1st Edition

The Anthropology of Love and Anger The Aesthetics of Conviviality in Native Amazonia

Edited By Joanna Overing, Alan Passes Copyright 2001
    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Anthropology of Love and Anger questions the very foundations of western sociological thought. In their examination of indigenous peoples from across the South American continent, the contributors to this volume have come to realise that western thought does not possess the vocabulary to define even the fundamentals of indigenous thought and practice. The dualisms of public and private, political and domestic, individual and collective, even male and female, in which western anthropology was founded cannot legitimately be applied to peoples whose 'sociality' is based on an 'aesthetics of community'.
    For indigenous people success is measured by the extent to which conviviality, (all that is peaceful, harmonious and sociable) has been attained. Yet conviviality is not just reliant on love and good but instead on an even balance between all that is constructive, love, and all that is destructive, anger.
    With case studies from across the South American region, ranging from the (so-called) fierce Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil to the Enxet of Paraguay, and with discussions on topics from the efficacy of laughter, the role of language, anger as a marker of love and even homesickness, The Anthropology of Love and Anger is a seminal, fascinating work which should be read by all students and academics in the post-colonial world.

    Introduction: Conviviality and the opening up of Amazonian anthropology 1. The first love of a young man: salt and sexual education among the Uitoto Indians of Lowland Columbia juan Alvaro Echeverri 2. Helpless: the affective preconditions of Piro social life Peter Gow 3. The efficacy of laughter: the Iudic side of magic within Amazonian sociality Joanna Overing 4. Compassion, anger and broken hearts: ontology and the role of language in the Miskitu lament Mark Jamieson 5. The value of working and speaking together: a facet of Pa'ikwene (Palikur) conviviality Alan Passes 6. Knowledge and the practice of love and hate among the Enxet of Paraguay Stephen Kidd 7. Anger as a marker of love: the ethic of conviviality among the Yanomami Catherine Ales 8. Homesickness and the Cashinahua self: a reflection of the embodied condition of relatedness Elsje Lagrou 9. 'Though it comes as evil, I embrace it as good': social sensibilities and the transformation of malignant agency among the Muinane Carlos David Londono-Sulkin 10. Pretty vacant: Columbus, conviviality, and New World faces Peter Mason 11. The convivial self and the fear of anger amongst the Airo-Pai of Amazonian Peru Luisa Elvira Belaunde 12. The delicacy of community: on kisagantsi in Matsigenka narrative discourse Dan Rosengren 13. A woman between two men and a man between two women: the production of jealousy and the predation of sociality amongst the Paresi Indians of Mato Grosso (Brazil) Marco Antonio Goncalves 14. 'The more we are together ' Peter Riviere 15. The Sisyphus syndrome, or the struggle for conviviality in native Amazonia Fernando Santos-Granero

    Biography

    Joanna Overing is Professor and Chair of the Social Anthropology Department, University of St. Andrews and Director for the Centre for indigenous American Studies at St. Andrews. Alan Passes is a novelist, screenwriter and anthropologist.