdon (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, [email protected]) and Anne Marie Losonczy (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, [email protected])
Discussants: Jean-Pierre Chaumeil and Oscar Calavia Saez
This panel examines the relation between shamanism and violence from a perspective that includes a number of related issues, including not only the aggressive dimension as a weapon of attack but also shamanism as a strategy, response, form of resistance or defense in the face of diverse forms of violence – physical, economic, social, environmental, etc. – that indigenous groups have suffered since the arrival of Europeans. There is evidence that witchcraft, as shamanic practice, has increased in the face of brutal exterior pressure such as that of multinationals or armed violence. Simultaneously, aggressive-defensive dimensions are underplayed or denied in shamanic discourse or practices directed toward the non-indigenous society. We understand shamanism in its more extensive form, one not limited to knowledge and practices of a recognized specialist, but also as knowledge and techniques distributed and practiced on a more horizontal level. The difference between the “shaman” and those who “shamanize” is often one of degree rather than of nature. This form of understanding shamanism is especially important for that which we call witchcraft or sorcery. The shaman may be clearly distinguished socially and ontologically from the witch or sorcerer; in other circumstances the aggressive and positive aspects of shamanism are inherently connected. In both cases, the socio-cosmologies in which the practices are realized as well as the operational principles are similar. Taking the notion of a shamanic socio-cosmology as a provisional point of departure for dialogue, the panel analyzes forms shamanic violence in diverse contemporary settings.
George Mentore (University of Virginia, [email protected])
In this panel we will be securitizing with various ethnographic examples, a fundamental principle of western thought pervasive in modern anthropology. It pivots primarily around the notion that productivity is not only causal, but also the irreducible origin site and, thus, the expected space for investigative “exploration” and “discovery” of truth. What we hope to achieve through our examples will have mostly to do with how and why such a primary concept might limit anthropological understandings of indigenous Amazonian lived realities. We would in particular like to examine what happens to productivity as a causal determinant when it explanative attributes carry over to exchangeability and consumption. What, for example, actually occurs when we attribute to symbolic thought its capacity to produce meanings by the procedure of exchangeable or distributive signs? Indeed, is our acceptance of cultural meanings (as being productive of our thoughts) similar to the way we Capitalist often presume it is the market and not labor which produces the goods and services we consume? But, in this panel, we wish above all to place under analysis the difficulty of extracting from productive causality its core truth-making power — that of its metric capacity. As it has so famously been suggested, even the anthropologically powerful thesis of the Gift gains its credibility from relying upon its quantitative rather than qualitative capacity to be productive of moral socialities. Hence the title of our panel which takes its premise from the identifiable work long ascribed to the productivity of our discipline in its exteriorizing of the interiority of Being.
En este panel escudriñaremos, a través de varios ejemplos etnográficos, un principio fundamental del pensamiento occidental muy presente en la antropología moderna. Gira en torno a la idea de que la productividad no es solo causa, sino también el lugar de origen irreductible y, por lo tanto, el espacio esperado para la “exploración” investigativa y el “descubrimiento” de la verdad. Lo que esperamos obtener, a través de nuestros ejemplos, está relacionado principalmente al cómo y por qué este concepto básico puede limitar el conocimiento antropológico de las realidades vividas amazónicas. Nos gustaría, en particular, examinar qué ocurre con la productividad como determinante causal cuando sus atributos explicativos son aplicados a la intercambiabilidad y consumo. Por ejemplo, ¿qué ocurre realmente cuando atribuimos al pensamiento simbólico la capacidad de producir significados por el procedimiento de signos intercambiables o distributivos? Ciertamente, ¿es nuestra aceptación de significados culturales (como productores de nuestros pensamientos) similar a la forma en que nosotros, los Capitalistas, usualmente presumimos que es el mercado y no el trabajo quien produce los bienes y servicios que consumimos? En este panel deseamos sobretodo analizar la dificultad de extraer, de la causalidad productiva, su principal poder de producir verdades – aquel de su capacidad métrica. Tal como ha sido famosamente sugerido, aun la poderosa tesis antropológica del Don obtiene su credibilidad gracias a sus cualidades cuantitativas en vez de su capacidad cualitativa de producir socialidades morales. Esta es la razón para el título de nuestro panel, el cual toma su principal premisa del rol largamente adscrito a la productividad en la exteriorización de la interioridad del Ser en nuestra disciplina.
Theresa L. Miller (Smithsonian Institution, [email protected])
Discussant: Laura Rival.
