Reconfiguring Humanity in Amazonia: Christianity and Change

Vilaça, Aparecida

doi:10.1002/9781118605936.ch20

Cited by 16 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…People say, for instance, that so-and-so knows 'with his own heart', or 'she knows for herself', expressions that Vilaça never heard during her previous first 15 years of fieldworkor, that is, until around 2001. It is as if at the moment when humanity ceases to be a position constituted through the human action of differentiation from animals, humans become distinct; as if affinity as the site of alterity were insufficient to maintain the relational dynamic characteristic of the dividual person, leading people to be only themselves (see Vilaça 2011Vilaça , 2013Vilaça , 2015Vilaça , 2016.…”

Section: Christianity: the Narrowing Of Humanitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, when a Wari’ man hunts an animal, he is temporarily situated in the position of human, wari ’, while his karawa component is eclipsed. The opposite happens when the animal preys on a Wari’, who then assumes the karawa position (see Vilaça 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017).…”

Section: The Wari’mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These capacities include songs, myths, names and body adornments, explicitly conceived by many peoples as originally taken from enemies or other beings. What is understood as human agency refers to this capacity to capture and incorporate or tame these items of external origin as part of the process of constituting persons As we will see, the moment these figures of otherness cease to be part of social life, the sense of human agency becomes diluted, as if people lost some of their ability and will to live well (see Vilaça 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extreme normalcy: The place of violence in indigenous Amazonians’ well-being

Taylor,

Vilaça

2024

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

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While our own notions about well-being tend to foreground peaceful and amicable relations with fellow humans, for many Amazonian peoples the achievement of well-being, manifested in healthy, well-nourished and fertile bodies, requires engaging in harrowing, agonistic relations with others through warfare, shamanism, dreams and ritual practice. Drawing on the ethnography of two Lowland peoples – the Wari’ of Brazil and the Aents Chicham (Jivaro) of Ecuador and Peru, we will examine how a certain kind of person is constituted through ‘extreme’ relational experiences that, while dangerous, are considered necessary for leading a meaningful life. Further, we will discuss how the complex forms of subjectivity fostered by these experiences challenge our ideas on the presumed opacity of minds and on what psychology are about. Finally, we will show how the gradual disqualification of these extreme yet expected ways of interacting with others, following Cristianization and sustained contact with Western lifeways and forms of knowledge, leads to impoverished and monotonous lived worlds, in short to states of (ill)being antithetical to indigenous notions about proper ways of living.

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Section: Christianity: the Narrowing Of Humanitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Wari’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extreme normalcy: The place of violence in indigenous Amazonians’ well-being

Taylor,

Vilaça

2024

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

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“…Urapmin assume the oldest, most knowledgeable men never did reveal their most important secrets of this kind, and so the process of revelation does not fi gure as decisive in their accounts in the way material erasure does. Every cultural transformation involves a mixture of continuity and discontinuity, and like most anthropologists who study religious change, my focus in studying the conversion of the Wari' to Evangelical Christianity has been on examining in detail how these two aspects are constituted and interrelated (Vilaça 2009(Vilaça , 2011(Vilaça , 2013.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theorizing Religious Traditions from the Point of View of How They Disappear

Robbins¹

2014

The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology

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What does it mean for a new religion to arise or take hold among a group of people? What does it mean for a religious tradition to endure? Th ese are questions that are quite commonly addressed, at least implicitly, in the study of religion. Less frequently asked is the question of what it means for a religious tradition to come to an end. Th is article addresses this question, paying particular attention to the ways people actively dismantle a religious tradition that previously shaped their lives. I also consider what studying the process of religious disappearance can teach us about what it means for a tradition to arise and endure, arguing that a grasp on processes of religious dissolution is necessary for a fully rounded approach to the study of religious change. Th roughout the article, I illustrate my arguments with material from the study of Christianity, Judaism and indigenous religious traditions, particularly from Oceania.

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Reconfiguring Humanity in Amazonia: Christianity and Change

Cited by 16 publications

References 33 publications

Extreme normalcy: The place of violence in indigenous Amazonians’ well-being

Extreme normalcy: The place of violence in indigenous Amazonians’ well-being

Theorizing Religious Traditions from the Point of View of How They Disappear

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