... High, Casey (2008) End of the spear: Re-imagining Amazonian anthropology and history throug... more ... High, Casey (2008) End of the spear: Re-imagining Amazonian anthropology and history through film, in L. Chua, C. High and T. Lau (eds.), How do we know? Evidence, ethnography, and the making of anthropological knowledge ...
Since its inception, modern anthropology has stood at the confluence of two mutually constitutive... more Since its inception, modern anthropology has stood at the confluence of two mutually constitutive modes of knowledge production: participant-observation and theoretical analysis. This unique combination of practice and theory has been the subject of recurrent intellectual and methodological debate, raising questions that strike at the very heart of the discipline. How Do We Know? is a timely contribution to emerging debates that seek to understand this relationship through the theme of evidence. Incorporating a diverse selection of case studies ranging from the Tibetan emotion of shame to films of Caribbean musicians, it critically addresses such questions as: What constitutes viable "anthropological evidence"? How does evidence generated through small-scale, intensive periods of participant-observation challenge or engender abstract theoretical models? Are certain types of evidence inherently "better" than others? How have recent interdisciplinary collaborations...
Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object J. Mair, A. Kelly & C .High Sarax and the C... more Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object J. Mair, A. Kelly & C .High Sarax and the City: Almsgiving and Anonymous Objects in Dakar, Senegal G. Pfeil Discourses of the Coming: Ignorance, Forgetting, and Prolepsis in Japanese Life-Historiography S. Nozawa Evoking Ignorance: Abstraction and Anonymity in Social Networking's Ideals of Reciprocity D. Leitner Between Knowing and Being: Ignorance in Anthropology and Amazonian Shamanism C. High 'I Don't Know Why He Did It. It Happened by Itself': Causality and Suicide in Northwest Greenland J. Flora Inhabiting the Temporary: Patience and Uncertainty among Urban Squatters in Buenos Aires V. Procupez 'Fertility. Freedom. Finally.': Cultivating Hope in the Face of Uncertain Futures among Egg-Freezing Women T. Romain
Publisher Rights Statement: This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Boo... more Publisher Rights Statement: This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Books http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/DilleyRegimes. High, Casey. 2015. “Ignorant Bodies and the Dangers of Knowledge in Amazonia” In Regimes of Ignorance: Anthropological Perspectives on the Production and Reproduction of Non-Knowledge., eds. Roy Dilley and Thomas G. Kirsch. New York: Berghahn Books.”
In April 2019, Waorani people in Amazonian Ecuador won a key legal battle against plans to sell o... more In April 2019, Waorani people in Amazonian Ecuador won a key legal battle against plans to sell oil concessions on their indigenous territory. I analyze their engagements with oil as part of an emerging eco-political “middle ground” characterized by Waorani men working for oil companies and new alliances against oil extraction.Waorani activists lament not the violation of a pristine natural environment separate from themselves and in need of conservation, but instead threats to the qualities of Waorani land (wao öme) that allow people and other beings to “live well.” In the context of generational changes, their engagement in environmental politics involves translating and moving between different conceptions of indigenous land. While becoming environmental citizens evokes discourses of nature, culture, and stereotypes of Amazonian people as natural conservationists, current eco-political alliances are based as much on close working relationships with outsiders as symbolic politics....
This chapter examines the themes of shamanism and witchcraft in the context of Waorani–Quichua re... more This chapter examines the themes of shamanism and witchcraft in the context of Waorani–Quichua relations in Toñampari. Even as a growing number of kowori have come to live in Waorani villages, Quichua people continue to have a prominent place in local discussions of enmity and violence. This sense of alterity can be seen in Waorani ideas about shamanism, a practice that is associated closely with Quichuas. This chapter describes indigenous understandings of shamanism and the historical role of shamans in mediating intercultural relations in Amazonia. It considers how Quichuas have become the primary source of both shamanic curing and witchcraft accusations, a seemingly paradoxical situation that reflects indigenous understandings of shamanism and Waorani efforts to “live well” in contemporary villages in the aftermath of violence. The chapter shows that Waorani in Toñampari object to shamanism not because of a lack of belief in its efficacy but because shamanic power presents a thre...
This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of alterity and Waorani understandings of what it m... more This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of alterity and Waorani understandings of what it means to be “like the ancient ones” (durani bai). It analyzes the place of violence and memory in contemporary Waorani gender dynamics by elucidating the meanings of the expression durani bai by which young people describe their public warrior performances. Despite a strongly egalitarian ethos, the chapter shows that Waorani women and men experience the generational changes that have come with oil work, urban migration, and other social transformations in different ways. It explains how young men struggling to demonstrate the abilities for which male elders and ancestors are remembered embrace the Amazonian warrior of colonial imagination and violent imagery in popular cinema in expressing a form of masculinity they associate with durani bai. Rather than leading to pronounced gender antagonisms between women and men, these generational changes reflect Waorani understandings of gendered ag...