Nonhuman agency has become a central area of concern to Amazonianist anthropology, and we are becoming increasingly aware of the capacities and intentionalities of animals, plants, objects, artefacts, and supernatural entities among indigenous communities across lowland South America. Yet what of their gendered and sexualized forms? This panel explores the ways in which gender and sexuality become part of nonhuman and other-than-human beings’ identities and agentive capacities. It examines how concepts of gender – including, male, female, and blurred gender categories – impact the embodied and sensory capabilities and experiences of nonhuman beings and their relationships with humans. It explores the role of sexuality in nonhuman-human engagements, as seen in relationships founded on seduction and desire, as well as disgust and violation. In addition, the papers in this panel discuss the connection between gender, sexuality, and kinship between and among nonhuman and human beings. Looking at gendered and sexualized nonhuman relationships with each other and with their human counterparts in mythical, historical, and contemporary contexts, the panel seeks to expand our understanding of the diversity of indigenous human, nonhuman, and more-than-human lived worlds as they unfold over time.
Danny Pinedo (Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, [email protected])
Los estudios sobre la naturaleza construida de la identidad ponen énfasis en el rol que juegan las relaciones sociales en la construcción de identidades. Estos estudios, o bien ignoran el papel del espacio o el lugar, o bien le otorgan el rol pasivo de contexto físico de la práctica social. Este tipo de análisis pierde de vista el hecho de que espacio y lugar son producidos a través de las relaciones sociales, y no simplemente elementos “dados.” Además, el espacio no sólo expresa la dinámica de las relaciones sociales, sino que su producción discursiva es el medio a través del cual se construyen identidades colectivas. Ejemplos de cómo la identidad es expresada espacialmente incluyen conceptos tales como territorio étnico, territorio indígena, reserva comunal, etc. El objetivo de este panel es explorar el rol de la política del espacio en procesos de construcción de identidades indígenas en la Amazonía andina. Específicamente, el panel busca examiner las formas en que territorios étnicos son construidos discursivamente, convirtiéndose en fuentes de identidad que pueden ser utilizados como mecanismos tanto de dominación estatal como de adaptación o resistencia indígena. El panel presta especial atención a cómo los espacios se vuelven terrenos de lucha, especialmente como resultado de los procesos a través de los cuales las comunidades indígenas buscan la legalización de sus territorios (comunidades nativas, resguardos, territorios indígenas originarios) como estrategia para cuestionar discursos hegemónicos de ciudadanía y legitimar sus demandas sobre recursos y derechos políticos.
Renato Sztutman (Universidade de São Paulo, [email protected]) and Joana Cabral de Oliveira (Universidade de Campinas, [email protected])
Um dos marcos da entrada da antropologia no conjunto das ciências e, consequentemente, da constituição disciplinar, foi a analogia entre sociedade e organismo, vida social e vida orgânica. Se esse paralelo é hoje mais do que obsoleto, os povos indígenas das terras baixas da América do Sul, por sua vez, nos têm apresentado formas de pensamento e ação que recorrem ao orgânico e às formas de vida não-humanas na constituição da humanidade e de suas múltiplas socialidades. Há tempos, estes povos têm alertado os antropólogos à necessidade de lidar com agentes e sujeitos que oficialmente permaneciam relegados ao polo da Natureza e do Objeto nas ontologias modernas. Tal desestabilização etnográfica teve uma série de decorrências teóricas, como aquelas embutidas nas noções de “animismo” (P. Descola) e “perspectivismo” (E. Viveiros de Castro). Em um campo teórico mais amplo vemos movimentos similares, tais como o conceito de “espécie companheira” (D. Haraway), a “antropologia para além do humano” (E. Kohn) e a “etnografia multiespécie” (S. Helmrich). Ao lado disso, e cada vez mais, os diversos ambientes em que os povos indígenas habitam vêm sofrendo drásticas mudanças, ameaçando as formas de existência de tais populações, colocando por outro viés a necessidade de incorporar a ecologia e os não-humanos nas análises antropológicas. Tendo em vista estes debates buscamos trazer contribuições etnográficas sobre como modelos orgânicos, ecológicos e da vida social de não-humanos são arregimentados por coletivos ameríndios para refletir e agir sobre o que tradicionalmente a antropologia concebeu como problemas sociais (e políticos): chefia, regimes temporais, parentesco, noção de pessoa, xamanismo, ritual, relações intercomunitárias etc. Partindo do esfacelamento da fronteira entre Natureza e Cultura, os trabalhos a serem apresentados buscarão explorar os limites da linguagem para descrever como povos indígenas das terras baixas da América do Sul elaboram as suas socialidades por meio de modelos inspirados em outras formas de vida.
