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- Convenors:
-
Christopher Hewlett
(University of Sussex)
Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti (University of Sussex)
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- Track:
- Survival and Extinction
- Location:
- University Place 1.219
- Sessions:
- Friday 9 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the innovative articulations and redefinitions of power relations pertaining to changing notions of leadership and authority in the context of indigenous people's increasing engagement with extractive industries, governments and NGOs in Lowland South America.
Long Abstract:
It is clear that political forms of leadership in Lowland South America have long been over-generalized and are more diverse than ever imagined. In relating to the contemporary socio-political context, new forms of leadership and representation have developed, resulting in innovative articulations of power that challenge previous understandings of authority for the area.
This panel examines how different indigenous people are engaging with these articulations based on a series of questions concerning power and legitimacy in the realms of political representation, socio-political leadership, and everyday political activities. Does an emphasis on "traditional" leadership and "new" forms of representation diminish understandings of indigenous agency and historicity? How is the legal authority granted to indigenous leaders by governmental and non-governmental bodies negotiated with local understandings of power? Do new leadership institutions open up spaces for leaders with coercive authority? Are analytical emphases on political institutions leading to misrecognition regarding forms of everyday power and political action? How do new knowledge practices and inter-generational notions of leadership create grounds for competing and/or coexisting forms of leadership? How can extensive debates surrounding leadership, authority, and notions of power in the region be made relevant to the current changes in political organization and leadership institutions?
Taking these questions as a departure point, this panel invites papers that explore, from a variety of perspectives, how the politics and productive practices within local groups differ from and/or articulate with practices of political power relating to the state, NGOs, extractive industries, indigenous organizations, and everyday political activities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 9 August, 2013, -Victor Cova (University of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
Attempts by evangelical Shuar church leaders to become political leaders shed light on the paradoxical relationship between Shuar and Christian concepts of power and community
Paper long abstract:
This paper will explore the difficulties Shuar church leaders encounter when they try to become political leaders. For many Shuar in the Macuma region of Morona-Santiago, Ecuador, Christians represent an example of the good life and good christians are considered to be powerful people. However, it seems impossible to be both a church leader and a political leader, because christians are prohibited from participating in parties and are generally hostile to state- or NGO- sponsored development projects. This does not stop Shuar church leaders from also wanting to become political leaders, and political leaders to call upon church leaders in order to better the life of their community, not to mention the political leaders who used to be church leaders and long to return to their previous position.
I will look at the relationship between Shuar and Christian concepts and practices of power, individuality and community as it plays out in three generations of leadership, from before the separation of the political and church federations to present-day attempts at reuniting the two. In particular, I will follow the paths of different Shuar church leaders as they articulate their own history, that of their families and communities in relation to that of missionaries, as well as their political and economic theologies with their attempts to foster churches and communities.
Christopher Hewlett (University of Sussex)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how Amahuaca people in the Amazon negotiate forms of knowledge, productive capacities and institutionalized leadership based in shifting relations with the capitalist economy and Peruvian government. Discourses concerning power reveal a tension between a desire for strong leadership, and a fear of its potential abuse.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines how Amahuaca people in the Peruvian Amazon negotiate forms of knowledge, productive capacities and institutionalized leadership based in shifting relations with the capitalist economy and Peruvian government. Peruvian law requires indigenous people to establish a permanent community on a given plot of land with political representation defined by the election of a president. The president is granted extensive powers through the community charter, or "Acta", which is understood as stemming from relations with the government and loggers. Discourses concerning this power reveal a tension within the community between a desire to create a better social life expressed in terms of the need for strong leadership, and a fear of this same authority and its potential abuse. This tension is present in almost every domain of Amahuaca life, but takes on varying forms depending on the types of activities and relations involved. The power of the Acta is manifested in different ways during community meetings, work parties, soccer tournaments, and in community negotiations with outsiders such as loggers. The paper will discuss Amahuaca discourses and practices regarding how different relations of power are negotiated in the processes of community life.
Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti (University of Sussex)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses a recent articulation of power amongst Ashaninka people (Peruvian Amazonia) that has led to a shift from power being attributed to headmen, based on personal qualities or kinship relations, to an institutionalisation of power based on a communally drafted charter.
Paper long abstract:
The literature on leadership in indigenous Amazonia has long argued that the power of the headperson is set on the individual, most often through kinship links or personal qualities like warring prowess or shamanic knowledge. However, recent changes in the way indigenous groups in Peruvian Amazonia apply the Ley de Comunidades Nativas to everyday life seem to point to a transition of this power as carried by the individual to moving to the institution of Jefe as a representative of la Comunidad Nativa. However, this is not a strict adherence to Peruvian law but an innovative articulation put forth by comuneros to take advantage of the state-created political institution of the Comunidad in order to deal with a very complicated context.
Using Ashaninka groups of the Bajo Urubamba as a case study, I argue that the institutionalisation of power in the office of the Jefe, as opposed to the personal power sought in the pinkatsari ('he who is respected/feared for his personal qualities'), is a creative way to deal with today's context by allowing for a new more coercive manner of leadership. The power granted to today's Jefes is institutionalised in the Acta, the communal charter, rather than in the holder's personal qualities or social relations, showing that the importance placed on 'living well' in la Comunidad may, at times, be more important than the individual autonomy of its members.
Aleksandra Wierucka (University of Gdańsk)
Paper short abstract:
One of the effects of the influence of the modern world on the indigenous people can be the rearranging of the social structure. The Huaorani of the Ecuadorian Amazon utilize social structure used traditionally exclusively during the time of war in order to be able to act in the Western world.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines how indigenous people can reshape their old traditions in order to face the challenges of the modern world. Drawing on fieldwork with an Ecuadorian Huaorani clan it explores some of the reasons for the changes in leadership in this small-scale society. Traditionally, only during the killing raids or any other kind of wars, a leader was chosen. After the raid he renounced his powers, as in the egalitarian Huaorani culture nobody was expected to act as a leader during the time of peace. The argument of this paper is that the old type of leadership that was used only in times of war can now be applied in the time of peace in order to meet the contemporary needs of the tribe. Oil companies and government officials demand a leader to conduct negotiations or to settle agreements. The revival of the traditions that were abandoned fifty years ago enables the Huaorani to adapt to the demands of the modern world.