... High, Casey (2008) End of the spear: Re-imagining Amazonian anthropology and history throug... more ... High, Casey (2008) End of the spear: Re-imagining Amazonian anthropology and history through film, in L. Chua, C. High and T. Lau (eds.), How do we know? Evidence, ethnography, and the making of anthropological knowledge ...
Since its inception, modern anthropology has stood at the confluence of two mutually constitutive... more Since its inception, modern anthropology has stood at the confluence of two mutually constitutive modes of knowledge production: participant-observation and theoretical analysis. This unique combination of practice and theory has been the subject of recurrent intellectual and methodological debate, raising questions that strike at the very heart of the discipline. How Do We Know? is a timely contribution to emerging debates that seek to understand this relationship through the theme of evidence. Incorporating a diverse selection of case studies ranging from the Tibetan emotion of shame to films of Caribbean musicians, it critically addresses such questions as: What constitutes viable "anthropological evidence"? How does evidence generated through small-scale, intensive periods of participant-observation challenge or engender abstract theoretical models? Are certain types of evidence inherently "better" than others? How have recent interdisciplinary collaborations...
Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object J. Mair, A. Kelly & C .High Sarax and the C... more Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object J. Mair, A. Kelly & C .High Sarax and the City: Almsgiving and Anonymous Objects in Dakar, Senegal G. Pfeil Discourses of the Coming: Ignorance, Forgetting, and Prolepsis in Japanese Life-Historiography S. Nozawa Evoking Ignorance: Abstraction and Anonymity in Social Networking's Ideals of Reciprocity D. Leitner Between Knowing and Being: Ignorance in Anthropology and Amazonian Shamanism C. High 'I Don't Know Why He Did It. It Happened by Itself': Causality and Suicide in Northwest Greenland J. Flora Inhabiting the Temporary: Patience and Uncertainty among Urban Squatters in Buenos Aires V. Procupez 'Fertility. Freedom. Finally.': Cultivating Hope in the Face of Uncertain Futures among Egg-Freezing Women T. Romain
Publisher Rights Statement: This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Boo... more Publisher Rights Statement: This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Books http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/DilleyRegimes. High, Casey. 2015. “Ignorant Bodies and the Dangers of Knowledge in Amazonia” In Regimes of Ignorance: Anthropological Perspectives on the Production and Reproduction of Non-Knowledge., eds. Roy Dilley and Thomas G. Kirsch. New York: Berghahn Books.”
In April 2019, Waorani people in Amazonian Ecuador won a key legal battle against plans to sell o... more In April 2019, Waorani people in Amazonian Ecuador won a key legal battle against plans to sell oil concessions on their indigenous territory. I analyze their engagements with oil as part of an emerging eco-political “middle ground” characterized by Waorani men working for oil companies and new alliances against oil extraction.Waorani activists lament not the violation of a pristine natural environment separate from themselves and in need of conservation, but instead threats to the qualities of Waorani land (wao öme) that allow people and other beings to “live well.” In the context of generational changes, their engagement in environmental politics involves translating and moving between different conceptions of indigenous land. While becoming environmental citizens evokes discourses of nature, culture, and stereotypes of Amazonian people as natural conservationists, current eco-political alliances are based as much on close working relationships with outsiders as symbolic politics....
This chapter examines the themes of shamanism and witchcraft in the context of Waorani–Quichua re... more This chapter examines the themes of shamanism and witchcraft in the context of Waorani–Quichua relations in Toñampari. Even as a growing number of kowori have come to live in Waorani villages, Quichua people continue to have a prominent place in local discussions of enmity and violence. This sense of alterity can be seen in Waorani ideas about shamanism, a practice that is associated closely with Quichuas. This chapter describes indigenous understandings of shamanism and the historical role of shamans in mediating intercultural relations in Amazonia. It considers how Quichuas have become the primary source of both shamanic curing and witchcraft accusations, a seemingly paradoxical situation that reflects indigenous understandings of shamanism and Waorani efforts to “live well” in contemporary villages in the aftermath of violence. The chapter shows that Waorani in Toñampari object to shamanism not because of a lack of belief in its efficacy but because shamanic power presents a thre...
This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of alterity and Waorani understandings of what it m... more This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of alterity and Waorani understandings of what it means to be “like the ancient ones” (durani bai). It analyzes the place of violence and memory in contemporary Waorani gender dynamics by elucidating the meanings of the expression durani bai by which young people describe their public warrior performances. Despite a strongly egalitarian ethos, the chapter shows that Waorani women and men experience the generational changes that have come with oil work, urban migration, and other social transformations in different ways. It explains how young men struggling to demonstrate the abilities for which male elders and ancestors are remembered embrace the Amazonian warrior of colonial imagination and violent imagery in popular cinema in expressing a form of masculinity they associate with durani bai. Rather than leading to pronounced gender antagonisms between women and men, these generational changes reflect Waorani understandings of gendered ag...
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