Silvia Romio (EHESS, IFEA, PUCP, [email protected]) and Deborah Delgado (PUCP, [email protected])
Los estudios sobre los nuevos movimientos y líderes políticos indígenas amazónicos cuestionan, por ser demasiado rígidos, conceptos tales como “identidad”, “profesionalización” y “partido político”. Estas nociones no permiten en efecto dar cuenta de la profunda fluidez que marca las posiciones individuales de los actores, motivados más por una lógica de acumulación de experiencias y saberes que por un proyecto de especialización y profesionalización. De hecho, el trabajo etnográfico se enfrenta a la paradoja de describir a una acción política que conjuga campos distintos y motivaciones aparentemente opuestas. A partir de estudios de historias de vida, en particular de los nuevos dirigentes indígenas, queremos introducir una reflexión que problematice los límites usuales de las definiciones de “política indígena”, “manejo del poder”, “colaboración o enfrentamiento con las instituciones públicas”, y que permita esclarecer lo que entendemos como política en este contexto.
Catherine Alès (CNRS-EHESS, [email protected]) and Dan Rosengren (University of Gothenburgh, [email protected])
All people strive to achieve a good life and much of their doings are guided by notions of what a good life is and strategies towards its realization. Ideas of what a good life constitutes are partly idiosyncratic but there are also shared understandings of what it may be; in some societies it is the accumulation of wealth while in other well-being, health, safety, reproduction, family and friends, social prestige, religious merits, food, quality of life, comfort, etc. may be stressed. The differences between the various shared perspectives that can be discerned are associated with for instance ontological understandings, historical processes, political transformations and environmental relations in its broadest sense. In the Andean highlands notions of vivir bien or buen vivir are prominent to the extent that the concept has become part of the national constitutions of both Bolivia and Ecuador. Assuming that the idea of a good life is strong also among other Amerindian people, the aim of this panel is to inquire into the shared meanings of a good life among peoples in lowland South American societies. This issue is linked as well with the question of what a good government at the community scale or more widely for a cluster of communities constitutes. How do different generational social actors look at the future, how do they imagine their future and how do they conceptualize the notion of future? During the last decades lowland native communities have passed and still are passing considerable and stressful changes from the administrative, political and environmental points of view that affect their conceptions of their way of life. It is interesting as anthropologists to wonder what Amazonian people conceive from these lived transformations resulting from the current contact with the outside world, how they organise their life and modes of functioning with the new changes, and what they think about the changing world. A wide range of examples of just what it might mean to have a « good live », a « good government » would be required. We do expect rich ethnographies and new fieldworks exploring the ideal of life, both individual and collective, what are the ideals of the communities including the new dimension of the interrelation with national and modern world. Finally, given that the Salsa Conference will be held in Peru, we would like to recommend presentations in Spanish.
Throughout Amazonia, the possibilities for indigenous peoples living outside permanent contact with the outside world for self-determination are in jeopardy. Owing to natural resource exploitation their territories are diminishing; subsistence based on customary means is becoming unfeasible; and voluntary and involuntary contacts with the outside wold bring about health problems, which are beyond their control. This panel examines the challenges related to the right for self-determination of different peoples in voluntary isolation and early contact both from practical and theoretical perspectives. In particular, the panel scrutinizes questions related to territory and contact processes, and problematizes the terminology used in speaking about these peoples and about contact.
Convenors: Felipe Milanez, Minna Opas, Glenn Shepard, Luis Felipe Torres
Convenors: Laura R. Graham and Christopher Ball
Discussants: Renato Athias and Fernando Santos Granero
Papers in this session bring critical attention to various ways that meaning is inscribed in or flows through various material, metaphysical and/or temporal planes. We build on and explore notions of “scapes” as they have been used and elaborated to think about cultural flows of people, media and technologies (Appadurai’s ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes), as well as about power, disjuncture, and continuity in the semiotics of landscapes, such as linguistic landscapes (Shohamy and Gorter 2009) and riverscapes, the cultural organization of expressive forms (e.g., soundscapes Feld 1982; Graham 1995; Hill 2011; Nahum-Claudel in press), visual histories of dress, ornamentation and body treatment (bodyscapes, Santos-Granero 2009), and ways that myths and cosmologies are inscribed on geolocial formations (mythscapes, Wright 2013; cosmoscapes, Reichel s2012). How do the various “-scapes” in Native Lowland South America interact at multiple levels of scale and change over time?