p. 127-143
Laura Rival*
The materiality of life: Revisiting the anthropology of nature in Amazonia
Resumen: ¿De qué maneras distintivas son animistas los indígenas de las tierras bajas de América del Sur? ¿Existe un lugar en el pensamiento amerindio para una concepción de la vida biológica autónoma de la inteligencia social y sus intenciones socialmente determinadas? ¿Hasta qué punto se puede decir que al ver los animales, las plantas y los objetos los indígenas amazónicos como agentes subjetivos dotados de conciencia e intencionalidad construyen una manera de conocer el mundo que es tanto culturalmente única como antitética a la biología? Al tratar de dar respuestas etnográficamente informadas a estas preguntas, hago una revisión crítica de las diferentes aproximaciones teóricas al animismo, el animismo ontológico y el perspectivismo. Para concluir, intento explicar por qué estas teorías acaban en última instancia por descartar o ignorar la rica base de conocimiento biológico que sustentan las clasificaciones naturales y cosmogónicos de los indígenas amazónicos.
Palabras clave: Animismo, ontologías, perspectivismo, huaorani, Ecuador, Amazonía, siglos XX-XXI.
Abstract: In what distinctive ways are lowland South American Indians animists? Is there a place in Amerindian thought for a conception of biological life autonomous from social intelligence and its socially determined intentions? How far can it be said that by viewing animals, plants and objects as subjective agents endowed with consciousness and intentionality, native Amazonians construct a way of knowing the world which is both culturally unique and antithetical to biology? In trying to provide ethnographically informed answers to these questions, I critically review various theoretical approaches to animism, ontological animism and perspectivism. In ending, I attempt to explain why these theories ultimately discard or ignore the rich base of biological knowledge that underlies the natural and cosmogonic classifications of native Amazonians.
Keywords: Animism, ontologies, perspectivism, Huaorani, Ecuador, Amazonia, 20th-21st centuries.
* Laura Rival obtained her PhD in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics. She is a Lecturer at the University of Oxford where she has been teaching and researching the anthropology of nature, society and development since 2001. In addition to her position at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), she is an active member of the School of Anthropology (SAME), the Latin American Centre (LAC) and the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests (OCTF). Laura Rival has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Ecuador with the Huaorani and the Chachi, and with the Makushi in Guyana.