| Unit name | Greater Amazonia |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ARCHM0065 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Margiotti |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Anthropology and Archaeology |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This course introduces recent debates in the anthropological analysis of Tropical Lowland South American societies. The area examined centres on the Amazon basin and extends North to the Isthmus of Panama and South to the upper Paraguay. The course concentrates on new historical and socio-cosmological paradigms that have been employed to understand the distinctive features of indigenous societies in this area. Amongst the issues that are considered are 1) the spatial organization of settlements (the village layout, the house, and its spatial relation to cultivated gardens), 2) subsistence practices and ecologies, that is the technical and symbolic relations that indigenous people entertain with their lived environments, and 3) notions on the body and the embodiment of knowledge. In broader terms, the unit, while emphasizing the historical dimension of anthropological research and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, it also demonstrate the relevance of ethnography for attaining an understanding of indigenous perspectives on cultures and social realities.
Successful completion of the course would indicate that students have gained familiarity with the overall region, some of its people, histories and cultures. Students will gain the ability to question taken-for-granted ideas about Greater Amazonian people as “timeless” and opposed to “civilization”. They will also gain in-depth knowledge of some ethnographic studies and anthropological debates emerging from them and acquire the skills needed to relate ethnographic data to the wider process of theorizing by making indigenous categories “analytical”.
One 2hr lecture per week (=20hrs) & separate tutorial sessions
One 4,000 words essay (85%) One 1,000 book review (15%)
1) Descola, P. 1996. The Spears of Twilight. London: Flamingo 2) Fausto, C. and M. Heckenberger (eds), 2007. Time and Memory in Indigenous Amazonia: Anthropological Perspectives. Gainesville: University Press of Florida 3) Heckenberger, M. 2005. The Ecology of Power. Culture, Place and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, A.D. 1000-2000. New York and London: Routledge 4) Overing, J. and A. Passes (eds), 2000. The anthropology of love and anger. The Aesthetics of Conviviality in Native Amazonia, London: Routledge 5) Gow, P. 1991. Of Mixed Blood. Kinship and History in Peruvian Amazonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 6) Siskind, J., 1973. To Hunt in the Morning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
