Believing in the Gift: a Case of Successful Relationships of Exchange in the Colombian Amazon

Since the late 70’s, the Colombian anthropologist Juan Alvaro Echeverri has logged more than five years in Uitoto and closely related communities in the Colombian Amazon. His relationships with individuals there have been long-lived and surprisingly successful, in contrast with the often-noted disappointment of many philanthropically oriented outsiders—NGO agents, anthropologists, missionaries, government personnel—who come to find ‘their Indians’ to be too materialistic and demanding, and of the Indians who cease to find these would-be philanthropists generous, desirable, or even interesting interlocutors. This essay, meant to be both an ethnographic and theoretical exposition on the forms and implications of substance exchange and an entertaining manifesto of admiration for an exemplary Amazonianist scholar, proves that the parties involved have achieved, and continue to achieve, practical, satisfying, and sustainable relationships, mostly through material gifts that index their mutual recognition as moral interlocutors

La circuncisión femenina, la antropología y el liberalismo

A new comer to the anthropology of African peoples and to the study of female genital cutting, the author reacts to the speeches and writings of American and Sierra Leonean scholar Fuambai Ahmadu on these matters. Inspired by her work, the author argues that many of the perceptions and much of the rhetoric of anti FGM (anti Female Genital Mutilation) movements are parochial, imperialistic, and illiberal, and suggests that anthropologists and others take counsel from anthropology’s age-old methodological prescription to attend carefully and over an extended period of time to the discourses and other practices of the people we study and to be reflexively critical about our own premises and beliefs, prior to adopting any purportedly liberal cause that seeks to eradicate any alien social practice.Este ensayo es una respuesta positiva del autor, un antropólogo con experiencia en otros temas, a una ponencia y varios escritos de la antropóloga sierraleonesa y estadinense del Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu sobre el tema de la circuncisión femenina en África. Persuadido por los argumentos de Ahmadu, el autor arguye que parte de las percepciones y de la retórica de los movimientos anti MGF (anti mutilación genital femenina) son parroquiales y no liberales y hace un llamado para que antropólogos, y otros, acepten la prescripción metodológica de nuestra disciplina de prestar atención cuidadosa y a lo largo de un buen período de tiempo, a lo que la gente sobre quien escribimos dice y hace. Además, de ser críticos con nuestras propias premisas y creencias, antes de adoptar cualquier causa supuestamente liberal que busque erradicar o establecer esta o aquella práctica social

La circuncisión femenina, la antropología, y el liberalismo

Este ensayo es una respuesta positiva del autor, un antropólogo con experiencia en otros temas, a una ponencia y varios escritos de la antropóloga sierraleonesa y estadinense del Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu sobre el tema de la circuncisión femenina en África. Persuadido por los argumentos de Ahmadu, el autor arguye que parte de las percepciones y de la retórica de los movimientos anti MGF (anti mutilación genital femenina) son parroquiales y no liberales y hace un llamado para que antropólogos, y otros, acepten la prescripción metodológica de nuestra disciplina de prestar atención cuidadosa y a lo largo de un buen período de tiempo, a lo que la gente sobre quien escribimos dice y hace. Además, de ser críticos con nuestras propias premisas y creencias, antes de adoptar cualquier causa supuestamente liberal que busque erradicar o establecer esta o aquella práctica social

Les Peuples Indigènes pris dans la crise politique au Brésil

Agribusiness has unprecedented leverage over highly unpopular Brazilian president Michel Temer, who is faced with several corruption charges and is struggling for political survival. In a little over one year, the agribusiness lobby and its allies have managed to erode thirty years of human rights and conservation laws. Indigenous peoples and their territorial rights are among the main targets of such policies, and there is no resolution to the situation in sight. With the insight of several scholars, the following forum assesses the consequences of losing the protection the Citizens’ Constitution of 1988 once afforded indigenous peoples in Brazil72403426L’agribusiness a une influence inédite sur le très impopulaire président brésilien Michel Temer, qui a fait face à plusieurs accusations de corruption et se bat pour sa survie politique. En un peu plus d’un an, le lobby de l’agribusiness et ses alliés sont parvenus à éroder trente ans de lois sur les droits de l’homme et la conservation. Les peuples indigènes et leurs droits territoriaux font partie des cibles de telles politiques, et il ne semble pas qu’une résolution soit en vue. Offrant le point de vue de plusieurs chercheurs, ce forum évalue les conséquences de la perte de la protection que la Constitution des Citoyens de 1988 a pu offrir dans le passé aux peuples indigènes du Brési

Indigenous peoples boxed in by Brazil’s political crisis

Agribusiness has unprecedented leverage over highly unpopular Brazilian president Michel Temer, who is faced with several corruption charges and is struggling for political survival. In a little over one year, the agribusiness lobby and its allies have managed to erode thirty years of human rights and conservation laws. Indigenous peoples and their territorial rights are among the main targets of such policies, and there is no resolution to the situation in sight. With the insight of several scholars, the following forum assesses the consequences of losing the protection the Citizens’ Constitution of 1988 once afforded indigenous peoples in Brazil