Predatory Economies
eBook - ePub

Predatory Economies

The Sanema and the Socialist State in Contemporary Amazonia

  1. 248 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Predatory Economies

The Sanema and the Socialist State in Contemporary Amazonia

About this book

2024 Honorable Mention, Fernando Coronil Prize, Latin American Studies Association, Section on Venezuelan Studies

A study of the modes of predation used by and against the Sanema people of Venezuela.

Predation is central to the cosmology and lifeways of the Sanema-speaking Indigenous people of Venezuelan Amazonia, but it also marks their experience of modernity under the socialist "Bolivarian" regime and its immense oil wealth. Yet predation is not simply violence and plunder. For Sanema people, it means a great deal more: enticement, seduction, persuasion. It suggests an imminent threat but also opportunity and even sanctuary.

Amy Penfield spent two and a half years in the field, living with and learning from Sanema communities. She discovered that while predation is what we think it is—invading enemies, incursions by gold miners, and unscrupulous state interventions—Sanema are not merely prey. Predation, or appropriation without reciprocity, is essential to their own activities. They use predatory techniques of trickery in hunting and shamanism activities, while at the same time, they employ tactics of manipulation to obtain resources from neighbors and from the state. A richly detailed ethnography, Predatory Economies looks beyond well-worn tropes of activism and resistance to tell a new story of agency from an Indigenous perspective.

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Yes, you can access Predatory Economies by Amy Penfield in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Ciencias sociales & Antropología cultural y social. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Series Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Key Characters
  8. Introduction. Locating Predators and Prey
  9. Chapter 1. Predation, Then and Now
  10. Chapter 2. Extracting Good Things
  11. Chapter 3. Horizons of the Unknown
  12. Chapter 4. Subterranean Forces
  13. Chapter 5. Invoking the State
  14. Chapter 6. Forest Papers
  15. Epilogue. Predatory Economies in Amazonia and Beyond
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. Notes
  18. References
  19. Index