Papers by Elizabeth Ewart
The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2013
ABSTRACT
Revista de Antropologia, 2005
RESUMO: Neste artigo, o valor panará de disposição e sociabilidade (suakiin) é contrastado com se... more RESUMO: Neste artigo, o valor panará de disposição e sociabilidade (suakiin) é contrastado com seu oposto, falta de disposição e retraimento social (suangka), para mostrar como a vida codiana panará é constituída. Caracterizadas como condições físicas, sociais e morais, a disponibilidade intersubjetiva ou a falta de vigor são centrais à criação da socialidade cotidiana entre os Panará. O papel dessas relações afetivas é, então, analisado com base na criação dos filhos e no cultivo de roças, processos que, em determinados aspectos, podem ser tidos como relacionados entre si. Em particular, demonstra-se que certas práticas pré e pós-natais têm correspondência com práticas que cercam o plantio, o cultivo e a colheita do amendoim.
Anthropology and Humanism, 2012
Glass beads in Amazonia are objects of value and desire. They "materialize" social relations thro... more Glass beads in Amazonia are objects of value and desire. They "materialize" social relations through processes of acquisition, transmission, and destruction. Although beads provide the "raw material" for the making of ceremonial adornments, they are also subjected to constant processes of unmaking and remaking. They are most visible precisely during these moments, when Panará women sit together stringing beads or making ornaments, often to undo them again once they have served their ritual purpose. These moments of visibility of both beads and persons are moments at which persons make themselves intersubjectively available to one another, and contrast with the withdrawal and concealment of people who are in a state of unavailability. Just as intersubjectivity is a process constantly to be generated, so glass beads, as desired objects, must also overcome the fixity of being "made into a thing" and, thereby, be continuously remade. In this article, I reflect on continuity and process and the way in which the fluidity of beadwork allows for the making and remaking of intersubjective relations. [Amazonia, Brazil, glass beads, materiality] In recent years, there has been a flurry of renewed interest in material objects in Amazonia, (e.g., Lagrou 2007; Santos-Granero 2009b). In part, this interest is being presented as a reaction to the overbearing sense that sociality in Amazonia is oriented around the axis of human-animal relations and that people, their enemies, their spirits, and their food in the form of game animals can summarily be articulated within a matrix of predator-prey relations (Fausto 2000; Lima 1996; Vilaça 2000; Viveiros de Castro 1996). The explanatory power of this model is considerable, but as Santos-Granero suggests, "objects figure as prominently, if not more prominently, than animals in native Amazonian cosmologies and imaginaries" (2009b:1). Therefore, it is on objects and their capacity to mediate and be involved in intersubjective relations that this article focuses. The value of "intersubjectivity" to Amazonian anthropology lies in its focus on process, placing emphasis on the continuous production of human persons through acts of daily living together, rather than taking persons as stable and given (id)entities, variously connected by social relations. The Panará term for the state of energy and active engagement with others, being "intersubjectively available" to others, is suakiin. Working together, smiling and chatting, out in the open and visible to all, is what being suakiin is about and it contrasts with suangka, which is a state of disengagement from bs_bs_banner
Revista de Antropologia, 2015
Em 2010, os Panará construíram uma nova aldeia, situada rio acima em relação à aldeia em que... more Em 2010, os Panará construíram uma nova aldeia, situada rio acima em relação à aldeia em que viviam desde 1997. Essa foi a primeira vez desde o começo dos anos 70 que eles ocuparam múltiplas aldeias. Neste artigo, faço uma reflexão sobre alguns dos pontos que levaram à construção da nova aldeia e sobre o uso do novo espaço. Em particular, retomo a ideia de “grupos de descendência espacial” e a noção de que clãs se identificam com locais específicos na aldeia circular. Usando relatos do fim do século XIX e começo do XX, bem como etnografias mais recentes, indago se as conexões entre espaço e identidade entre os grupos falante de línguas jê seriam, afinal, “coisas com as quais antropólogos se preocupam”.
Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute, 2010
As founder and former director of the Museo del Barrio in Asunción, Paraguay, Tigio Escobar is un... more As founder and former director of the Museo del Barrio in Asunción, Paraguay, Tigio Escobar is uniquely qualified to write The Curse of Nemur, which offers insights into the narrative myths and art of the Ishir, a small, indigenous culture living within Paraguay's Great Chaco plain. Working with this group since 1986, Escobar states that he wrote the book because he was "driven by the interest to understand a disquieting culture and to support their demands for land and freedom of worship" (p. 6). His goal was to find the culture's center as well as its inherent heterogeneity without falling into the traps of romanticized primitivism or positing Ishir culture as a model for or an example of a theoretical construct. There are no conclusions in this book, only creative possibilities.
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Papers by Elizabeth Ewart